A trans-identifying male runner from a private Maine high school was called out as a cheater when he crossed the finish line. The sophmore recently switched to the women’s category after barely ranking last year as a freshmen in the district.
It happened on Saturday during the girls 5k cross-country competition at the Maine XC Festival of Champions, in Belfast, where Soren Stark-Chessa finished fifth and is now ranked fourth in the district — after the high school runner previously was 172nd in the district in boy’s competitions when Stark-Chessa competed as a boy the year before, the Daily Mail reported.
“Way to cheat, bro!” one person yelled several times as the high school student sprinted to the finish.
“It is not fair to a female who has trained hard,” one female runner told journalist Shawn McBreairty. “Males are biologically faster than females, with testosterone. They need to run under their biological gender.”
One mom, whose children compete in track events in Maine, said, “Men are simply larger, faster, and stronger than their female counterparts. To compare, the top ranked female high school runner in all of New England would only be ranked 47th among high school boys in Maine.
One father, whose kids compete in high school cross country races, called it the “grossest of injustices.”
“If a boy competing in a sporting event were found to be using performance enhancing drugs, he would be disqualified due to the presumption of unfair competitive advantage,” the father said.
“If instead, that same boy chose to compete as a girl, he would not only not be disqualified due to his enormous presumptive competitive advantage, he would be lauded, feted and applauded,” he added.
“For the boys, it would be tragic, for it teaches them things that simply do not apply outside of the very narrow time and place in which we currently reside,” the father continued. “For the girls, it is the grossest of injustices in every conceivable way, because it forces them to participate in, and to some extent accept, something which is manifestly false. They must, like it or not, participate in the lie.”