"Do you want to go to the parking lot?"

A male playing in the women's league threatens to beat up a woman who reminds him it's a women's league. A complaint was filed against the woman for "misgendering."

I filed this complaint with SafeSport USA Hockey:

On Saturday, Dec 20, the WHAM (Women’s Hockey Association of Minnesota) C1 team Crew played the Sabres, a team that has two males on the roster. During the game, one of the men, #19, aggressively dominated the play. Women on Crew who normally played forward refused to play against him in fear for their physical safety. They let him have the puck because he is 6’ tall and aggressive. He checked. Women were hurt. It was exactly the sort of dangerously farcical scene you’d expect from a man playing in a women’s league. But the man’s aggressive, violent behavior continued off the ice.

K. is a first-year member of Crew, just 21 years old and about 5’ tall. She didn’t want to rock the boat, being a new player, but was frustrated by having to play against a man when she had signed up for a women’s league. To be clear, K. would not have been frustrated by a talented or aggressive female player. This was obviously a man. She was sick to the back teeth of pretending that a man can simply identify as a woman; it’s unfair and unsafe, as the previous 45 minutes had demonstrated. As they were skating off the ice, #19, a male, skated past and she said, “You do realize this is a women’s league, right?”

The man responded belligerently, “Oh I’m aware. Do you want to go in the parking lot?”

Shocked, K. said, “No, you might hurt me. You’re a guy.”

This exchange was witnessed by members of Crew and Sabres. Back in the locker room, K. was shaken and told the rest of her team what had happened. She was afraid to leave the rink so she called her boyfriend from inside the locker room to meet her in the parking lot for protection.

Shortly after they’d entered the locker room, the manager of the Sabres asked to talk with the manager of the Crew. She said the Sabres were filing a complaint against K. for misgendering the male player, and were asking for her and all Crew members to be suspended. K.’s teammates escorted her out of the rink and the male player was indeed waiting in the parking lot but did not make good on his threat because K. was not alone.

First, betrayed by WHAM by having to play against a man, violently threatened by that man for speaking objective truths, and then somehow the man playing in the women’s league who threatened to go out in the parking lot and beat the crap out of her is suddenly the victim and she is the aggressor?! Her crime? Reminding a man that he is playing in a women’s league.

K. was so shaken by the experience she skipped several games. She thought her team would be punished for her words, uncontroversial facts. WHAM is telling her she is the one who has violated rules. She wrote an email to WHAM president, Beth Chaplin, apologizing for speaking to the male player rather than going to WHAM with her concerns, though it’s well known WHAM does not support women. Many have gone to WHAM saying they don’t think it’s fair or safe to play with men, and WHAM supports the male players, pointing to USA Hockey’s policy of allowing males in women’s hockey at the rec level. WHAM has not even respected K. or the Crew enough to respond to them, though several players emailed about the incident. WHAM hopes to keep this gross violation, which they know to be worthy of severe discipline, under wraps by threatening the women with suspension. It has worked.

K. has not, to this point, filed a complaint against the man because she thinks she is in the wrong for calling a man a man. Think about that. More than #19’s unacceptable violent threat toward another player, the most egregious violation against K. and all the women in WHAM is that he is allowed to share the ice and the locker room, nullifying the women’s league. Yes, #19 should absolutely face harsh discipline for his violent behavior, but USA Hockey needs to acknowledge the even greater harm they have visited on women at every level of the sport by redefining “women’s” to include men. USA Hockey has, with the stroke of a pen, misrepresented women’s sports as a female-only category, forced women to accept people they know to be men into their locker rooms and their sport, made women’s hockey unfair and unsafe, and made it impossible for women to even talk about this gross human rights violation. USA Hockey’s policy has put women in the impossible position of not being able to call a man a man. Therefore, they have no rights whatsoever. All of women’s rights are based on the reality of sex. This incident is not just an unacceptable display of violence by one player toward another, it’s a glaring demonstration of the grievous harm USA Hockey’s policy visits on women and women’s hockey.

I am filing a complaint against Sabres player #19 for violently threatening another player; and against WHAM’s board of directors for their failure to provide a fair, safe, and dignified environment for women and for misrepresenting WHAM as a women’s league. I am also filing a complaint against USA Hockey for their current policy that has effectively eliminated women’s hockey. I ask that USA Hockey change their dangerous, discriminatory policy of allowing men in women’s hockey to align with other sports governing bodies that respect and protect the female category. Even though #19 threatened to take K. out in the parking lot and beat the crap out of her, all women are harmed by men, violent or not, in the women’s league. It has to stop.

My neighbor has been playing on WHAM for 20 years but doubts she will play next year because of men in the league. It’s not fun any more—it’s dangerous. And it hurts that WHAM cares so little for women, as insane as that is. I went to Crew games, talked at length to many WHAM players, and wrote an article about it for The Female Category.

I understand that filing this complaint as a third party has less validity, but as I have described above, most women who have been abused by men are made to think they are the aggressors, that they have done something wrong for speaking obvious truths, that they are bigots for doing so. The cold hard realization that, in fact, they have no rights, that those rights have been stripped away, is the final nail in the coffin. They stay silent. I’m trying to convince K. to file a complaint but she is afraid she and her team will be punished. She is afraid of retaliation from the male player, #19, if she has to face the Sabres again. Like many many other women in her situation, she knows she has no choice but to suck it up, keep quiet, and carry on. Or quit.

I’d like a response from USA Hockey explaining how you plan to address this incident, and the obvious harms to women your policy invites by allowing men to self-ID onto women’s teams. Thanks for your attention to many abuses of women listed here.