If a woman can play on a men's team, why not a man on a women's team?

That's the sort of question that a recent article brings forth: NY boy, 13, wants to stay on girls field hockey squad; officials say his skills are too good. What's the boy's argument?

Keeling's fight appears to be a rare example of a young man seeking to take advantage of Title IX, a 40-year-old U.S. government law enacted to provide women equal access to athletic opportunities. There are no boys' high school field hockey teams anywhere on Long Island, or, for that matter, in most of the country.

That seems to be more or less the same arguments used to get women to play on men's teams, although as the article later notes, and as seems to be the case with many an "equality" program, it's not really about equal treatment:

The problem, according to Edward Cinelli, the director of the organization that oversees high school athletics in Suffolk County, is that state education law won't allow it. He cited a provision that says administrators are permitted to bar boys from girls' teams if a boy's participation "would have a significant adverse effect" on a girl's opportunity to participate in interschool competition in that sport. Officials say Keeling's skills are superior to the girls he plays against, creating an unfair advantage.

Saying that you have to suck badly enough to play on a school team sounds like an incredibly bizarre selection criteria.

You could recognize male and female gender differences and keep separate male and female teams, not allowing for players to switch teams, or you can simply eliminate the distinct teams. (Apparently, the International Olympic Committee allows players to switch if they've been on gender hormone treatments for at least two years amidst a few other requirements). Of course eliminating the dual male and female teams would probably lead to women being almost entirely excluded from play (and even more frequently excluded from winning). However it seems the only real way to achieve "equal" treatment in the manner suggested by both this boy's case and the more common female-playing-on-male-team.

On a somewhat related note, the article Interlopers Run Amok: Guys Crash Road Races for Women:
They Come in First, Are Dissed at Finish; For Meeting Fit Females, 'It's Hard to Beat' is a fairly amusing read. I'm somewhat amused by crazy races like the French Marathon du Medoc in which participation involves racing in costume from one wine-tasting to the next along a marathon route (and maybe one of these years I'll even be crazy enough to try it), but I don't think I'd ever want to race the Disney's Princess Half Marathon which the aforementioned Wall Street Journal article opens with.