Boys playing on girl sport teams

[dead0man]

Should they be able to?  If a school doesn't have a boys swimming team, should a boy be allowed to swim on the girls team?  Or Field Hockey?  Girls are allowed to play football, wrestling, etc with the boys.

I'm torn.  On one hand, what's good for the goose is good for the gander, on the other hand, there are a lot of double standards...some go one way, some go the other.  A 17 year old boy who is a good natural athlete on a girls field hockey team could dominate to the point of silliness.

field hockey story where the boy does not get to play

a boy swimming with girls, causing headaches

[Deus Naturae]

Girls are allowed to play football, wrestling, etc with the boys.

They are? In high school?

[dead0man]

Girls are allowed to play football, wrestling, etc with the boys.

They are? In high school?

Oh yeah.  A high school near mine had a girl kicker in the early 90s.  Here is a list at wiki of girl HS and college football players.  Article about girls wrestling.

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[bedstuy]

You should be allowed to play on the opposite gender team if there are no alternative teams of your same gender and your gender does not afford you an unfair advantage.  You also ought to factor in whether it's a more competitive or recreational team.  If it's more recreational, it's just about what is the most fun for everyone.   

I think that's fair though.  Men just have physical advantages from having more lean muscle mass, height, weight and various other things.  All things being equal, a 6 foot tall basketball player is better than a 5'5" basketball player and a 200 lbs basketball player is better than a 150 lbs basketball player.  That difference is probably lessened in non-contact sports and those less dependent on strength. 

[Antonio the Sixth]

Yes for both boys and girls.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

No (normal)

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

Only if they aren't cis.

[ingemann]

Lean no, but mostly I don't care.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Most high school sports should divide by weight instead of gender.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

Most high school sports should divide by weight instead of gender.

While I don't agree, certain sports, such as football, would be very heavily male dominated, and those males, in turn, would be too big to play on a girls team.  

Plus, do we really want to say - "Hey Suzie, you're a fat, so you can play football with the guys!"?

Separating kids by weight would do more harm to their psyche than good.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Yes for both boys and girls.

[Grumpier Than Thou]

Anyone should be able to play any sport, regardless of their gender. Skill is what should matter. (normal)

[DemPGH]

I really lean no. In football there have been female kickers on rare occasion, but I wouldn't support it beyond that. Basketball would be another sport where a good male on a female team would flat take over the game. I might support co-ed sports like this in exceptional instances, but not as policy.

One of the things that schools do is that if there are not enough people in one school for a team, they'll get together with kids in surrounding schools to have a combined program. That's the way to go.

[Cassius]

In some cases this could work, but this is a really, really bad idea regarding sports that involve contact. I mean, a really bad idea. Speaking from experience, allowing girls to play a sport like rugby (which usually moves over to full contact at about the ages of 9-11) alongside boys is liable to open up a whole can of worms.

[dead0man]

Most high school sports should divide by weight instead of gender.

While I don't agree, certain sports, such as football, would be very heavily male dominated, and those males, in turn, would be too big to play on a girls team.  

Plus, do we really want to say - "Hey Suzie, you're a fat, so you can play football with the guys!"?

Separating kids by weight would do more harm to their psyche than good.

Agreed.  It might work for certain sports and at younger ages, but by HS, there is no way it would work well with any of the team sports as "big" girls (not even fat girls) wouldn't be able to play most sports at all and even in the lower weight division sports would be dominated by dudes.  Really, the only people this would benefit would be small guys that are good at basketball.

Sport that is more skill than physical (golf I guess mainly) probably shouldn't be separated at all.

The big problem is Title IX.  And I'm not saying we should get rid of it, but it's killed "lesser" male sports all over the country.  Volleyball, swimming, field hockey a lot of these were removed for guys, but kept for girls and it's not really fair to the fellas that want to play those sports, but it's not fair to the girls if we let the boys play with them.  In the swimming story from my OP there was a girls record held by one girl for over 20 years, first time a guy swam it he broke it by more than a second and the old record holder isn't happy about it.