One girl’s high school basketball team from Vermont elected to withdraw from a playoff tournament for the state this past Tuesday because it openly refused to play against one team who sported a roster that included biological males.
A report from Valley News indicated that the No. 12 seed Mid Vermont Christian School female basketball team chose to forfeit their scheduled game against No. 5 seed Long Trail because the team did not think it was fair to play a game against a transgender athlete.
“We believe playing against an opponent with a biological male jeopardizes the fairness of the game and the safety of our players,” Vicky Fogg, the head of school for MVCS, in a release. “Allowing biological males to participate in women’s sports sets a bad precedent for the future of women’s sports in general.”
As the assistant executive director for the Vermont Principals’ Association, Lauren Thomas spoke out to confirm to the local news outlet that the school had pulled entirely out of the tournament.
“I have received calls (from schools) asking for best practices and how to go forward knowing they were going to play a team with a transgender female on it,” stated Thomas. “We just supported our stance and our best practices through our inclusivity statement.”
The school first started back in September 1987 by announcing its mission to “glorify God by preparing students for college and for life through a program of academic excellence established in Biblical truth.”
The school stated that despite the fact that the school is fairly small, its “sports teams have excelled wonderfully in the region with many winning seasons” and that it “continues to provide an academic program that significantly outperforms its public school counterparts in the state (based on SAT testing).”