A 6th grade girls team from Kentucky was set to go for the year-end championship tournament, but was told they were banned due to fears boys teams might ‘retaliate’ if they lost to the girls team.

  • BreakDecks@lemmy.ml
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    8 months ago

    “…what we have worried about is a boys team is losing to a girls team (especially in a year end tourney) they may get frustrated and retaliate against a girl,” a text allegedly sent by the tournament directors reads.

    “Throughout the season we had a few teams come to us about this and raise concerns about it. Because of this we decided to keep them out of the tournament,” another text reads.

    Oh, so the teams were threatening to commit violence against the girls. Why not just kick those teams out?

    • pachrist@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      I don’t want to be an old man, but if you hit a girl when I was in 6th grade, you were an instant social pariah. Everyone would beat your ass.

      Kicking them out doesn’t solve the problem. They’d just blame the girls instead of being introspective. Let one of these loser little boys throw hands and learn really fucking fast that the meanest, hardest hitting monster on this planet is a pissed off 12 year old girl. When he’s getting his hair ripped out a fistful at a time, he’ll understand why he lost.

      • JoBo@feddit.uk
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        8 months ago

        but if you hit a girl when I was in 6th grade, you were an instant social pariah. Everyone would beat your ass.

        And this is why male violence against women is non-existent, children.

        There is a whole world out there to pay attention to and you’ve taken the performative utterances of tweenage boys desperately trying to become men as evidence to deny everything else. WTF?

        FWIW, the ones who were shouting the loudest are absolutely the most likely to be dominating, coercing, and hitting their female partners now. They’re performing masculinity because they don’t know what it is and that terrifies them.

        And because the world is dominated by these frightened little boys, we punish girls and women for the violence of men. This story is not an outlier, it is the fucking story.

      • DrPop@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Yeah a lot of boys forget that girls don’t fight “fair”. Due to societal pressures on women to surpress heir emotions, when it comes time to fight that’s it. Boys are taught by society fighting is normal and even is encouraged in how they play.

        • nednobbins@lemm.ee
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          8 months ago

          6th graders generally don’t fight fair. They don’t generally fight well at all.

          The typical fight between 6th grade boys is every bit as much of a slap fest as the typical fight between 6th grade girls.

          6th grade boys haven’t hit puberty yet. Given that these girls are kicking their butts at basket ball I’ll assume they slap harder than the boys do.

          • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
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            8 months ago

            They’re probably taller than the boys, too which plays into them beating them at basketball since height is such a big advantage and girls tend to hit their growth spurts earlier.

  • Cosmic Cleric@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Regardless of the prejudice angle in this story, I feel bad for the girls for being excluded from possibly winning the championship, especially when they were performing well.

      • Ashen44@lemmy.ca
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        8 months ago

        Don’t worry about it, some people just throw downvotes around everywhere. You could make the least divisive post possible that everyone universally could agree is correct and still get a downvote, so it’s best to just ignore it. This is especially true on news communities, infamously the preferred hunting grounds of many a troll.

        • Cosmic Cleric@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          Thanks for replying. I’m honestly not worried about it, just really curious. I like to know if there’s something missing in my perception of the comment I made, basically.

  • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    That’s 11 years old.

    Okay let’s hear all the excuses for 11 year olds needing to be super competitive and separated by gender.

      • calcopiritus@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Then they should make 2 leagues: one where everyone is allowed to participate, and another one where only boys can participate, so they can win too. Just like we have with every sport’s women’s league.

        Of course the prizes in the boys-only league should be lower since they play in a less competitive league.

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          Of course the prizes in the boys-only league should be lower since they play in a less competitive league.

          Sadly, the way these things tend to work is that a handful of patriarchs make all the rules, from who gets to play to what goes in the prize pool.

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Which we care about… Why? Is there some million dollar prize for 11 year old basketball I’m not aware of?

  • inclementimmigrant@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Nice.

    So it basically boils down to this.

    We as Kentuckians realized we failed as parents at a state wide level therefore we will continue to be shit parents and ban the girls for having better parents to appease the shitty parents and their shittily raised boys so they don’t get a bruised ego for failing as parents and humans.

    Again, very nice.

  • merthyr1831@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    This is how most sex segregated sports came about

    1. women beats men
    2. women banned
    3. segregated division created because of “biological differences”
    • Balinares@pawb.social
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      8 months ago

      I wonder why people are downvoting your comment. It’s literally what happened. See for instance this paper on the history of gender segregation in the Olympics: https://theworld.org/stories/2016-08-17/see-120-years-struggle-gender-equality-olympics.

      Quote: “Margaret Murdock from the US won a silver in a tie in the 1976 Riffle Event, one of the events in the shooting categories. The rifle event was split into men’s and women’s events in 1984.”

      • theherk@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        I suspect because this being what has happened in “most sex segregated sports” is a very very bold assertion. In which of those sports are women holding top positions? I mean women athletes are awesome, but the idea that separation happens because the poor men can’t keep up is just… I don’t know, maybe I’m a confused old man.

        But I thought it was so that women could compete at the top levels of their sport in sports where their times, weights, etc. are not really proximal. They should of course be combined where the physical implications are negligible, but the idea that what’s preventing that is that the men just can’t compete with the women seems strange to me.

        But is there some support for that?

      • Th3D3k0y@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Sports without contact mechanics I’ve always wondered why the split. Like men’s and women’s chess… what?

        But men’s and women’s football? That kind of makes sense, not saying women’s should be banned from the men’s leagues, but let them make that choice themselves

        • HelixDab2@lemm.ee
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          8 months ago

          Sports without contact mechanics I’ve always wondered why the split

          Look at world records for any sport that requires raw strength/power, speed, and endurance. The split is pretty extreme. The marathon world record is 2:00:35, set in 2023. The women’s world record is 2:17:42, 13% slower. For the 100m, the top time is 9.58s for men. Over 180 men have broken the 10 second barrier. The top woman is 10.49; no woman has ever broken the 10 second barrier. Given that power lifting is harder to do direct comparisons (…in a way that readily makes sense to people that aren’t competitive power lifters…), I’ll just note that it’s not even close.

          Any sport that has a significant speed, endurance, or strength component is going to tend to be dominated by men. When it’s purely a skill issue, the splits are much more even. When you look at archery, for instance, women sometimes beat men; the split is fairly even.

          In a lot of ways, it makes sense to have a hard gender split in sports, and not try to make a solid delineation between what sports require enough skill to overcome a physical gap versus which ones don’t.

        • OrgunDonor@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          I think it is a bit more difficult than that. I have really enjoywd watching downhill bike racing in the past, and both the men’s and women’s races are incredible.

          If you don’t know, It is a single rider time trial down incredibly technical courses on a mountain bike.

          Unfortunately I don’t think it would be good to mix men and women, because the men are faster. This year’s world champs race had the men finishing 30s faster, the fastest woman would have been 66th. Results

          I would love to see more mixed competitions in the elite level of sports where it makes sense.

          • kofe@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            I often think of the Olympic skier that was interviewed by NPR a few years ago. She described how the boys around her were encouraged to do riskier jumps, whereas when she’d bring it up coaches, parents etc would all express concern about “what if you get hurt?”

            There are a lot of social factors I think we should consider before writing women off as inherently lesser in competitive sports. We don’t know how many women are held back by these narratives if they aren’t even given the chance. Even if it’s the case now, I really wonder how much is purely biological

      • harderian729@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        She got a silver and 8 years later it was split into men and women’s events?

        She didn’t even win…

        It’s sad the mental gymnastics and revisionist history you all perpetuate to support your biased agenda.

        Just another reason why the vast majority of people on these forums are not worth taking seriously.

          • harderian729@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            Why would I stop participating because ya’ll are a bunch of dunces?

            That’s how you win and shut me out of the conversation, lol. Which is exactly what you’re trying to do.

            • SphereofWreckening@ttrpg.network
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              8 months ago

              That’s how you win and shut me out of the conversation, lol. Which is exactly what you’re trying to do.

              People tend to do that to ya when you’re personality is centered around being wrong and obnoxious.

    • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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      8 months ago

      Retaliating against your opponents for beating you in a game isn’t normal, but on Patriarchy it is.

      Patriarchy, not even once.

      • Pips@lemmy.sdf.org
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        8 months ago

        Here’s the quotes:

        SWOB President Tom Sunderman expressed concern in a statement:

        “Doing this for 28 years, what we have worried about is a boys team losing to a girls team (especially in the year end tourney), they may get frustrated and retaliate against a girl.” "Then we have liability issues.” Prez, a social media user on X (Formerly Twitter), didn’t buy it.

        “What he meant to say was they can’t have their boys being emasculated by a better girls team… it would be a blow to their developing manhood to get beat by girls.”

        What context am I missing?

  • morriscox@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Sunderman should have kicked them out for lying, not out of “concern” for the potential behavior of boys. As soon as he made that claim he went into the wrong. If the boys can’t behave properly then kick them out. It’s like how a gal shouldn’t have to worry about being raped because of what she is or isn’t wearing or doing or not doing. We’re telling females what to do or not to do and not males what to do or not do.

  • theneverfox@pawb.social
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    8 months ago

    My favorite sport to watch is girls volleyball…I don’t like to watch sports in general

    Most people treat me like a creep when I bring it up, but it’s way more dynamic and interesting than men’s volleyball. I used to scorekeep the sport, women’s volleyball is just more entertaining

    IDGAF about basketball to start with, but if the boys can’t compete we should throw them by the wayside. I don’t get why this is even a question

    • Trae@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      If people’s first thought about women’s volleyball is that it’s purely a sport for Voyeurism, then that’s their bag to unpack on their own time. I watch Women’s Gymnastics and Figure Skating since my wife got me into it and I won’t entertain that shit with my friends. If I wanted to watch something just because there’s hot people in it, then I’ll just watch some regular ass porn.

      I definitely won’t shy away from the fact that there are incredibly attractive women participating at an elite level in these sports, but I’m all about equal opportunity and will also absolutely recognize some hot bros doing gymnastics and figure skating. Usually shuts people up when I start talking about how hot football players are on the team they like to rattle on about forever.

  • Katana314@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    I sort of realize that if I was on a team of guys and learned that we were going to face a team of girls, it’d be a lose-lose scenario. Either we beat up a bunch of girls trying their best, and “celebrate” over defeating a group that has (on average) physical strength disadvantages, OR we’re mocked for losing to girls.

    The premise of most athletic competitions would be that it’s a fight on generally equal footing. Either way that becomes imbalanced, it can perhaps ruin the feeling. Still sucks that the girls didn’t get to demonstrate themselves there.

  • Steve@communick.news
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    8 months ago

    That’s not why they were kicked out. The coach lied, to get them playing in the boys league, since they were so good.
    So of course they got kicked out. What you expect the league to do?

    He explained:
    “In November of 2023, Next Level and Larry McGraw deceptively registered a girls team into the 6th grade boys league and under the gender listed as MALE.”
    “We entered them into the league assuming they were a boys’ team as conveniently no roster was ever provided.”
    “Subsequently, their first game was filled in by a boys 6th grade Next Level team because they played the 6th grade boys Cincinnati Royals team - coached by myself, so there was no reason to suspect anything different.”

    He continued:
    “It wasn’t until late January/early February that several teams from the 6th-grade division started traveling down to Kentucky to play their scheduled games, that it became apparent that the Next Level team was, in fact, a girls team.”
    “Several complaints from coaches and teams were filed because of this deception.”

    Social media users, however, saw SWOB’s statement as deflecting from another issue, one that accused the league of trying to keep their feelings from getting hurt in the event the boys were defeated by girls.

    • asteriskeverything@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      that is some selective bullshit

      Seriously. What this tells me is that 70+ people either didn’t read the article or they just really have a thing about mixed gender sports. You quoted only the pathetic backpedalling lies he said to try to further justify his actions. BUT FIRST AND FOREMOST he said this (the man you are quoting, Sunderland, is the president)

      The city-wide basketball league, Southwestern Ohio Basketball (SWOB), made the call because they believed that 11 to 12-year-old girls and boys competing against each other on the court could pose a liability risk leading to violence, even though the girls team had been winning 7-1 all season without incident.

      IT IS WHY THEY WERE KICKED OUT.

      It wasn’t until late January/early February that several teams from the 6th-grade division started traveling down to Kentucky to play their scheduled games, that it became apparent that the Next Level team was, in fact, a girls team.

      You’re telling me it took multiple games AND teams for them to become "apparent that it was a girls team " ??? And become a problem. But only until they got far enough because maybe they wouldn’t and then SWOB could avoid PR problem all together.

      this is a reminder to read the fucking article people

      You might come up with a similar conclusion as me, or completely opposite. But OP is patently false and deceptive with their quote and definitive ruling on it, claiming the headline is deceptive! Fuck that.

    • RunawayFixer@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      So if I understand it correctly, it’s a boys only competition, not an open competition. And since these girls were so good, they wanted to be able to compete against the top teams, so they pulled of a superb ruse to be able to do just that, in the process upsetting some men who don’t want to compete against girls for reasons, especially if they end up losing. That’s going to make a good sport movie one day.

      Many (most?) sports have a top “open” competition that anyone can enter and then several restricted competitions (age, sex, handicaps, …), but even if you qualify for one of the restricted competitions, if you’re good enough, you can still play in the open competition. Except in bible belt country apparently, no girls allowed in the top competition.

      • prime_number_314159@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        These are 6th graders. There’s no “top” competition for 6th graders at all, which is why this is a region specific league, and most of the sports are divided into boys and girls divisions at those ages.

        • RunawayFixer@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          Why is it divided by sex?

          I can only speak about my nation’s club football (the world kind, not the us one): the normal competition is open to anyone, with smaller competitions for other groups. Those smaller competitions have discriminatory rules for entry, but players that meet those criteria, can still chose to play in the normal competition if they want to. The “normal” competition has many more brackets than the smaller competitions because there’s just way more players, which also means that if you want to play vs the best, that’s where they are. It’s the same principle for all ages.

          I can imagine that at one point the football competition in my country had similar “no girls allowed” rules, but when I grew up in the nineties, the football competition that I played in was already mixed.