Boys Help Propel Milton Girls’ Swimming To Success This Season

Printed from: https://newbostonpost.com/2024/10/12/boys-on-girls-swim-team-massachusetts/

Boys are making significant contributions to the Milton High girls’ swimming and diving team this season.

The Milton Wildcats are 6-1 thus far, as the team receives key contributions from many boys and girls alike.

The team had nine boys and 12 girls out of 21 athletes listed on a roster obtained by NewBostonPost via a public records request. Many of those boys are the team’s fastest swimmers — or even the fastest swimmers in school history.

For example, junior Ryan Kelly holds the school record in the 200-yard freestyle (1:52.68), while senior Jackson Wagner has the school records for 50-yard freestyle (22.55 seconds), 100-yard freestyle (48.06 seconds), and 100-yard backstroke (55.11 seconds).

In addition, Wagner, Kelly, junior Colby Moskos, and senior Malachi Buchanan hold the school records in the  200-yard individual medley (1:46.28) and the 400-yard freestyle (3:26.93), according to the team’s Instagram account. Although he’s not a record-holder in the event, Moskos is also skilled in the 100-yard breaststroke; he took third place (1:09.82) on the boys’ side in the event at the 2023 Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association Fall South Sectional championship, which would have been good for a second-place finish on the girls’ side at the meet.

Boys’ swimming is also a Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association sport. However, Milton lacks a boys’ swimming team, so boys can participate on its girls’ swim team. In swimming, boys’ contributions count towards a girls’ team’s regular season success, but the MIAA has separated postseason tournaments for boys’ and girls’ swimming competitors since 2012. The change came after a boy from Norwood High, Will Higgins, set the South Sectional Finals record in the 50-yard freestyle event in 2011. He was ruled academically ineligible when report cards came out in early November, so he did not compete against the girls in the state championship meet, according to The New York Times.

Milton is one of four Bay State Conference schools where boys compete on girls’ swim teams, alongside Weymouth, Braintree, and Walpole. 

Massachusetts is the one state in the union where boys who identify as boys can play on girls’ sports teams. It happens every year and boys often make significant contributions to their respective teams.

The Commonwealth allows boys on girls’ teams as a result of the 1979 Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decision Attorney General v. Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association. In its decision, the court declared that the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association’s policy of the time that stated “No boy may play on a girls’ team” was unlawful. In the court’s opinion, 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 just three years old when the court made the decision. The state constitutional amendment passed at the ballot box in the November 1976 general election; 60.4 percent of voters supported it and 39.6 percent opposed it, according to the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s office. Every one of the 14 counties in Massachusetts voted in favor of the proposed amendment.

Girls’ swimming is one of many sports where boys can and do compete on girls’ teams in Massachusetts. Others where it regularly happens include field hockey, girls’ gymnastics, and girls’ volleyball

 

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