Teen Can't Play on Boys Team, Even Though He's a Boy

A paperwork mistake from more than a decade ago led to an Arizona eighth grader being removed from the boys basketball tryouts and told he could only play on the girls team. The issue surfaced when Laker Jackson, a student at Eastmark High School in Mesa, went to try out for the boys basketball team. School officials removed Laker from the tryout because his birth certificate—due to a hospital mix-up 14 years earlier—listed his gender as female, despite him being a biological male, per AZFamily.

Laker's mother, Becky, said her son was removed from the tryouts "in front of all of his friends, in front of the coach." The incident also quickly became a talking point among other students, according to Laker. "I was really upset and disappointed," he says, noting that he'd trained for a year ahead of the tryouts, per Scripps News. The Queen Creek Unified School District issued a statement explaining that it relies on a student's original birth certificate to determine athletic eligibility, and that Laker had been enrolled in QCUSD as a female since elementary school.

Laker's family attempted to fix the error by providing a corrected birth certificate and a doctor's note the day prior to tryouts, but the district said that under its policies calling for the use of an original birth certificate only, additional proof—such as chromosomal testing—might be required. The district emphasized its commitment to fairness and said it was willing to work with the family toward a solution, though the Jacksons say the process has been confusing and could prove pricey, with such testing estimated to cost around $1,500.

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"Who's going to pay that?" Becky Jackson asks, per Scripps. She also says she has supported transgender children in the past, who are typically the ones who find themselves embroiled in these types of situations, but that her son's case is simply a clerical error. The Guardian notes that Arizona is one of more than 24 states in the US that have restricted or banned trans athletes from taking part in sports that sync with their gender identity.