A transgender-identifying male, competing under the name “Katie,” from Cumberland’s Greely High School, came out on top in the girls’ pole vault competition on Monday during the Maine Indoor Track Meet at Bates College.
[RELATED: Maine to Continue to Allow Boys to Compete in Girls Sports in Defiance of Trump Executive Order…]
The student is a biological male who previously competed in boys’ pole-vaulting as a mid-level athlete. Since identifying as a girl, “Katie” has been allowed to compete against female students.
At Monday’s meet, “Katie” jumped 11 feet, a mediocre score for boys, but within just one inch of Maine’s girls’ pole-vault champion, who set an 11-foot, one-inch record last year at the National Pole Vault Summit.
He jumped a full eight inches higher than the second-place winner among the girls.
At the same competition, the winning boy jumped 14 feet, while Katie’s score would have put him in 10th place alongside the other boys.
The student’s participation in the event came in opposition to an executive order issued by President Donald Trump earlier this month threatening to pull federal funds from schools that allow males to compete in women’s sports.
The Maine Wire previously spoke to a Scarborough High School coach, Allen Cornwall, who recused himself from judging an earlier pole-vault competition because he objects to the school’s continuing to allow “Katie” to compete against girls despite President Trump’s executive action at the federal level.
“They’re [“Katie”] going to be the conference champion, quote unquote girls Conference champion. They’ll be the quote unquote girls state champion for the class B athlete. And these girls that have been competing for years, working towards this, are just being sidelined, and it’s really disgusting,” said Cornwall.
While Maine schools continue to allow transgender-identifying males to compete against girls for the time being, it remains to be seen whether they will be able to continue the practice should it cause them to lose federal funding.
