Thread by @hecheateddotorg

🧵With the recent revelations about men in the Women's Hockey Association of Minnesota (WHAM) I think it's past time I do a few threads on men playing in "women's" ice hockey.

WHAM is certainly not the only league putting female skaters at increased risk of injury and discriminating against female athletes.

First up, a bit of a 'historical' case but possibly one of if not the most well known, Michael "Jessica" Platt.

In January of 2018, in his second season as a player on the Toronto Furies, a professional hockey team in the CWHL (Canadian Women's Hockey League), Platt publicly announced that he was actually a man who had been deceiving his teammates and opponents and leading them to believe he was a woman.

Platt was drafted onto the Furies in 2016, despite having no real prior experience, and played with the team until the league was dissolved in 2019.

Platt was the only member of the team who did not have prior collegiate hockey experience.

While it's not unheard of for players on pro teams to not have collegiate experience, this is typically due to the fact that they were good enough to forgo college altogether and turned pro right after high school (think Lebron James).

In Platt's case, however, he had no notable achievements in youth hockey whatsoever and claims he stepped away from the game when he was 18, returning to rec hockey in his mid-20's, and yet he seemed to have no issue being drafted to a professional team at the age of 27.

Compare Platt's hockey resume to those of a few of his teammates.

I just want to reiterate here, this less-than mediocre, unathletic, 27-year-old never-been male athlete who hadn't played competitive hockey since high school (or perhaps even younger) stole a professional hockey career away from a talented female athlete.

Platt didn't stop at hockey. He also participated in duathlons at the same time.

In fact, he was a hopeful for the 2021 Duathlon World Championships in Australia before the COVID 19 crisis, expressing his disappointment at the cancelation of the qualifier, as spots were being awarded to age category winners at the Bluewater Triathlon and Duathlon, an event Platt had placed 1st "female" in the year before.

Platt claims that hormones weakened him and that after taking them, male teammates he had previously been faster than were suddenly more athletic.

"That was a lot to deal with, because in my head I thought I was faster than them, that I could jump higher than them, that I was better than them, and my body just couldn’t do it anymore."

Which is very odd, because a quick search of Platt's athletic history shows he actually participated in throws in high school track and field, not running events, meaning that perhaps he was not so great at running and jumping to begin with?

"In my head" seems to be doing a lot of work here. The weakening also didn't seem to reach his thighs. Perhaps it didn't get past the brain?

Yes, this man who had never had success in sport in his youth or young twenties, had never been athletic to begin with, and never managed to make a collegiate team expects us to believe that "HRT" weakened him so much that his making a professional hockey team and being a hopeful for world duathlon championships was simply due to a sudden realization of talent and motivation to work hard that suddenly came on in his late twenties only incidentally after he had begun pretending to be a woman…

To top it all off, in 2018, Platt was named to the "Women of Influence" top 25 list.

What an inspiration to little girls everywhere.

"Mommy, I want to be just like 'Jessica,' I'm not athletic or good at sports, but if 'Jessica' can do it, I can too!"

She'll be so disappointed to learn that that only works for men while this little girl will be the woman to grow up and have her dreams of a professional career stolen by "Jessica" instead.

Only little boys can ever grow up to be like "Jessica."

More hockey men to come soon!