A high school runner in Maine who recently finished second to a transgender athlete in a school track meet is speaking out against a state lawmaker’s public attack of her opponent, calling her behavior “hateful” and “ugly.”
“I didn’t feel like first place was taken from me. Instead, I feel like a happy day was turned ugly by a bully who is using children to make political points,” Anelise Feldman of Yarmouth High School wrote of state Rep. Laurel Libby (R) in a letter to the editor published Wednesday in the Portland Press Herald.
Feldman’s competitor, Soren Stark-Chessa, won the girls 800-meter and 1,600-meter events. Though Feldman finished behind Stark-Chessa, she emphasized the value of teamwork, community, and personal improvement she receives from the sport, which she said is just as important as where athletes finish.
“Last Friday, I ran the fastest 1,600-meter race I have ever run in middle school or high school track and earned varsity status by my school’s standards,” she wrote. Her pride and joy weren’t diminished, she added, because “someone else finished in front of me.”
“No one was harmed by Soren’s participation in the girls’ track meet, but we are all harmed by the hateful rhetoric of bullies, like Rep. Libby, who want to take sports away from some kids just because of who they are,” she wrote.
