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Frank S. Wertheim is an associate extension professor emeritus with the University of Maine Cooperative Extension. He has been a state and national leader addressing food insecurity for more than 20 years.
I am writing in response to the blow-up which resulted from state Rep. Laurel Libby’s Facebook post singling out a teenage transgender female athlete in Maine. This has led to a firestorm of opposition to transgendered female athletes in Maine and led to federal investigations by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Agriculture and other federal agencies into many areas of Maine government, Maine high school athletics and the University of Maine System.
The Maine Principal’s Association (MPA) policy on transgender athletes in high school sports does allow Maine high school students to participate on sports teams according to their gender identity. The rule gives each member school the sole authority in determining a student’s gender identity for athletics. At the college level, the NCAA president recently told a U.S. Senate panel that of the 500,000 students who compete on teams across the country that fewer than 10 are transgender. According to the University of Maine System Title IX coordinator, “To our knowledge, none of the seven universities within the University of Maine System (UMS) currently have transgender athletes participating in NCAA-sanctioned sports.”
Trans persons, and trans youth in particular, experience high rates of suicide, depression, body dysmorphia and threats of bullying and violence simply due to their becoming who they truly are. Libby’s outing of the underage teen only increases these risks. Trans persons certainly are not taking these risks against our societal expectations of what is considered to be “normal,” in order to “check out the opposite sex in the locker room.” Nor are they doing anything other than their biological business in bathrooms across Maine. Like all people, transgender persons are deserving of safe spaces in our society.
Young trans high school athletes, like all athletes, vary greatly in their biological development, such as when they reach puberty, whether or not they are utilizing hormone therapy in support of their transition and whether or not they are thin or heavy set or naturally gifted athletes. Though the amount of research into this issue is limited, there is a study, sponsored by the International Olympic Committee, that determined that overall trans girls and trans women perform worse overall than their cisgender female peers.
Despite this, there have been incidents where gifted transgender athletes have defeated cisgender girls in secondary education competitions, which could result in the cisgender girl missing out on a college scholarship. While unfortunate, I would hope in such a case, that the cisgender girl would still be accomplished enough in her sporting career to earn a college scholarship. It is my belief that the majority of competitive cisgender girls competing against transgender girls simply would say “bring it on.”
I urge us all to take a breath, listen to and respect the other side and continue to work toward an equitable solution for all. The vast majority of fellow cisgender school athletes embrace their transgender peers. I would hope that we could all recognize the benefits to trans people’s self-esteem and emotional well being that being part of a team community brings to all children and adults participating in athletics. These brave individuals deserve nothing less.