Tranny sprinters finish 1st, 2nd at Connecticut girls indoor track championships

[Barb May]

NEW HAVEN, Conn. — Andraya Yearwood hears the comments, usually
from adults and usually not to his face.

He shouldn’t be running, they say, not against girls.

Yearwood, a 17-year-old junior at Cromwell High School, is one of
two transgender high school sprinters in Connecticut, transitioning
to female.

He recently finished second in the 55-meter dash at the state open
indoor track championships. The winner, Terry Miller of Bloomfield
High, is also transgender and set a girls state indoor record of
6.95 seconds. Yearwood finished in 7.01 seconds and the third-place
competitor, who is not transgender, finished in 7.23 seconds.

Miller and Yearwood also topped the 100-meter state championships
last year, and Miller won the 300 this season.

Critics say their gender identity amounts to an unfair advantage,
expressing a familiar argument in a complex debate for transgender
athletes as they break barriers across sports around the world from
high school to the pros.

“I have learned a lot about myself and about other people through
this transition. I always try to focus most on all of the positive
encouragement that I have received from family, friends and
supporters,” Yearwood said. “I use the negativity to fuel myself
to run faster.”

Connecticut is one of 17 states that allow transgender high school
athletes to compete without restrictions, according to
Transathlete.com, which tracks state policies in high school sports
across the country. Seven states have restrictions that make it
difficult for transgender athletes to compete while in school, like
requiring athletes to compete under the gender on their birth
certificate, or allowing them to participate only after going
through sex-reassignment procedures or hormone therapies.

The other states either have no policy or handle the issue on a
case-by-case basis.

Yearwood acknowledges he is stronger than many of her cisgender
competitors, but says girls who are not transgender may have other
advantages.

“One high jumper could be taller and have longer legs than another,
but the other could have perfect form, and then do better,” he 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.”

Miller, who declined to be interviewed for this story, has said that
if she felt a competitor had an unfair advantage, it would simply
push her to try to improve.

One of their competitors, Selina Soule, says the issue is about
fairness on the track with wider implications. The Glastonbury High
School junior finished eighth in the 55, missing out on qualifying
for the New England regionals by two spots.

Soule believes that had Miller and Yearwood not run, she would be
on her way to race in Boston in front of more college coaches.

“We all know the outcome of the race before it even starts; it’s
demoralizing,” she said. “I fully support and am happy for these
athletes for being true to themselves. They should have the right
to express themselves in school, but athletics have always had
extra rules to keep the competition fair.”

The Connecticut Association of Schools-Connecticut Interscholastic
Athletic Conference, which governs high school sports in
Connecticut, says its policy follows a state anti-discrimination
law that says students must be treated in school by the gender with
which they identify.

“This is about someone’s right to compete,” executive director Glenn
Lungarini said. “I don’t think this is that different from other
classes of people, who, in the not too distant past, were not
allowed to compete. I think it’s going to take education and
understanding to get to that point on this issue.”

Joanna Harper, a medical physicist and transgender runner from
Portland, Oregon, says the issue isn’t that simple. She believes
there needs to be a standard based on hormone levels.

Until hormone therapies begin to work, genetic males have a distinct
advantage over genetic females, she said. Most transgender teens
don’t begin hormone therapy until after puberty. Younger teens can
be on puberty-blocking drugs, but puberty is very individualized
and testosterone levels can vary greatly from one transgender girl
to another, she said.

“The gender identity doesn’t matter, it’s the testosterone levels,”
said Harper, who studies transgender athletes. “Trans girls should
have the right to compete in sports. But cisgender girls should
have the right to compete and succeed, too. How do you balance that?
That’s the question.”

Yearwood is hoping to qualify for this year’s National Scholastic
Athletics Foundation national championships in March. The group
recently adopted new rules allowing pre-pubescent girls to
participate with their affirmed gender, though no ages are
specified. Post-pubescent transgender girls must have completed
sex-reassignment surgery and “a sufficient amount of time must have
passed” after the operation or hormone therapy “to minimize gender-related competitive advantages.”

Transgender girls who are not taking hormone treatments related to
gender transition may not compete in female competitions, the
organization said.

Jon Forrest, whose daughter is teammates with Soule, is among a
group of parents seeking a similar change to Connecticut’s state
policy.

He said they’d like to see the state adopt a hormone standard or
allow transgender girls to run with other girls but have their
results placed in a separate exhibition category.

“The facts show Glastonbury would be the state champion based on
cisgender girls competing against cisgender girls,” he said. “You
don’t realize it until you see it in person, the disparity in the
ability to perform.”

Lungarini said the state organization is not in a position to
perform hormone testing of athletes and simply relies on the
schools to tell them who identifies as male or female.

Yearwood’s coach, Brian Calhoun, said his runner also matters. As
Yearwood kneeled behind a teammate, braiding her hair between races
at another recent meet, Calhoun said the track team and community
have provided the runner with a safe, welcoming place to be.

“There’s never been an issue in our town,” he said. “These kids,
many of them have known Andraya since elementary school. They know
who she is. So when she signed up, the attitude was: ‘OK, Andraya
is running with the girl’s team. Here we go.’”


https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/feb/24/terry-miller-andraya-yearwood-transgender-sprinter/

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Barb