Five Standout Males In Massachusetts Girls’ Sports In Recent Years

Printed from: https://newbostonpost.com/2023/05/26/five-standout-males-in-massachusetts-girls-sports-in-recent-years/

Biological males performing well in girls’ sports has been a contentious issue in national politics in recent years.

Does it happen in Massachusetts? 

Yes. There have been several examples of it in Massachusetts high school sports in recent years.

The state allows males to play on girls’ sports teams in two instances.

One is when the school does not offer a direct equivalent sport for boys. This most often happens in field hockey and volleyball. The state allows it due to the 1979 Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court case Attorney General v. Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association. In it, the court ruled that the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association’s policy of the time that stated “No boy may play on a girls’ team” was unlawful because in the court’s view it violated the Equal Rights Amendment of the Massachusetts Constitution.

The Equal Rights Amendment of the Massachusetts Constitution states:

 

All people are born free and equal and have certain natural, essential and unalienable rights; among which may be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties; that of acquiring, possessing and protecting property; in fine, that of seeking and obtaining their safety and happiness. Equality under the law shall not be denied or abridged because of sex, race, color, creed or national origin.

 

The Equal Rights Amendment was relatively new at the time. It passed at the ballot in the November 1976 general election with 60.4 percent supporting and 39.6 percent opposing, according to the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s office. Every single county voted in favor of the proposed amendment.

Additionally, biologically male athletes who identify as girls can compete in girls’ sports in the Commonwealth. The state allows it due to a 2011 law called “An Act Relative to Gender Identity”; it made gender identity a protected class in Massachusetts public schools. As a result, the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education directed the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association to allow people to compete on teams that match their gender identity, rather than their sex.

That said, here are five male athletes who have stood out in Massachusetts high school sports during the past five years.

 

1.  Lucas Crook

Crook, who graduated from Somerset Berkley Regional High School in 2020, was an elite field hockey player.

Crook helped Somerset Berkley win back-to-back Division 1 state championships in 2018 and 2019; he scored the game-winning goal in overtime in his team’s 2-1 state championship win over Nashoba in 2018. In 2019, he had 55 goals and 33 assists. In his high school career, he scored 142 goals and 122 assists, making him the leading scorer in school history.

Additionally, he was named South Coast Conference MVP as a senior — and he was named to The Boston Globe All-Scholastic team.

Crook was a three-sport athlete in high school. He also played boys’ basketball and baseball. 

 

2.  Alex Millar

Millar also graduated from Somerset Berkley in 2020. Like Crook, he was a three-sport athlete who excelled in field hockey.

A defenseman, Millar helped Somerset Berkley win back-to-back state championships as a junior and a senior. However, he was also a major offensive contributor. He ranked third on the team in scoring as a senior, with 26 goals and 16 assists.

Last September, The Herald News, a Fall River-based daily newspaper that covers the South Coast region of Massachusetts, ranked Millar among the 10 best field hockey players of all-time from the paper’s coverage area; Crook also made the cut.

Like Crook, he also played boys’ basketball and baseball.

 

3.  Omar Marshall

Marshall is a three-sport athlete at Everett High School. He has played baseball, run indoor track and field for the boys’ team, and played field hockey — and he has done well in all of these sports.

Marshall was named the Greater Boston League’s Most Valuable Player for field hockey last fall; in field hockey, the Greater Boston League has only three teams. The other two are Malden and Revere.

While the forward’s entire stats are not readily available, he scored three goals in a game on October 14, 2022 against Greater Lowell Tech; Everett won that one 7-0.

Marshall has also shined outside of field hockey. He was a GBL All-Star in baseball as a junior last year. And in indoor track, he served as a captain the past winter and helped Everett win the four-by-200 relay (1:35.67) at the Greater Boston League championship meet in February. 

 

4.  Kevin Ginnetty 

When Ginnetty was a junior, Carver High School did not have a varsity boys’ soccer team.

Therefore, Ginnetty, who was a South Shore League All-Star as a sophomore in 2020, chose to compete on the girls’ team in 2021, as NewBostonPost previously reported.

The 6-foot-3 defenseman helped Carver reach the Division 5 state semifinal game.

Ginnetty did not compete for the girls’ team as a senior during the fall 2022 season.

A two-sport athlete, Ginnetty also excelled on the boys’ basketball team.

For example, he hit six three-pointers against East Bridgewater on February 21, 2023, as Carver won 67-43. Carver went 13-7 during the regular season and made it to the playoffs.

 

5.  Chloe Barnes

Barnes, a junior at Brookline High School, is a male who identifies as transgender and competes on the girls’ cross-country and track and field teams, as TB Daily News first reported in January.

Barnes helped Brookline High capture the Division 1 state championship for indoor track in February, as NewBostonPost previously reported.

Brookline earned 63 points at the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association Division 1 state championship meet for the winter 2022-2023 season on February 17, outperforming teams like Newton North (51 points) and Wachusett (43 points).

Barnes competed in the 55-meter hurdles and came in fourth place (8.72 seconds), earning five points for Brookline in the championship meet. Barnes finished 0.24 seconds behind the winner of the race:  Sarah Dumas, a junior at Franklin High School (8.48 seconds).

Although The Boston Globe and The Boston Herald reported on Brookline’s winning the Division 1 state championship meet, their stories to date have not mentioned Barnes’s status a male who identifies as a girl.

 

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