What are we telling our girls who stand before the Maine State Judiciary Committee and cry foul? Are we in agreement that they can't compete with trans girls, many of whom are undergoing gender reassignment therapies? These treatments require taking female hormones that change the transforming physique and reduce muscle mass. We're teaching these indignant cis girls that they are less than boys and trans girls and need special treatment.

High school sports have never been about fairness. If sports contests were fair, everybody would come across the finish line at the same time.

Short stout fellows like me would not be seen as having any kind of advantage over athletic girls. In my case, it was not a fair contest. I have never been any good at sports. I did participate. I ran in cross country races with girls and was handily beaten by 90% of them! Was that fair? I tried hard! And I went back over and over to participate in the sport without thinking I could get any sympathy for my physique. Simply because I was a male, I was supposed to have some advantage. Of course, high school athletics are not about being a winner or loser. It would have been an awful lot of fun to have won something. But it never happened, and I survived to be 66 years old and have had a pretty good life.

Ninety-nine out of a 100 kids playing high school sports will not win. I'm more concerned about their development as human beings than I am by the rare plastic trophy setting on a dusty bookshelf.

When I was in high school, we all swayed and sang along with openly gay Freddie Mercury at our sporting events: "We are the Champions.” Though it was a time of reprehensible homophobia, none questioned the lyric as Freddie included himself in the words, "We are the champions, no time for losers, for we are the champions, my friend." His song is about the contest, not the winner, and we all knew it.

Marshall Rolerson lives in Waldo