Education

Transgender Athletes Place First And Second In Track Championship. Fury Erupts

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Two male athletes placed first and second in Connecticut’s track championships for girls, causing anger among competitors and parents who allege that the males have an unfair advantage over their female competitors.

Terry Miller and Andraya Yearwood dominated Connecticut’s races, sweeping gold and silver medals with little competition and stirring outrage among their fellow competitors. Miller placed first in both the 100 meter and 200 meter dash while Yearwood placed second to Miller in the 100 meter dash, CBS Pittsburgh reports. Both Miller and Yearwood are biological males who identify as females.

While both students identify as transgender, neither have undergone surgeries or used hormone blockers to lower their testosterone to a level comparable to females.

The Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference (CIAC) allows athletes to compete according to their gender identity and implements no hormone testing like regulatory bodies do at the university level. The athletes must possess school records identifying them as their chosen gender, and those records must be verified by school officials to make sure the gender identification is made in good faith rather than to gain an unfair advantage.

Parents began a petition after Yearwood took first place in the women’s 100 meter dash for the second consecutive year in early June, calling on the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference (CIAC) to change its policies that allow athletes to compete according to their gender identity, the Hartford Courant reports. The petition has garnered hundreds of  signatures, and parents and athletes are clamoring even louder after and both Miller and Yearwood swept the races.

“I think it’s unfair to the girls who work really hard to do well,” said Glastonbury sophomore sprinter Selina Soule. She explained that she doesn’t think it’s fair for boys who identify as girls to race together when boys are faster and stronger than girls.

Medical research shows 80 to 95 percent of children outgrow their gender dysphoria naturally and accept their biological sex if nature takes its course. There also hasn’t been a single long-term randomized study on the effects of hormone-blocking treatments on children, and no laws govern or regulate hormone-blocker usage.

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