Keep party politics out of the track meet

It’s understandable that people have a range of opinions on the still- novel issue of transgender athletes in high school sports. Even among advocates, there are disagreements on where such athletes should be competing, what is fairest for everyone and the meaning of Title IX. Different states and different competitive bodies have varying standards, and there are good- faith arguments to be heard.

The state Republican Party is not engaged in a good- faith argument.

State Republicans are planning to honor three girls who are high school track stars and have filed suit against the presence of transgender opponents in their races, a situation they say has denied them a chance to win medals and scholarships.

The three plaintiffs are backed by a national group that has supported right- wing causes, but that doesn’t say anything about the girls themselves. Their feelings of aggrievement are not at issue.

The issue is cynicism in politics, something that at this point shouldn’t come as a surprise. But the coordinated cynicism at play in the Connecticut Republican Party’s attempt to turn transgender athletes into a wedge issue has been almost breathtaking, with opinion pieces from female candidates and advocates across the state culminating in next month’s awards presentation, all under the guise of protecting the rights of women and girls.

State Republicans, clearly, are flailing. They hardly compete for major offices outside of governor, and that race is almost three years away. They need to rile up the base somehow, and if a few vulnerable teenagers are caught in their wake, they don’t seem to mind.

Key parts of the suit don’t even make sense. Certainly, there may have been lost medals, but that happens anytime in sports someone faster or stronger shows up. The scholarships aspect is more puzzling.

Put it this way — if you’re the fastest runner in your high school and on track for a Division I scholarship, you don’t suddenly become slower just because the next Usain Bolt moves into your district. You may come in second place, but you’re just as fast and just as appealing to a college.

But none of this is about making sense. It’s about dividing people and highlighting those divisions to convince people to vote a certain way. It doesn’t protect anyone.

Transgender and gender- nonconforming athletes compete in sports all the time, but no one cares because, like all athletes, they usually lose.

If the state wants to have a debate about whether Connecticut athletics has the right policy on transgender athletes in girls sports — a policy that differs from other states and the NCAA — that can be discussed. But the athletes are not breaking any rules. They are abiding by the regulations as laid out by the state. For that, they have been ridiculed and scapegoated, actions that now have the imprimatur of a major political party.

Republicans take pains to say they are not opposed to anyone living their lives. “We’re not saying you can’t be who you want to be,” state party chairman J. R. Romano said.

But the only point of these “awards” is to do exactly that — and raise some money, besides.

Republicans have touted the awards as a way of supporting not just women’s sports, but women and girls in general. These same Republicans are presumably aware of who their party is supporting in his bid for re- election as president of the United States, someone who has been credibly accused of every manner of sexual misconduct up to and including rape and who has seemingly no respect for any woman who is not his first- born daughter. If they want to support women, they could start by changing parties.

Here is the point where people raise the history of Bill Clinton, or maybe prolific Democratic fundraiser Harvey Weinstein. Let’s just stipulate that they’re all bad, but also that times have changed. Bill Clinton with his history would not be able to waltz to a Democratic nomination the way he did 28 years ago. The same change has not occurred within the other party, the one that now is raising funds off widening divisions in girls sports.

Instead, state Republicans hope to use transgender rights as a wedge issue, something to divide the public in hopes of alienating supporters of the other party. They either forget, or don’t care, that there are real people involved.