Hi all - Up front I ask for your patience and forgiveness if this is the wrong sub or I use language that is unintentionally offensive. I am a coach of a youth girls division recreational basketball team. Ages roughly 12-14. Southern state suburb so generally pretty conservative upper middle class families.
We had our first practice last night. We have a 12 year old kid on the team named Jane that registered with the “nickname” of Jack. I had reached out to all my parents before practice asking about experience, age, etc and Jack’s Dad’s email response quite noticeably didn’t use any pronouns. He replied with 5-6 sentences with all of the repeatedly references “Jack” rather than “she”, “he”, or “they”. It felt forced.
Jack has signed up for the girls division, not the coed division which is basically the boys division that lets girls play if they don’t want to be on the all-girls division.
Jack gets to practice. Short hair, boyish clothes. I got the question from my daughter afterward in the car “is Jack a boy?” Nobody said anything in practice as I expect this isn’t the first time they are exposed to a kid that doesn’t fit cisgender stereotypes. At least I hope. During practice I caught myself a few times referring to Jack as “she” or “her” while I was giving instruction to the team (e.g. guard her like this, she would pass it here,etc). I tried really hard to avoid it but I’ve been coaching girls basketball for so long I slipped a few times. Tried my best to refer to Jack as “Jack” without pronouns. My questions are:

1. Do I ask Jack’s parents if Jack is ok with “she” or do I leave it alone and avoid pronouns altogether?
2. Any suggestions on how I respond as a coach in anticipation of any comments by the other girls, either on my team or the other team, about having a “boy” on my team?
3. If you were a kid in this situation, is there anything else you would want your coach to do and not do?
   

My apologies if my questions expose my ignorance. I’m just trying to do right by this kiddo. It makes me sad to realize that I’m most likely worried about something that is nowhere near as bad as this kid has probably had to deal with outside this basketball team.

Thanks in advance for your guidance.