One snowy day many years ago, my son and daughter went out sledding on my neighbor’s hill. I hadn’t seen Greg in a while, so I wandered over to say hello. Children were dragging their sleds up to the top of the hill. My own two children were still at the bottom. Greg bent over to help one small child get back into position for another exhilarating slide. Looking at this child’s sweet face encircled in a woolen cap, I said to Greg, “And who is this beautiful girl?”

Greg looked at me angrily, and said, with a determined tone, “That’s my son, Christopher.” I was completely mortified and embarrassed. I was sure I was looking at the face of a little girl. I felt like I had insulted Greg with my error. I tried reminding myself that I hadn’t seen Christopher or his older brother in a while, so I really couldn’t be blamed for not knowing him by sight.

In the ensuing years Greg and I enjoyed a great relationship as neighbors. We were different from each other in many significant ways, but we had mutual respect and admiration for one another. Greg was a mechanic who built two successful businesses from scratch; I started out as an architect and became a teacher. We looked out for each other’s houses when we were each away. We chatted over the fence. We discussed neighborhood issues, and we helped solve them, and we had each other’s backs. I took down my threatening tree; he defended me from a neighbor who wanted to pick a fight over a parking place.

About 10 years after the embarrassing issue on the sledding hill, Greg and I were having a Saturday morning conversation across the fence. I asked him how his two boys were doing. Greg told me in that conversation that Christopher had transitioned, that Christopher was now Christine. I was surprised but realized I had seen those many years ago perfectly clearly.

“All she ever wanted was to be a girl,” Greg said, meaning since early childhood. I can only begin to imagine the long journey that Greg and Christine, Christine’s brother, and Christine’s mother went through. Talking with Greg, I realized he was a man who had traveled very far and was the better for it.

So, this is what I want to say to any of you who are busy chasing the shiny object of anti-trans executive orders, and the “unfairness” of trans athletes: stop. You don’t know what you are talking about.

The trans-athlete ban is a shiny object meant to distract from other very serious things going on in the dismantling of democracy. It is also pointedly cruel, and that’s the point. It is also pointless, since there are only 10 trans athletes out of 510,000 in the entire NCAA. The odds of one girl “losing” to a trans athlete are quite small. The odds of a 5-foot-2-inch girl “losing” to one who is 5-foot-11 are likely much higher. The anti-trans arguments are bogus and that’s also the point.

The population of trans people is very small. This population can be easily mischaracterized, misunderstood, vilified and attacked. This group’s civil rights can be stripped away. Once that is accomplished, once public figures and politicians, like Rep. Laurel Libby, R-Auburn, have stood on the plank of supporting anti-trans legislation, it becomes easier to go after other identifiable groups, like gay people, people with disabilities, non-whites, religious minorities, and then strip their civil rights, too. After that, civil rights are gone for all of us.

If you don’t think that is where this is going, you haven’t paid enough attention to history.