On Transgenders and Sports...

I have a personal story to begin this post because it will make my primary point make more sense, hopefully. I promise I have a great question at the end I hope generates some feedback.

In my Junior High days of the mid-80s, I ran track and truly enjoyed every minute of it. Despite my larger size, I was surprisingly fast at the longer distances, with the 800 meter run being our longest distance at the time. After my first meet running that distance, I discovered my official time was just a few seconds above the school's record at that distance. I made it my goal to break that record by the end of my seventh grade year but missed it by a couple of seconds or so.

My goal as an eighth-grader continued to be owning the record by my last race and slowly chipped away at it throughout the season. I was not the only runner at that distance and often swapped this competition with one of my friends but he was not generally approaching the record as closely as I was. I am not sure he even cared about owning the record.

With us swapping events each meet, my last chance occurred at the second to last meet. I guess that became my motivation to finally eclipse that record, but just barely. "Barely" was obviously good enough to get my name on the records board but there was still one more race to run, and I had no control over its outcome.

My final race was a beautiful day but his final day was nasty. Cold, wet and windy was what I remember about it so I felt my record was safe for at least one week. Well..... I was wrong. While he was running, I was talking to a runner from another team about 30 yards from the finish line and looked over to see what all the cheering was about when I saw him running the final 50-60 meters, about to win the race.

While I was happy he won the race, I was not too concerned about his time but sure enough, he owned the new record. Ultimately, I was not disappointed because I did achieve my goal of beating the former record and was happy for him to now own the record. I don't know if it actually went up on the board since we no longer attended the school after that season but I am sure it was beaten, likely rather handily, a year or two later when a much better runner made his way thru the school.

The point I wanted to make using my own personal story of having, and achieving, a track-specific goal leads me to the rather new phenomenon of allowing boys to run against girls under the mantle of transgenderism.

I would truly like to know if an adult who would normally champion the rights of a transitioning boy into a girl and for that person to be allowed to participate in any activity normally reserved for girls (volleyball, softball, girls track, etc.) would draw the line at it affecting their own daughter's success, or opportunities for success?

Imagine this: a freshman cross-country runner bursts onto the scene (I used to run cross-country in high school also) and proves to be so successful she wins her state's cross-country girls championship. She proves her freshman year was not a fluke and wins during her sophomore year, perhaps becoming the youngest two-time champion. Her junior year has her winning every race including becoming the state's second three-peat winner. Now her senior year comes and she again dominates her conference and district with an unprecedented opportunity to become her state's first four-time girls cross-country champion but downstate there is a previously unknown runner also dominating their conference and district meets but with times consistently faster and a grade younger, but that challenger was one of three things:

• a new, biologically-female resident to the state from elsewhere and allowed to compete because she is in high school, has adequate grades, etc.
• formerly a competitor who until this season ran under the rules and regulations as a boy because they are biologically a boy but new state laws/regulations now permit a biological boy to compete against biological girls provided they are actively transitioning under a medically supervised program
• a biological boy who simply says they feel as though they are female, should be allowed to compete against female runners and challenges anybody to say differently

Here is the $64,000 question: would even the most progressive modern liberal who actively and publicly promotes their dislike (hate, even) for Trump, Republicans, conservatives, etc. but is the mother of this soon-to-be-the-state's-first-four-time-champion senior tell her daughter she just has to run faster than she has ever run before (and possibly faster than ANY female has run before) if she truly wants to earn her place in her state's girls athletic record book but if she complains about the "unfairness" of the situation she would be in league with the intolerant and hateful Republicans?

OR.... does the mother reconsider her own intolerance and hate towards those who recognize how fundamentally unfair having what is biologically a boy compete against what are biologically girls and join them in the obvious declaration... boys should not be competing against girls and her daughter should be the rightful champion provided she runs faster than all fellow biologically-female competitors?