Illinois fifth grader Callie McKinnon asked her school board during a Monday meeting to keep biological males identifying as girls out of girls’ sports..
McKinnon attends the Naperville Community Unit School District 203, where a recent middle school track meet garnered controversy when a transgender girl won several events.
McKinnon said sports in the district should be separated by biological sex “to make it fair for everyone,” adding she was “standing up” for the girls who competed at the track meet.
“They worked really hard to get there, and a boy just came in and got first,” McKinnon said.
Debates in Naperville have been ongoing since the May 19 middle school track meet. Since then, every board meeting has been dominated by the subject, with dozens of parents and community members speaking their minds on the issue.
“This isn’t bullying, this isn’t harassment, this isn’t transphobic. What this is is undermining every effort by women and saying it’s okay and saying it’s fair,” Lily Flavin, a sophomore at Naperville North, said during a June 2 board meeting.
During the same meeting, Tim Rhodes, a Christian pastor and district member, asked “what is fairness in sports?”
“What if another kid is older, or bigger, or heavier, or lighter? Excluding girls who are trans hurts all girls,” Rhodes said. “Exclusion invites gender policing that could subject any girl to invasive tests or accusations of being too masculine or too good at her sport, or that to be a real girl.”
Other community members noted more concern with the way the debate was unfolding, pointing to an excess of national attention on specific children.
“Let’s be clear, there are good-faith arguments to be had about integrating trans athletes into sports. But this wasn’t a discussion. This was a smear campaign, a lynching, a coordinated effort to shame and endanger a teenager,” speaker Peter Rivera said.
Rivera was referring to an organization called Awake Illinois, a nonprofit organization advocating against gender transition procedures for minors. The organization filed a federal civil rights complaint against the Naperville Community Unit School District 203 over the track meet.
Research on the subject is mixed. A study published in academic journal Sports Medicine found no statistical distinction between cisgender and transgender athletes, and another published in British Journal of Sports Medicine found that transgender athletes are at a physical disadvantage.
However, this data is focused on elite adult athletes, rather than children. There is no existing conclusive scientific evidence on whether trans athletes are at a statistical advantage or disadvantage in children’s sports.
The actual number of transgender girls in girls’ sports is also unknown. Approximately 1% of teenagers identify as transgender, and many of them do not play sports, according to a study published by the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.
American Civil Liberties Union spokesperson Gillian Branstetter told Newsweek that Save Women’s Sports, a leading voice in the bid to ban transgender athletes from competing in girls’ sports, identified only five transgender athletes nationwide competing on girls’ teams in K-12 school sports.
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Author: Kristina Watrobski
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