I want to use this online space as a place to be positive and talk about ways we can all come together and make the world a better place, but today I am angry. Across the United States, we are seeing a meteoric rise in anti-LGBTQ+ legislation on the state level that is based on unearned hatred, and it is really starting to get to me.
As a member of the LGBTQ+ community, I have found myself taking this attack on my community and family very personally and seriously. I have been feeling powerless, and like this movement is too big for me to handle, so I decided to take a small scale action to try follow my own philosophy of creating large actions through Small Change.
Since mid-February, there have been two anti-trans bills introduced in the Maine State Legislature. While they have not been passed, and while this is not nearly as many hateful bills as have been introduced in other states, I still feel like this is an attack on my community from a state that I have always known to be peaceful and accepting. So, I decided to write a letter to my local representatives, Senator Jim Libby and Representative Kimberly Pomerleau of Standish, to detail my opposition to ME LD678 and ME LD930. What started out as a quick email turned into a passionate three page essay on my belief that anti-trans legislation is not only hateful, but also quite honestly ridiculous.
I am including the full text of the letter below for anyone who is interested. I hope that this will encourage you to reach out to your local representatives and fight for what you believe. You elected these people to represent you, so you should not be afraid to make your voice heard.
As always, I would love to hear from you and discuss any of my points in the letter below, so drop me a comment in the box! I will keep you posted as to whether or nor I hear back from my representatives.
Dear Representative Pomerleau and Senator Libby,
I am a resident of Standish, and I am writing to you today with major concerns about two proposed bills.
I would like to say first and foremost that I am fervently against ME LD678 and ME LD930. I think that bills targeted at trans people and especially trans students are hateful and unnecessary. Being a kid is hard, being a kid in today’s world is even harder, and being a trans kid is even harder still. As an educator, I consider it part of my job to make my students feel comfortable and included, and I don’t think we should be legislating against that. Hate has no home here in Maine.
In the case of ME LD678, I think this bill, which is meant as an attack on trans youth, will not only hurt them, but also cis hurt youth as well. The bill states that educators need parental permission to call students by a name that does not match their birth certificate. I can think of so many examples where people in my life are referred to by a name not on their birth certificate and it has nothing to do with their gender expression. My brother has been called Boomer from the womb, and likely will be until the tomb, in personal, professional, and educational settings, but he is Paul Joseph on his birth certificate because my mother wanted him to be able to run for president some day. I myself have a long first name and nearly unpronounceable last name, and have gone by Ronnie, Ron, Ronald, and even V-Dog through various phases of my life and school career, none of which are on my birth certificate. I have a friend Sierra who went through high school as C.C. (short for Crab Cakes). I have a student Abigail who goes by Bobby. None of the people in the examples above currently identify as transgender. On the other hand, my brother’s fiancée Emily, who identifies as nonbinary, still goes by Emily, the name on their birth certificate. My point is, humans are creative and love to express themselves in many different ways, including with their names, and I don’t think the law should take away that freedom of expression. So whether you want to go by Jim instead of James, or Noah instead of Nancy, I think you should have the freedom to do so without written permission from your parents.
In the case of ME LD930, I think this bill comes from not only a desire to exclude trans people from the great American tradition of sports, but also from the misguided belief that cisgender men are always better than cisgender women and therefore women need to be protected. Women’s sports were formed separately from men’s because men would not allow women to play with them, not because the women were not capable athletes. In the few cases where women were allowed to compete against men, they have shown that they are equal or better athletes. For example, when Jackie Mitchell pitched against the Yankees in 1931, she struck out both Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. It was then widely reported that her contract was voided on the grounds that baseball was supposedly too strenuous for women, despite the fact that Mitchell was playing just fine. Also, although they have never played against each other, I have a hard time believing that the US Women’s National Team would be completely outmatched and unable to compete with the Men’s National team in soccer, seeing as the US Women have won the World Cup four times and the US Men have never been to the finals. Women are very capable athletes, and the idea that cisgender women cannot compete with men or transgender women is honestly ridiculous.
This focus on gender segregation by sports based on gender essentialism is hurting cisgender women along with transgender women. Saying that only athletes of female gender can compete in women’s sports means we have to qualify what it means to be female, and those qualifications are excluding cisgender women as well. Namibian runners Christine Mboma and Beatrice Masilingi were both disqualified from competing at the 2021 Olympics for having naturally high testosterone levels because of a rule designed to keep trans athletes out of women’s sports. Why are female athletes disqualified for high natural testosterone levels while male athletes are allowed to have testosterone levels all over the board? Research shows that within a group of elite male athletes, the ones with high testosterone levels are not guaranteed to outperform those with lower levels, nor is testosterone level an indicator of victory. This is still a field in athletics that is under research. However, if the new norm is to remove athletes from competition due to a supposed biological advantage that their competitors don’t share, then why has Michael Phelps been allowed to compete for so long with his double-jointed elbows and his lower level of lactic acid production, both clear biological advantages that his competitors do not possess?
I’m not saying that Michael Phelps should no be allowed to compete in sports. I think everyone should have the chance to compete in sports if they want to, including trans people competing with the gender they identify with. Some bodies, like Michael Phelps’s body, are better built for sports and give those athletes a competitive advantage. This is why on average, you see more tall basketball players, or heavy linebackers, or long-legged runners. However, athletics is about more than natural biological advantage: it’s about heart. This is where all of the great underdog stories come from, athletes that didn’t have perfect bodies but worked hard and beat the odds. If great sports performance is truly linked solely to biological advantage, then how did Tom Brady become the GOAT after that legendary slow sprint at the NFL Combine?
When I was little, I played sports with Standish Recreation. I was on baseball teams with my brother and other boys and girls, and I had lofty ambitions of being a ballerina and a pitcher for the Boston Red Sox. I never considered that that was something I couldn’t do because of my gender. I didn’t play baseball for very long, not because I wasn’t as capable as the boys, but because it turns out I’m not very passionate about catching or throwing things, and that’s ok. But I remember going to my brother’s baseball games and wondering where all the girls were. When they told me that girls played softball instead, little me didn’t like that at all: there was no grass on the softball field, the pitching was under hand, and the ball was too big. I didn’t understand why the girls didn’t just play with the boys, and part of me still doesn’t understand.
I think this is part of the reason why this bill LD930 was written to ban trans women from women’s sports rather than trans men from men’s sports. I think the authors of this bill are transphobic, exclusionary, and wrong, and I also believe they are misogynistic. With the wording of this bill, they are not only trying to vilify trans women who just want to participate in the human activity of sports without judgement or exclusion, but also imply that because trans men were born with female bodies, they are therefore considered unable to compete with men anyway, so why bother to legislate against them? I think that sports is due for a huge restructuring, one that values female athletes and sees them as competitive with males. There is a lot of work to be done in this field, but despite that I see no reason why trans athletes should not be allowed to compete in women’s sports. I think it’s always better to be inclusive of people than to exclude them, and if even one kid gets to feel the positive effect of competing on a sports team with their identified gender then I think it is worth it.
In conclusion, as both an educator and a member of the LGBTQ+ community, I oppose the idea of limiting the social participation and expression of trans students in our schools. I think that LD678 is both hateful and ridiculous, and that LD930 is not only hateful to trans women, but also reeks of misogyny. Hate and misogyny have no place in Maine, and neither do these bills.
I am currently working out of the country but I would be happy to meet with you via Zoom to further discuss these topics. I look forward to your response. Thank you for your time and careful consideration of these issues.
Veronica Druchniak
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