A boy in the UK wants to play in a female football competition.

The girls, the parents and coaches say no, it is a female competition.

He can play in the male competition or an open or mixed competition.

Instead of protecting and promoting the female players, the Football Association in Yorkshire is considering shutting down the entire competition:

It is understood the FA has threatened the West Riding Girls Football League with sanctions and a possible suspension if it does not agree to let boys on the pitch, a scenario officials have branded 'a massive threat to the girls' game'.

Last week an emergency meeting was held by organisers of the league – which has at least 6,000 under-18 girls playing across more than 300 teams – where managers voiced their concerns that allowing boys to play would 'open the floodgates'. 

The FA's gender policy states that any under-16 teams must allow both boys and girls to play, despite admitting that 'physical strength, stamina or physique' can put one sex at the disadvantage of the other.

The parents of a boy requested he be able to play in the female league and threatened action if he was refused:

An email from the league's secretary to its members last week said: 'This is a massive threat to the girls game and we should be mindful that this could be a long struggle should we fight this head on. 

'To all intents and purposes we would not just be fighting for the integrity of our girls' league but all girls' leagues in the country.'

Furious team coaches pointed out there were mixed sex leagues the boy could join.

One female club manager said: 'We've spoken to parents and the girls themselves, a number of them we've 'rescued' from mixed sex leagues where they have been excluded from having the ball passed to them, where they have been tackled and had bones broken.

'I have also been informed by parents that they would be looking to take their daughters out of the league and the girls themselves saying they would just give it up if boys joined.'

Football Australia and Football NSW also prefer to protect males who appropriate womanhood over and above females playing in their leagues. They show disregard for the safety and dignity of girls and women, and do not consider fairness to be a factor. All that concerns them is that males who identify as female be allowed to play and access female change rooms.

It is time football teams forfeited matches or took some kind of stand against the lie that a male can be female. Coaches, officials and parents must step up and protect female sports.

They could take a leaf out of Dr. Wayne D. Lewis Jr’s book. Dr Lewis Jr is the president of Houghton University in the United States, and has issued a lengthy statement in defence of women:

The statement, titled "In Defense of Women's Athletics," is a lengthy call to action from Lewis, the sixth president of the private Christian university in upstate New York.

"Biological males’ participation in women’s athletics is wrong," wrote Lewis, the first African-American president of the university. "Most Americans and most of the world know it to be wrong. A fringe agenda under the guise of making school and collegiate athletics more inclusive for transgender people has grown to the place of now unfairly displacing gifted and hardworking female athletes, obliterating the historic achievements and records of female athletes of the past, and threatening to dismantle the opportunities and protections for girls and women in sport trailblazing leaders fought so hard to create and protect."

"Too many leaders, parents, professional athletes, and people of goodwill have been silent as female athletes are humiliated, silenced, and robbed of hard-earned opportunities. That silence is complicit with the fringe agenda that threatens to dismantle girls’ and women’s athletics."

Isn’t that the truth!

I am looking forward to the day when leaders in grassroots sports draw a line in the sand and say no more.