Girls playing for Team Nova Scotia during a Canada Cup tournament in Toronto are facing backlash from administrators after they privately raised concerns about the unannounced decision to share accommodations during the trip with a trans-identifying biological male on the team.

“At the Canada Cup, players discovered the teenage boy had been assigned to the girls’ dorm,” reports Juno News.

“An anonymous source alleged that while each player had their own room, bathrooms were shared. Some teammates expressed concern in a private Snapchat group, where they discussed their discomfort with the arrangements and the lack of prior consultation. Screenshots reached head coach Jon Elliott, who summoned players from the program’s elite teams for a meeting.”

On Tuesday's Rebel Roundup livestream, Sheila Gunn Reid and Lise Merle weighed in on this latest violation of women and girls' rights.

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Lise slammed the “absolute gaslighting nerve” of coach Elliot for reprimanding the players. “The rights of mentally ill people are overriding the rights of women and girls,” she said, noting the Nova Scotia girls were “justifiably uncomfortable with having to play with against and then fraternize with, in intimate spaces, a.k.a. sleeping spaces or changing spaces.”

Elliot's motivations are simple, Sheila said: “it's clear the coach wanted to cheat.”

Adding a biological male to the girls' team is excluding “a girl who was good enough,” potentially causing that female athlete to miss out on a scholarship, she added. 

“Across the country of Canada, this is happening in every sport, in every age bracket, across the board — except for in Alberta where there are laws prohibiting it,” Lise said.

“This is not going to inspire any confidence in the girls of Nova Scotia to know that if they speak out, they're going to be labelled as hateful or transphobic,” she continued.

“Girls aren't going to risk being called that, so this is where the rest of us really have to speak on behalf of girls and women in sport in Canada.”