Ray Mariano: Transgender children need support, not hate

If you’re like most people, attending high school was a confusing and occasionally terrifying time - trying to fit in, summoning the courage to ask someone on a date, all of it. Even decades later, just the thought of certain situations can cause anxiety.

Now try imagining that you’re a teenager who feels trapped inside a body that doesn’t match up with who you feel you are.

The typical teenager looks in the mirror and gets freaked out by acne. Now try imagining looking at yourself and hating the body that you are being forced to live in.

Hopefully, you would be able to summon the courage to tell someone - a parent or other trusted adult. Then, even if you are lucky enough to have supportive parents and friends, you still have a daunting gantlet of challenges that could break the spirit of even the very strongest person. And you’re only a teenager.

Absolutely no one has ever wanted to be trapped in this kind of nightmare. But there are still people who believe that transgender is a choice.

Think about it. Transgender children are more likely to experience anxiety and depression, and are at a greater risk of substance abuse, homelessness and suicide, not to mention ridicule, bullying and rejection by the people they care about. I’m surprised there isn’t a longer line to sign up.

Most of the people that I know want to be supportive. They realize that these children face incredible obstacles. Unfortunately, we have a group of lawmakers, motivated by the cheers of the mindless, who propose and sometimes pass laws intended to make an incredibly difficult and painful situation even more difficult.

In the last two years, more than 20 states have passed bills regulating the lives of transgender children and adolescents. The worst of these laws limit or ban gender-affirming health care for transgender youth. Rather than protect these young people, their actions threaten their lives.

The behavior of these officials is a national disgrace. And some of these lawmakers actually want to lead our country.

Nikki Haley and the other haters

For some politicians, it’s a mad race to the bottom to see who can be the most hateful.

Former South Carolina governor and now hapless presidential candidate Nikki Haley has catapulted herself to near the top of this shameful group by suggesting that the reason we have so many teenage girls who consider suicide is because transgender kids might be playing on one of the girls’ sports teams. She proclaimed it “the woman’s issue of our times.”

I’ve spent a lifetime watching people run for office saying some pretty ridiculous things - making things up just to get people’s attention and maybe a few more votes. But this has a special place in the pantheon of disgraceful pandering.

Researcher and medical physicist Joanna Harper estimates that the number of transgender student athletes competing in any college sport, male or female, is less than 100 - less than two per state.

As it relates to public schools, where most of the legislative vitriol has been directed, Save Women’s Sports, an organization that advocates banning transgender athletes from competing in girls’ sports, has identified only five transgender athletes competing on girls’ teams in school sports grades K through 12 in the entire country. That’s essentially no one.

So let me get this straight. Haley, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the other 13th-century troupe of Dark Ages court jesters want to change laws for the entire country because of five transgender athletes in high school, but they don’t want to change our gun laws to protect the hundreds of children slaughtered by gun violence.

In other words, they feel compelled to change the laws because there is an infinitesimally small chance that little Maribeth might not get a championship trophy but they are less compelled watching hundreds of parents order caskets for their dead children.

By the way, my money is on Maribeth.

My daughter played softball though college. While in high school, she made recruiting visits to a number of colleges. On one visit, we entered the gymnasium and I saw a female athlete who seemed to be about 6’ 6”. She looked like she could lift me over her head. Tell me the difference between competing against that woman who was more than a foot taller than my daughter and an average-sized male who stands about 5’ 10”?

But that’s really not the point.

Children who find themselves with a body that doesn’t match their identity aren’t trying to find a competitive advantage in athletics. They are just trying to live their lives and fit into a society that seems determined not to let them. Does anyone anywhere think someone would put themselves through that hell just so that they might get a trophy? Give me a break.

These same shameless politicians raise the specter of transgender students preying on unsuspecting girls in the school bathroom. They never tell you that numerous studies have found that the only people in danger in those bathrooms are the transgender students.

Imagine what you would do if one of your children or grandchildren came home and told you that they were a transgender girl or boy. Wouldn’t you want them to live the best life possible? Wouldn’t you do everything in your power to support them? And wouldn’t you let them know, every minute of the day, that they were loved, respected and cherished for who they are?

That’s exactly how we should treat them.

Email Raymond V. Mariano at rmariano.telegram@gmail.com. He served four terms as mayor of Worcester and previously served on the City Council and School Committee. He grew up in Great Brook Valley and holds degrees from Worcester State College and Clark University. He was most recently executive director of the Worcester Housing Authority. His column appears weekly in the Sunday Telegram.

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Raymond Mariano column on transgender children needing love, not hate