Boy Believes He's a Girl, Defeats Girls at Connecticut State Championships. Actual Girl too Afraid to Say Anything About it.
Let’s talk about fair for a moment.
A Connecticut freshman boy who identifies as a girl, who as of April had not had sex reassignment surgery or taken hormone and puberty blockers, was allowed to compete against girls in the Connecticut high school Class M state championships, where he won both the 100-meter and 200-meter dashes with times that would not have even finished last in the boys’ same events.
Cromwell's Andraya Yearwood is a state champion in the 100 dash. Ran 12.66 to win in 1st appearance at Class M Championships. #cttrack pic.twitter.com/8RELfAEeLF
— Courant HS Sports (@CTHSSports) May 30, 2017
What makes the matter poignant is that the girl who won the girls 100-meter dash Class M state title last year as a sophomore, and finished second to transgender sprinter Andraya Yearwood in the 100 and third in the 200 this year, knew she couldn’t say what she truly felt because of political correctness.
Kate Hall, from Stonington High School, told the Hartford Courant:
It's frustrating. But that's just the way it is now ... I can't really say what I want to say, but there's not much I can do about it. You can't blame anyone. Her times were slowing during the season. If I ran my best race, I could have won. I didn't. I hadn't felt good the last three days, but there are no excuses. From what I know she is really nice and that's all that matters. She's not rude and obnoxious.
Yearwood, on the other hand, chortled to the Day after winning both events, “It feels really good. I’m really happy to win both titles. I kind of expected it. I’ve always gotten first, so I expected it to some extent. … I’m really proud of it.”
Stonington coach Ben Bowne told the Courant, “Kate was emotional. She works really hard. She’s a very competitive athlete. She hates losing to anybody. I’ve just told her all year run your best. If this girl has better times than you, she’s going to help you as a runner. That’s what we focused on.”
The Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference leaves gender-identity cases to local school districts, as the Courant has reported:
The CIAC defers to the determination of the student and his or her local school regarding gender identification. According to the CIAC handbook, it is fundamentally unjust and contrary to applicable state and federal law to preclude a student from participation on a gender specific sports team that is consistent with the public gender identity of that student.
Yearwood’s father Rahsaan, who played college football, told the Courant:
There are guys who were 350 pounds. It wasn’t fair that as a 225-pound linebacker, they came to block me, but that’s the nature of the beast … As her father, I never think about it as competition. This is not about winning and losing races. This is about the health of my teenage daughter. In terms of the fairness aspect, I don’t think about that as a father. I only think about, is my daughter happy, healthy and able to participate in what she wants to do? I don’t care if she wins or loses. I don’t care if she wins and gives the medals back. She got to compete as a girl where she feels she should compete. That’s all that matters to me.
He added that in June, Andraya will begin consultations about hormone treatment.
Ngozi Nnaji, Yearwood’s mother, told the Courant, "I know they’ll say it is unfair and not right, but my counter to that is: Why not? She is competing and practicing and giving her all and performing and excelling based on her skills. Let that be enough. Let her do that, and be proud of that."
Yearwood ran the 100-meter final in 12.66 seconds and the 200-meter final in 26.08. The last-place finishers in the boys’ 100-meter and 200-meter dashes, Shayne Beckloff and Terrance Gallishaw, finished the races in 11.73 seconds and 25.59 seconds, respectively, according to The Stream.
