Separating Sports by Sex Doesn’t Make Sense
Shira Mandelzis fell in love with flag football while playing on her middle-school team. An avid snowboarder and all-around athletic kid, she loved the energy she felt while on the field, and the camaraderie engendered by the intensely physical game. So last summer, heading into her junior year at Riverdale Country School in the Bronx, Mandelzis decided to sign up for football. She would be the only girl, but it was a no-cut, no-tryout team, so she figured the worst she’d have to deal with would be not feeling welcomed by the team. Instead, soon after she’d filled out the enrollment form, Riverdale’s athletic director reached out to Mandelzis about specific requirements she would have to meet in order to join the team.
Because Mandelzis was a girl trying to join a boys’ sport, she had to abide by a set of that the New York State Education Department . These rules, which were developed in part to protect girls from harm during competitions, required that Mandelzis submit a record of her past performance in physical-education classes, a doctor’s physical documenting her medical history, and assessments of her body type (height and weight, joint structure) and sexual maturity level (breast and pubic-hair development measured according to a). Once she passed a fitness test, including a one-mile run, sprints, push-ups, and curl-ups, she sent her scores to a closed-door panel including physical-education staff, other administrators of the school’s choosing, and a consulting physician. The panel then set out to determine whether Mandelzis was, essentially, strong, developed, and athletic enough to play a contact sport with boys—even though those boys needed to prove no such thing.
