Massachusetts residents are bringing the national debate over transgender athletes’ right to participate in girls’ and women’s sports home.

A dozen protesters holding signs bearing the messages “Save women’s sports,” “Support fair sports for women and girls,” among others, clashed with opponents outside of a diversity, equity and inclusion symposium at the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association headquarters in Franklin on Friday.

An increasing number of states are banning transgender athletes from competing in girls’ and women’s sports, but athletic opportunities in Massachusetts “must be afforded to students in accordance with their identified gender, not necessarily their birth-assigned gender,” according to the MIAA handbook.

Lisa Pareira said she worries about the future for her seventh-grade daughter who plays soccer and softball. The Foxboro resident believes this position infringes on her daughter’s rights and privacy.

“I am so afraid that, who is to say in a year or two, there’s going to be a biological male playing and pitching, just blowing everyone out of the water,” Pareira told the Herald. “It’s just not fair.”

Local schools are responsible for determining eligibility of students who want to participate in its athletic program, according to the MIAA’s gender participation policy. It is unclear how many transgender females compete on girls’ teams in the state.

One student who transitioned from male to female, Chloe Barnes, helped Brookline High School’s girls’ indoor track and field team win the Division 1 state championship this winter, placing fourth in the 55-meter hurdles.

Barnes’ participation made national headlines, with several Olympians saying she cheated.

Julie Love runs the School Nurse Liaison Project, in which she works with Massachusetts educators to figure out how to help students who are or may be contemplating transitioning from male to female, or vice versa.

Love said she finds it “phenomenal” that the MIAA holds an annual diversity, equity and inclusion symposium. Friday’s event, for educators, coaches, athletic directors and school administrators, focused on “the intersectionality of identities and how they relate to privilege and discrimination within sports,” “the healthy development of adolescent boys,” and more.

“If you’re an athlete, in the moment of winning or losing, you’re going to be upset by anything that’s perceived as ‘If not for that, I would’ve won,’” Love said. “There will be all kinds of ridiculous arguments made.”

Northampton resident Billy Park organized Friday’s protest, looking to speak with MIAA officials. His daughter, a sophomore at Northampton High School, plays on the girl’s ultimate frisbee team.

Park takes exception to four boys being allowed on the team, and he said coaches and the school’s athletic director have told him the rules are out of their control. Ultimate frisbee is not an MIAA sport but follows guidelines from the association.

“The coach says that when the boys outnumber the girls that is when he will make a stink about it,” Park said. “To me, that’s too late.”

The Biden administration released a proposal last month that would forbid schools and colleges across the nation from enacting outright bans on transgender athletes. Teams could create limits in certain cases to ensure fairness. If finalized, it would become enshrined as a provision of Title IX, the landmark gender-equity legislation enacted in 1972.

Massachusetts lawyer Stephen Karpf, who counter-protested on Friday, said he’s seen “vast improvement” in how society views transgender and those who are gay or bi, but he’s looking for more support.

“This is a golden opportunity for us to move forward and expand our scope and sense on what gender means and that people can recognize their own identities in all sorts of ways,” he said.

Biden’s proposal came just days after Kansas banned transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s sports from kindergarten through college, overriding Gov. Laura Kelly’s third veto in three years.

Twenty states in total have imposed restrictions on transgender athletes. The U.S. House approved a bill late last month that would prevent transgender women from competing with biological females, but it’s unlikely to move past the Democratic-led Senate.

In the Bay State, the MIAA says student safety has not been a successful defense to excluding students of one sex from participating on teams of the opposite sex, and arguments generally come up short due to the lack of correlations between injuries and mixed-gender teams.

“We respect and understand the ongoing discussion that is currently taking place on the national level” an MIAA spokesperson said in a statement to the Herald. “The MIAA continues to adhere to and comply with the laws of the Commonwealth.”

The National Institutes of Health last year found that transgender females retain masculine muscle mass for many months, even years, and estrogen therapy doesn’t reverse most athletic performance parameters, thus, transgender women have “an inherent advantage because of their prior male physiology.”

Pareira said she wonders what happened to feminists who fought for women to have the same rights as men.

“When you stand up for what you believe in you’re automatically labeled a racist or a homophobe or a transphobe,” she said. “We’re not telling these transgender kids that they can’t play sports, it’s not like we’re taking that away from them.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.