OAN’s Brooke Mallory
5:55 PM – Tuesday, February 20, 2024
After competing against a 6-foot male opponent on the other team who identified as a female, three female high school basketball players suffered serious injuries. The basketball team was then forced to forfeit the game.
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Four days before a playoff game, coach Kevin Ortins of the Collegiate Charter School of Lowell, Massachusetts, decided to cancel their game before halftime, since his roster was beginning to thin out and his starting players were in no position to get back on the court.
As a result, the school forfeited their game against the KIPP Academy.
According to Fox News and The Daily Item, a local Massachusetts publication, the KIPP Academy girls team featured a male player standing at 6-feet tall who was seen sporting facial hair and a small ponytail.
A video of the basketball game, which purportedly showed the KIPP player in question struggling for the basketball against a Collegiate player, was uploaded to YouTube by an account called “InsideLowell.”
In the video, the other player is shown falling to the ground in agony, clutching her back, and struggling to stand back up.
Riley Gaines, a 2021 Olympic trials qualifier and competitive swimmer who competed for the University of Kentucky’s NCAA swim team, chimed in with her own comments on X (Twitter) regarding the recent incident.
Gaines is known on social media platforms for calling out biological males with gender dysphoria who identify as female and choose to athletically compete against biological females even though they have a clear advantage, backed by science.
Gaines takes no issue with criticizing various establishments, institutions, and the transgender community for their demonstrated indifference and disregard toward biological female athletes whose scholarship chances and overall enjoyment are being snatched away by men. Many of the gender-confused athletes who Gaines has condemned previously had even at one point competed with their own biological sex, even though they fell short of any victories or success.
The Daily Item reported that KIPP’s Friday game versus Lynn Tech was canceled due to death threats made to the gender-confused player. Meanwhile, the remaining healthy players for Collegiate “feared getting injured and not being able to compete in the playoffs,” the team said in a statement.
The school “reiterates its values of both inclusivity and safety for all students,” according to the statement.
Anthony Grimaldi, the athletic director at KIPP Academy, refused to comment when questioned by The Daily Item about whether the school thinks Collegiate’s forfeit was prompted by the male player who identifies as female.
“KIPP does not wish to make a comment at this time as to why the other team forfeited the game. We are looking forward to our next game,” Grimaldi said.
“A student shall not be excluded from participation on a gender-specific sports team that is consistent with the student’s bona fide gender identity,” stated Section 43.3.1 of the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association handbook.
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