When I started freshman year at a new high school, my parents signed me up for cross-country to “make friends.” I’d never done sports in my life, and initially, I had some serious reservations. But they were right: sports changed my life.
On that team, I made some of my closest friends. I learned how to stay calm and focused under pressure and believe in myself even when I shook with nerves on the start line. I discovered the collective power of a close, supportive team. I joined sunset runs and bus sing-alongs and multi-terrain manhunt games, and I befriended countless runners from other schools as we cheered together at meets or high-fived at the finish line — a testament to the warmth and positivity of Maine’s distance running community.
When trans girls are banned from being themselves in sports, these are the experiences they are deprived of. As a runner who has received medals, won individual and team championships and broken school records, I can say without hesitation that accolades are never what sports are truly about, especially at the middle and high school levels.
Yet that fact is obscured in the increasingly vitriolic debates over trans girls’ rights to compete as themselves, which have rapidly gained prominence here in Maine thanks to the Trump administration’s claims that our inclusive policies violated Title IX.
I am appalled by the pernicious narrative that depriving trans girls of the wonderful experience of athletics protects cisgender girls like me. I’ve competed against trans athletes, and none have made me feel uncomfortable, unsafe or at an unfair disadvantage. Dramatized news coverage makes trans athletes seem omnipresent at all levels of competition, but while trans athletes such as Lia Thomas have been the subject of relentless media attention, there are strikingly few actually competing, never mind winning.
Even by generous estimates, fewer than 0.008% of NCAA athletes are trans. And many of those who have been subjected to extensive media coverage and political attacks aren’t even top-ranked in female sports: for instance, a recent New York Times article astutely described Blaire Fleming — demonized as a threat to the integrity of women’s sports — as in actuality “the second- or third-best player on the third- or fourth-best team in the sixth- or seventh-best conference in women’s college volleyball.”
Do you truly care about women’s athletics? Then care that sexual violence remains rampant in women’s sports, from small-town youth teams (as in the case of the Maine coach arrested earlier this year for sexually assaulting a middle schooler) to elite competition (as famously exemplified by former Nike coach Alberto Salazar, now under a lifetime ban from track and field).
Care that I, like far too many female athletes, have been repeatedly catcalled while running. One recent survey found that 38% of female respondents had experienced verbal or even physical harassment on runs. Care about the proposed “genital inspections” designed to eliminate trans girls from competition, a bizarre and inhumane measure that would be harmful to all of those subjected to it, including cisgender girls.
Care about the gender pay gap in sports, or how media coverage of women’s athletics is too often minimal and, when present, disturbingly sexualized. But don’t target the handful of children and teenagers just trying to participate in activities they love in a country increasingly hostile to their mere existence.
The current barrage of political and cultural attacks on trans youth has serious implications for both their mental health and physical safety. A recent Trevor Project survey found that in 2024 alone, 28% of trans and nonbinary youth had been physically threatened or harmed because of their gender identity, and a staggering 46% had seriously considered attempting suicide.
Importantly, inclusive athletics policies can have a significant positive impact on trans youth. As one recent study noted, “high school-aged transgender and nonbinary student-athletes reported higher grades [and] lower levels of depression, and were less likely to feel unsafe at school than those who did not play sports.”
As a cisgender female athlete, I care about standing with the transgender community and promoting a culture of inclusion and acceptance in the running community I love — not preventing a handful of runners from joining me at the start line.