Women’s sports advocacy groups are expressing outrage after a male student was found to be competing in girls’ track and field for Chelsea High School in Massachusetts. Lilly Serrano captured two podium finishes at Thursday’s Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association Division 3 Indoor Track and Field Championships last week.
Serrano, who has competed in girls’ athletics since at least 2024, has earned multiple podium finishes in recent seasons. Earlier this month at the Greater Boston League Championship, Serrano placed first in both the 55-meter dash and the high jump, and third in the 500-meter race. On February 12, Serrano took third in the 55-meter dash and seventh in the 300-meter race at the state championships, earning a medal and podium position in both events.
Serrano, 17, currently ranks first on the Chelsea High School team in the 200-, 300-, and 400-meter races, as well as the high jump and 55-meter dash for the 2026 indoor season. Serrano is also ranked as the second best “female” runner in Massachusetts in the 200 meter Division 3 category.
On February 6, 2025,the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced that it had launched directed Title IX investigations into three entities — San Jose State University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association (MIAA) — for reported violations of federal civil rights law in their athletics programs.
The action follows President Trump’s “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” executive order, directing greater enforcement of Title IX protections on the basis of biological sex in female sports.
The OCR’s decision to investigate the MIAA was in part prompted by an incident involving a a girls’ high school basketball game between the Collegiate Charter School of Lowell and KIPP Academy Lynn. The game drew national attention after the Lowell team forfeited at halftime following a series of injuries, several of which the school said occurred during plays involving a transgender student on the KIPP Academy team.
In a statement to Reduxx, HeCheated, an independent platform that tracks male participation in female sports, noted that Massachusetts had been a particular concern for those monitoring fairness in girls sports.
“We have about 83 state titles on record stolen [from girls] by boys so far and 32 of those are from Massachusetts,” a representative noted.
“Girls’ sports have never truly existed in Massachusetts,” HeCheated said, arguing that the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association (MIAA) has a long history of policies that failed to fully protect the female category.
HeCheated noted that it was not until 1978 that the MIAA attempted to adopt a rule barring boys from joining girls’ teams. The policy followed reports that, in districts where separate leagues had not been established, boys began joining girls’ volleyball teams, leading to injuries and forfeits. However, the rule was enforced inconsistently and often left to individual schools. It was overturned by an anti-discrimination court the next year.
Today, the MIAA still allows boys to participate on girls’ teams when no equivalent boys’ team is available at their school — a policy that HeCheated said enabled teams with male players to win the first two state championships of the 2025-2026 season in field hockey and volleyball.
The MIAA also permits athletes to compete on teams consistent with their self-declared gender identity, a practice HeCheated says deprives girls of even more athletic opportunities.
“State officials had the opportunity to address this issue in the 1970s,” HeCheated said. “Instead, they allowed what I view as another 31 girls’ state championship titles to go to male athletes. That is unacceptable and represents, in my opinion, one of the most significant infringements on the rights of female athletes in the country.”
🧵In 1977, the Amherst Regional High School "girls'" volleyball team won the Massachusetts state championship title by default after four teams forfeited against them in the state tournament because they used two boys on their starting roster.
— HeCheated.org (@hecheateddotorg) February 13, 2026
Shortly thereafter, the MIAA… pic.twitter.com/d5DyBATG6Q
The Independent Council on Women’s Sports (ICONS) shares HeCheated’s concerns about Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association and its continued betrayal of young female athletes.
“The MIAA has repeatedly inflicted egregious harm on female athletes by undermining the integrity of girls competition and disregarding federal protections guaranteed under Title IX,” an ICONS spokesperson said. “For these female track athletes, a state championship is a once in a lifetime culmination of years of sacrifice, training, and pursuit of excellence. That experience was irreparably damaged when a male athlete was allowed to compete in girls races and was celebrated atop girls podiums.”
ICONS is a US-based nonprofit advocacy group made up of current and former collegiate and professional female athletes, their families, and supporters. It says its mission is to promote and protect women’s sports by supporting policies and legal actions that it argues uphold fair competition for women based on biological sex and the original intent of Title IX. In addition to backing lawsuits, such as challenges to NCAA, conference and university policies allowing male participation in women’s sports, ICONS has vocally supported the Trump-era investigations into high school athletic associations which have allowed males to self-identify onto women’s teams.
“When athletic associations undermine sex-based categories, they do not merely alter results; they strip girls of enthusiasm, confidence, and the trust that adults in charge will defend girls. We believe the Department of Education investigation will document widespread, verifiable violations of Title IX across the state. When confirmed, enforcement must be swift, severe, and financially significant at a level that ensures this never happens again. Meaningful accountability, including substantial monetary penalties, is necessary to restore integrity to girls sports and to make clear that violating the civil rights of female athletes will carry serious and lasting consequences.”
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