On Saturday, May 18th the Oregon School Athletic Association (OSAA) track and field championships took place at Hayward Field. The girl’s 6A 200-meters was a highly anticipated race, but not for good reason. A transgender female competitor named Aayden Gallager was racing. A race you could say was decided before the gun was even fired. As expected, Aayden won this race. This race has attracted national and state media attention but I believe it is important for an Oregon High School female athlete to share her opinion. I am not here to degrade or attack this person but simply to show the issue lies with OSAA. The OSAA has a duty to female athletes to put a stop to this. By allowing this athlete to compete, OSAA has shown a misalignment with the views and sentiments of female athletes.

OSAA’s policy, which came out in 2019, states they will allow “students to participate for the athletic or activity program of their consistently asserted gender identity while providing a fair and safe environment for all students,” and that the rule “promotes harmony and fair competition” among schools(ABC). I don’t think I have ever read a sentence that contradicts itself like this one. How can the OSAA allow transgender athletes, who possess a biological advantage, to compete while also simultaneously stating they support “fair competition”? Aster Jones, the sophomore from Roosevelt High School who had her state title stolen from her in the 200 meters, did not have “fair competition”. 

I am calling out the OSAA President Peter Weber and OSAA Title IX coordinator Missy Smith for, as I see it, failing at their job. Title IX was created to protect against sex discrimination in school and sports. Once again, girls are the ones who have to pay the price. 

People need to realize this is not a political issue. This is not Republican vs Democrat, liberal vs conservative, or trans vs cis. This competitor has biological advantages that include increased skeletal muscle mass due to larger muscle fiber cross-sectional area, especially fast, type II fibers; lower percentage body fat; higher hemoglobin concentration and mass; larger ventricular mass (heart) and cardiac volumes. These advantages must not be ignored just because OSAA officials are afraid of being labeled as transphobic. 

We high school female athletes are ready to have these conversations, however, the OSAA official’s response to public outrage is to hide in their office, delete comments, and block people on Instagram; not face the issue we have been bringing to their attention. I for one am ready for an official statement from OSAA and we should hold them to a much higher standard.

Sadly it is not just OSAA who ignores the injustices girls are facing. Recently Bill Oram wrote an article for the Oregonian titled “A transgender teen athlete’s life is not your cause”. In this article, Oram writes, “Until someone has a solution that doesn’t feel like separation and isolation, then everyone needs to grow up” (speaking to the suggestion that transgender competitors compete in their own category). First off, I suggest you read his article to further understand the destructive picture he has painted. Second, as a girl who has competed in sports all her life, Bill Oram is not one who should be allowed to speak on the female experience. Bill, how do you think you would feel lining up to race against someone with clear biological advantages? Would your morals about everything being perfectly fair stay true as you get passed in the closing meters of the race by someone with an unfair advantage? Your opinion comes from a detached observation. It is the same opinion as OSAA only Bill Oram put it into writing. OSAA’s silence signals the root of the whole issue; no one is standing up for girl’s sports! We have fought for years to get where we are today and now we are forced to watch as decisions are made without any input from the people it will directly affect. Although many people will continue to try to spin the story, I am telling you to see it for what it is; a lack of action and cooperation from OSAA to protect girls’ sports and a robbery of fair competition.