Minnesota women’s hockey player quits after men allowed to compete in league

Rachel Stoneberg, 42, who has been in the Women’s Hockey Association of Minnesota (WHAM) for 20 years, formerly played for the University of St. Thomas. She penned a letter on Oct 10 to WHAM entitled “Dear Hockey: Goodbye,” which was recently shared on social media.

She has been playing hockey since the 7th grade, through college and in the adult league. This past year, she did not know that she shared a locker room with a biological male. WHAM leaders dismissed concerns from her teammates. USA Hockey and Minnesota Hockey did not respond either.

“I am left to believe they do not care about my safety or the sanctity of the sport,” she wrote, “If you want to say you’re a girl, go ahead. But you can’t force me to say it or believe it - and you can’t ask me to share my restrooms, my locker rooms or my sheet of ice. That would be infringing on my rights,” she added.

She wrote that she feels bad for her two daughters and other students who “have to decide between competing in the sports they love and standing up for what’s right.” Stoneberg ended with a call for others to act: “Stand up. Speak up. We have to do better for our daughters.”

This comes as a former teammate of Stoneberg’s also quit WHAM earlier this year over the same policy.

In California, Governor Gavin Newsom signed a ‘Youth Sports for All’ bill on Oct 13, designed to study inequality in youth athletics. Senate Minority leader Brian Jones said that “AB749 is really just a disguise to actually further cement allowing biological males to compete against young women and girls in youth sports.”