[text in image: #if u read the article #she hasn't even lost yet #she just assumes people she struggled against #are trans #like #she literally just invents hordes of trans students competing in women's sports]
the tags above actually aren’t true, and i think we can, and should, dispute this argument without misrepresenting it: the op-ed in question states that chelsea mitchell “lost four women’s state championship titles, two all-new england awards, and numerous other spots on the podium to transgender runners,” and “was bumped to third place in the 55-meter dash in 2019, behind two transgender runners,” although i have to say i find the choice of verb there pretty fascinating—‘was bumped,’ mitchell writes, as though she were a royal who’d been demoted from the position she believed to be her birthright, and not merely a runner who hadn’t run fast enough that day to earn it.
really, i think a more salient point here is one i’ve seen others make before, which is that ultimately, biological advantages are the name of the athletic game—as someone who’s 5′6″, i was never going to have the mechanical advantage of rowers who were 5′9″, 5′11″, even 6′ in some cases. that’s just physics! should i have turned around and said, the women outperforming me don't count as women, they're too tall and i’m going to sue to have them excluded from competing with me on that basis? what a gross, pathetic move that would have been.
as one of the trans girls who beat mitchell in that 2019 race, andraya yearwood, observed at the time: “one high jumper could be taller and have longer legs than another, but the other could have perfect form, and then do better,” she said. “one sprinter could have parents who spend so much money on personal training for their child, which in turn, would cause that child to run faster.” there are an enormous number of factors that shape athletic performance, and very few of them correlate directly to so-called ‘biological sex’—i’m AFAB, and plenty of cis men are shorter or slighter than i am, including classmates i had in high school.
but if we’re talking about testosterone, which tends to be at the heart of athletic gatekeeping: both yearwood and terry miller (the other trans girl mitchell is subtweeting) had started HRT before ever lining up against cis girls, and had, according to court documentation submitted by the ACLU, “circulating hormones... comparable to the hormone levels of non-transgender girls.” what’s more, as the ACLU motion further specifies, neither yearwood nor miller were undefeated in their track careers, nor did either have dominant race times among high school girls nationally—in fact, mitchell herself beat both yearwood and miller at the connecticut state championship in 2020! so clearly the supposedly-insurmountable advantage enjoyed by transfeminine athletes is in fact wholly surmountable, and arguments to the contrary nothing but petulant, entitled prejudice.
but enough of all this—let’s end on a sweeter note. here are miller and yearwood in 2019, at an awards ceremony honoring them for their courage:
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