A trans-identifying male teen won a high school girls cross country championship in Maine on Saturday, beating the runner-up by nearly a minute and a half.
Soren Stark-Chessa, who identifies as female, won the Class C South girls’ title at Twin Brook Recreation Area just north of Portland, Maine. Stark-Chessa is a sophomore at Maine Coast Waldorf School in nearby Freeport.
The 15-year-old finished the 3.1-mile course in 19 minutes and 17 seconds, a minute and 22 seconds faster than the second-place finisher. High school sophomore Grace Alexander finished second with a time of 20 minutes and 40 seconds.
The teen boy had a solid lead of about 20 seconds after the first mile and continued to increase his lead over the rest of the race.
“I think I came out a little strong but just kept pushing through it and I’m happy with it,” Stark-Chessa told the Portland Press Herald.
Last year, Stark-Chessa competed in the boys’ division of the C South race and finished 14th with a time of 19 minutes, 36 seconds, the fastest freshman.
Overall, last year, he reportedly ranked 172nd in the state in the boys’ 5k division.
When he switched to competing against girls this year, however, he quickly rose to 4th place in the girls’ division.
Last month, Stark-Chessa was accused from the sidelines of “cheating” as he ran a girls’ 5k cross-country competition, finishing fifth.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE DAILY WIRE APP
“Way to cheat, bro!” one person reportedly yelled several times as the teen sprinted to the finish line.
High school senior Haley Williams finished in third place behind Stark-Chessa on Saturday. As a sophomore and junior, she had finished second.
Williams called it “unfair” to have Stark-Chessa competing against her in the girls’ races, saying she knew she would likely not do better than second place “because as you probably know there is a runner that identifies as female, and they were running the boys’ race last year, and they decided to run the girls’ race this year.”
“And it’s really, it’s very upsetting to me because I’ve worked my butt off all year,” Williams told the Portland Press Herald.
She added that she is “totally supportive with everyone being whoever they want to be, but I feel like when you put people born male in girls’ races, it’s just genetically unfair.”
In 2021, Maine legislators tried to ban trans-identifying male athletes from competing against girls in school sports, but two bills on the issue failed.