Recently, my social media feed has been brimming over with hateful actions toward trans people, including trans children. This year, the federal government has already put forward 21 anti-trans bills addressing issues such as health care, sports, bathroom access, education and the military.

Recently, Rep. Laurel Libby, R-Auburn, used her Facebook platform to post a picture and the school of a trans girl who had won a track event. We are made to believe that the most serious threats to our way of life are coming in the form of trans athletes.

It stings to lose a close athletic contest, no doubt, and that competitive spirit is vital to advancing girls’ participation and success in women’s sports. The current popularity of women’s sports with the surge of WNBA and women’s college basketball viewership, the creation of a (as of yet unreported on by this paper) 3 v. 3 basketball league, Unrivaled, and equal pay guarantees finally won for the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team are wonderful markers of the progress women, particularly in sports, have long deserved.

And yet, we are made to demonize the one trans athlete who made the podium at a Maine State Class B track meet. We are told this is a grave injustice to all females and an extreme example of anti-feminism run wild. We are made to think this is a norm and that trans girls are storming in to knock our cis girls back into the dark ages of sport. The NCAA recently ruled that only student athletes assigned female at birth can participate in women’s sports. There are around 500,000 NCAA student athletes, and it is estimated that fewer than 10 are trans women.

We are being bombarded with pseudo-facts to make us believe this is a huge issue that needs our immediate action. The specious claim that these actions are being done in an effort to protect girls and women rings hollow in a country where Equal Pay Day, when women make the same amount of money for the same job as men do in a year, doesn’t fall until the end of March, where maternal death rates soar above all other high-income countries, where access to safe and legal abortion care is no longer guaranteed, and where even our highest executive feels comfortable minimizing and slandering them.

I get it; it stinks to lose. Those girls have worked hard and competed all season to try to win the event and the meet. The loss will certainly sting. But the perspective changes a bit when considering certain facts.

More than half of transgender youth are losing or risk losing vital access to appropriate health care. Around half of transgender youth consider suicide each year, with up to 20% making suicide attempts. Almost 40% of transgender youth report being physically harmed or bullied. Trans kids also face elevated levels of exclusion, miss more days of school due to it being an unsafe environment for them and experience higher levels of homelessness, drug use and rape.

I hope all of our elected representatives will continue to work toward enacting real protections and advances for girls and women — just not by trying to distract us with mean-spirited bullying of kids on non-issues. Look for who is really pushing us off of the podium.