Maine girl who finished second to transgender athlete for state title says her dream was ‘unfairly shattered’

After finishing second to a transgender-identifying athlete for a state championship, one Maine girl is speaking out.

Freeport High senior Kessa Benner recently penned an op-ed for the Portland Press-Herald deriding her loss to transgender athlete Katie Spencer of Greely High at the Maine girls’ indoor track state championships last month.

Benner was the runner-up in the pole vault, jumping 10 feet, as Spencer vaulted six inches higher to win the state title. 

Additionally, Spencer’s team won the team state title with 73 points, besting Freeport by one point. Spencer’s victory provided Greely with 10 points, two more than Benner earned, meaning the single event propelled Greely High to victory. 

Benner wrote that her dreams of winning a state title were “unfairly shattered” by having to compete against a male athlete. 

“When I first learned I was competing against someone who was assigned male at birth, my heart sank, she wrote. “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. 

“It wasn’t just me who felt the weight of this unfairness; it was my teammates, my fellow female athletes, who were choked with anger,” she added. “They too wondered: How were we expected to compete with someone who would always physically dominate? 

“The day that Maine’s Class B Championship was held was a day that most female athletes competing will remember,” she later added. “We will remember that we lost our right to fairly compete for first place. We will remember how we were met with silence. There was no protest; instead, it seemed as if people sat back, arms crossed, and allowed this to happen.” 

While Benner said she supports transgender-identifying youth and doesn’t think Spencer deserves vitriol, she thinks athletics participation is a different issue. 

“Supporting transgender athletes through social integration should not mean allowing them to compete against women in athletic competition,” Benner wrote. “You cannot deny the physical advantages that transgender athletes hold.” 

Spencer is one of two male transgender athletes to win a Maine girls’ track state title in the past year. Maine Coast Waldorf junior Soren Stark-Chessa also won a girls’ outdoor 800-meter state title last spring (2:19.72). 

Benner’s op-ed comes as the superintendent of Maine’s largest public school district recently defended transgender-identifying athletes competing in girls’ sports, likening the debate to the civil rights movement for African Americans. 

Portland Public Schools Superintendent Ryan Scallon told the school board last week: 

“In our country’s history, there have been many civil rights struggles, including, but not limited, to fights for women’s rights to vote, for racial equality, and for gay marriage,” Scallon said, according to WFIN. “In each of these fights, the opposition in part was driven by fear in attempts to ostracize other people who look, act or believe in something different. Today, I see that happening again with transgender or non-binary students, and in particular, our transgender athletes.” 

State Rep. Laurel Libby, R-Auburn, best known for drawing attention to Spencer’s track state title, told Fox News she finds Scallon’s comments “insulting” and “unconscionable.”  

“It’s insulting to women everywhere,” Libby said. “If I was a parent there, I would feel betrayed and like I don’t have representation, and certainly that my girls didn’t have representation… It’s an example of leadership actively participating in the erasure of women and girls. It is unconscionable that a public official would compare the woke policy of allowing biological males to participate in girls’ sports to the civil rights struggle that previous generations fought.”  

Libby was censured in a partisan vote in the Maine House for her comments about Spencer. She has since sued to have her status as a lawmaker restored. 

Maine is facing scrutiny after the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Civil Rights Office determined it violated girls’ civil rights by allowing biological males to compete in girls’ sports. 

The state has until the end of this week to correct the problem or face disciplinary action from the Justice Department. 

President Donald Trump, who signed an executive order in January banning men from women’s sports, also pulled funding from the University of Maine after sparring openly with Gov. Janet Mills, who defended allowing men in women’s sports. Trump, a Republican, has promised to withhold funds from states that defy the ban.  

National research shows nearly 80% of Americans support keeping biological males out of women’s sports.