It’s hard to overstate how hateful President Donald Trump’s rhetoric concerning transgender individuals has been, especially since taking office again.

In addition to denouncing “DEI” in his first-day executive order — resulting in temporarily scrubbing figures like the Tuskegee Airmen, heroes of World War II and Jackie Robinson, who broke baseball’s “color line,” from the Pentagon’s website — the president has taken particular aim at transgenderism.

He’s tried to expel those identifying as “trans” from the military — currently blocked by federal courts — and remove that option from U.S. passports. Trump asserts that “scientifically” all people are male and female, making one wonder whether same-sex attraction will be his next target.

The facts are different. Transgenderism has existed for centuries. People have “passed” as male (or female), just as Blacks — facing massive discrimination in prior centuries — “passed” as white if they were light-skinned or of mixed ancestry.

Biologically, some people are born with mixed characteristics and many more believe they’re in the wrong body. A tolerant society committed to non-discrimination would accept these individual decisions, and Trump’s denunciations would have no purchase. That’s not Trump’s world. As a transgender Waterville City Council member who resigned his seat said eloquently, when Trump took office “the very first act that the new leader of the free world did was to tell me I didn’t exist.”

Trump then ambushed Maine Gov. Janet Mills Feb. 21 at a White House luncheon by claiming Maine was violating Title IX of the 1964 federal Civil Rights Act by allowing those previously identifying as boys to compete as girls in high school sports. Mills responded that Maine’s policies conform to the state Human Rights Act, as amended in 2021, to prohibit discrimination based on “sex, sexual orientation or gender identity.” She challenged Trump’s interpretation, and said, “See you in court.”

The situation has deteriorated. State Rep. Laurel Libby, R-Auburn, posted online photos of a transgender athlete who won a state pole vault title, was censured by the House, and under a recent rules change barred from speaking or voting on the floor. Trump exploited this incident because, while most Americans accept transgender individuals, they don’t feel the same about transgender competitors in women’s athletics.

To understand why, we must focus on the landmark Civil Rights Act’s provisions in Title IX creating a separate class, girls and women, for athletics.

The Civil Rights Act aimed to eliminate legalized segregation — Jim Crow — that dominated not only the old Confederacy and border states, but — for race-segregated public schools — states like Oklahoma, Wyoming, New Mexico and Kansas.

Women’s rights to non-discrimination were equally clear, but with Title IX’s exception for physical inequality. There’s no doubt most women do not possess the strength and speed of men in many sports. Although “separate” practices usually mean “unequal,” Title IX has allowed women’s athletics to flourish. In basketball, soccer and volleyball women sometimes achieve parity in attention and acclaim if not yet in salaries.

Proponents of the Maine Human Rights Act amendment should have recognized there would be conflicts.

The first publicized incident came in the 2023 Class C South cross-country meet, when Soren Stark-Chessa of Freeport, 14th among boys the previous year, easily won the girls’ race. Stark-Chessa’s nearest competitor, Haley Williams of Winthrop, had hoped to win but knew she stood no chance. “It’s really upsetting to me because I’ve worked my butt off all year,” she told a reporter.

Williams added, “I’m totally supportive with everyone being whoever they want to be, but I feel like when you put people born male in girls’ races, it’s just genetically unfair.”

This year, following Trump’s denunciations, the pole vaulting championship got far more notice.

A Greely High School athlete who switched teams and won hasn’t consented to be publicly identified, but second-place finisher Kessa Benner has.

In an op-ed in the pages, she echoes Haley Williams’ comments, starting with warmups: “It was a mix of devastation and anger as I watched my new competitor sprint down the runway with speed I did not have; jump with a force I could never gain; and push the pole with muscles that, no matter how much I worked out, I would never build.”

In the poisoned atmosphere created largely by Trump, it will be difficult to resolve this apparent conflict between state and federal policy; the courts are the right venue. Yet this much should be clear: Just because Trump might have a point about women’s athletics, he has no right to vilify transgender people, illegally withhold Maine’s federal funding or conduct bogus “investigations” with a predetermined outcome.

Like everything about this lawless presidency, there’s far more heat than light. Patience may be all we have left, however thin the comfort.

Correction (March 28, 2025): A previous version of this column misidentified the 2023 cross-country race won by Soren Stark-Chessa.