Tolkkinen: Transgender athletes should not compete with girls, but everyone deserves a place to play

From Hibbing to Owatonna, Alexandria to Wayzata and places in between, some school board members are urging Minnesota leaders to officially end transgender participation in girls sports.

“I do not believe that biological males should be playing in biological female sports,” said Dave Wall, chair of the Bemidji school board, who signed a letter supporting that change but emphasized that he was not speaking for the entire board. “It’s just common sense. It’s the way it’s always been that once boys hit that age of changing and getting stronger and that type of thing. Males and females are just different.”

Nobody knows how common transgender participation in girls sports is in this state, but it does happen. The Trump administration is alleging it was an issue in the state softball tourney this past summer. Earlier this year, the Minnesota Star Tribune featured two transgender athletes, including one who said she felt at one point that she should hold back while competing.

In greater Minnesota, where most counties voted for President Donald Trump, transgender rights are a hot-button issue, especially the participation of transgender girls in girls sports. It is one of the issues that has tipped rural voters away from the Democratic Party and into the arms of conservatives, even though conservative policies often hurt rural communities.

Part of what’s driving the opposition to transgender rights is simply that some haven’t tried to understand it. They believe that God created humans male and female and that even trying to understand would go against God’s will. Given that 1 in 5 people born between 1997 and 2006 identify as LGBTQ, according to a Gallup poll, some fear that a corrupt culture is fraying traditional gender and sexual lines.

Frankly, I believe that people are who they say they are. The transgender people I know in greater Minnesota are simply fellow human beings who are happier that their bodies align with their beliefs about themselves.

But participation in girls and women’s sports goes beyond transgender rights. It interferes with the rights of girls and women to compete and to win. Often attention focuses on the winners and the standout players. For instance, a California transgender girl outjumped the second place finisher by 8 feet in the triple jump this summer. Less is known about the girls and women denied a chance to participate because their place was taken by a transgender athlete.

One of the key arguments for allowing transgender girls and women into female sports is inclusion. Nobody wants to be left out, and it can be heartbreaking for parents to see their transgender child excluded from a sport simply because their gender identity doesn’t line up with their physical body. They may not want to compete on a boys team because they don’t identify as a boy, so they are left with no way to play a sport, especially in rural areas where there aren’t enough athletes to make up a mixed team.

But why is it that only girls and women are having to accommodate inclusion? It’s not being asked of boys and men; transgender boys and men are simply not as strong or fast as they are. So girls and women are finding themselves in a position to either accommodate competition from athletes who benefit from biological differences or be dismissed as transphobic.

Wall is one of three Bemidji school board members who signed the letter urging swift compliance with the Trump administration’s findings that the state is violating Title IX requiring equality between male and female sports and must end transgender participation in girls sports.

I reached out to one of the Bemidji school board members who did not sign the letter. Jenny Frenzel said that she hadn’t heard about the letter and that her school district has not had any transgender athletes that she’s aware of. But that doesn’t mean she won’t sign it eventually.

“Males at birth should not be participating in girls track,” she said.

“We do have to be careful that we are thinking of every single angle when it comes to athletics and not … cutting off future endeavors,” she said.

The Trump administration cites a variety of studies in making its case against Minnesota’s policies, including a 2023 paper published in the peer-reviewed International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health that concludes that male physiology underpins superior athletic performance and that women would stand little chance of winning without gender divisions.

If the Trump administration succeeds in forcing Minnesota to change its policy, what is in store for our transgender girls? Will they be allowed to play sports at all?

Depending on where you live, there are some opportunities that don’t consider gender, such as gym class, mixed bowling and softball leagues, martial arts, sand volleyball tournaments and the like. But there is no doubt a need for more. Maybe rec centers around the state could offer regular time slots for mixed athletics.