It is disgraceful that a coach was fired allegedly for standing up for fairness in girls’ and women’s sports, (“Lake Oswego track coach dismissed, citing Portland Schools complaint of his response to transgender athlete inclusion,” June 18).

I am a gay man in my late 60s. I became a stepfather to two teen girls in the early 1980s. Today my husband and I have two teenage granddaughters. If my stepdaughters had been athletes, or if my granddaughters’ passions included sports, I would be opposed to allowing males who identify as females to compete against them in female-only athletic events. That is my position as a matter of principle, even though family members are not directly affected.

My reasons are twofold:

First, no matter how insistent a male might be about identifying as a female, he is not biologically female. Consequently, biological males should not be eligible to compete against females in female-only sporting events. It does not matter whether the males in question are children, teens, adults or seniors. Wishing does not make it so.

Second, once a male enters puberty, he gains an unfair physiological advantage over females in athletic events. Whether an adolescent girl is a recreational athlete or has the potential to set new records in her sport, it is unfair to allow adolescent boys who identify as trans to compete against her in female-only events.

Alan D. Coogan, Portland

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