A high school ruby league in Guam is being criticized after a transgender athlete injured three female players in a match over the weekend.
The transgender athlete, who is a male identifying as a female, played on Guam High School’s female rugby squad.
While playing Tiyan High School, the male player injured three female players from Tiyan, according to head coach Conrad Kerber, the Washington Examiner reported.
According to Kerber, the male athlete’s body, size and force were simply dominate over the girls on his team, Kuam News reported.
“Body size, body strength and the ability to apply force with that size and strength completely dominate any girl that I have on my team,” Kerber said.
“The aggressive nature that was witnessed clearly showed that it’s a definite issue that we have to deal with,” he said. “I had three players that were injured in that first game against Guam High directly by that particular player.”
Videos posted to Twitter showed some of the plays from the game.
📍Guam: 3 female athletes were injured in a Rugby game by a transgender athlete who was “aggressive in nature.”
The head coach says “body size, body strength.. completely dominate any girl that I have on my team”
Why do females even bother playing?https://t.co/XjWsfkgumQ pic.twitter.com/kbWnSv5Or3
— Libs of Tik Tok (@libsoftiktok) April 12, 2022
Due to the extraordinarily physical nature of rugby, the issue of transgender athletes has become a sticking point.
But the “World Rugby Law” Transgender Guidelines actually do not allow transgender athletes to play female rugby.
“Why? Because of the size, force- and power-producing advantages conferred by testosterone during puberty and adolescence, and the resultant player welfare risks this create,” World Rugby reported.
Meanwhile, no official decision has been made for the Guam high school league, but Kerber did say that he hopes the league will adopt the “World Rugby Law” guidelines that do not allow transgender athletes to play women’s rugby.
“Right now, we just have to come together as a group and discuss the proper path to take and discuss what the parameters are with allowing transgender males in full-contact sports such as rugby,” he said, the Examiner reported.
“It has to do purely with the size, force and strength disadvantage that transgender males will have over females in this type of sport,” he explained, according to Kuam News.
“It’s purely a safety issue when we discuss transgender males playing in female sports at a youth level particularly at this type of contact sport as well. I’m basically in line with the world rugby guidelines regarding transgender males playing female sports and basically across the world it’s not permitted,” he said.
The Guam Department of Education is currently discussing the issue and working with a legal team to decide how to move forward and decide whether or not to allow transgender athletes to play in female sports or not.
“So we’re currently in the process of working with our legal counsel and our management team to further assess and research the situation of transgender playing sports,” Guam Department of Education Deputy Superintendent of Operations Erika Cruz said, the Examiner reported.
In the meantime, Kerber has said that his players are healing and will keep playing.
“My players will get through it and heal,” Kerber said, Kuam News reported. “We will use these next two weeks so that we can heal properly.”