I played No. 1 on the Mount Pleasant High School (Delaware) golf team over 60 years ago. (People who see me play today won’t believe that piece of trivia.) In the fall of 1959, our team played a match against A.I. DuPont High School. I had to play against their No. 1 golfer, a girl named Patsy Hahn. Patsy was an exceptional golfer; she won her first of many Delaware Women’s State Amateur titles when she was only 14. I had no illusions that the match would be easy, and it wasn’t. She beat me by one stroke. I was not ashamed to “lose to a girl.” I was delighted to hold my own against her.
Patsy went on to the pros and came in sixth in the U.S. Open in 1964. An injury forced her to leave the tour, but she was a successful club professional for many years.
What brought to mind my match with Patsy Hahn was the heated debate about whether trans athletes who were born male should be able to compete against women. I believe that they should not be allowed to in most sports because of their inherent physical advantage, even after various hormonal therapies. Case in point: A trans woman swimmer at the University of Pennsylvania has smashed many women’s swimming records at Penn. I’m not fine with that and neither were 15 swimmers on the Penn team who signed a petition stating their opinion. Conversely, a trans male swimmer now swims on the Harvard swim team. I’m fine with that. I was also fine with my granddaughter Sosie competing on her high school wrestling team, which included only one other girl on the roster.
I posted my opinion on my Facebook page. Most commentators agreed with me, but some of them took me to task. One of them likened the issue to African Americans not being allowed to play major league baseball or women not being allowed to run in marathons or openly gay persons not being allowed in the military. Bad analogies. Another person used the word “bigotry.”
I’m all for African Americans playing baseball and for women running in marathons and for openly gay persons serving in the military or marrying who they choose to marry or doing anything else. I’m not for giving what seems to be an unfair advantage to trans women competing against people who were born female. World Athletes, the governing body for track and field and other competitions, agrees with me.
I asked our first-year student Chloe Garcia, who plays on the Bowdoin softball team, her views. She also shares my view.
By the way, I’m all for girls and boys playing on the same teams before they hit puberty. Scientists can explain better than I can why people who are born male generally retain their physical advantage over females.
I suspect the fact that House Republicans recently approved a measure to prevent transgender women from playing on women’s sports teams helped create the heated views against my position. Be assured, I’m against House Republicans 98% of the time, but on this single issue I must agree for the aforementioned reasons. I don’t believe that my view makes me anti-women or anti-men or anti-trans.
I understand that this is a difficult issue and that emotions run strong on all sides. I would encourage those who differ with my opinion to write op-eds or letters to the paper explaining their views. Thanks.
David Treadwell, a Brunswick writer, welcomes commentary and suggestions for future “Just a Little Old” columns. dtreadw575@aol.com.
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