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This letter is in response to the column from Minnesota state Rep. Peggy Bennett, R-Albert Lea on March 1 regarding transgender people playing in girls’ sports in Minnesota. I returned to Albert Lea retiring this spring after practicing law in the Twin Cities for more than 31 years, mostly in litigation/trial practice until the last few years. I graduated from Albert Lea High School in 1983, working jobs during high school and summers in college in Albert Lea, Clear Lake, Iowa, and Mason City, Iowa, in addition to obtaining scholarships to help fund my undergraduate education. I worked during law school, too, to help fund my graduate and law school educations.

Next month, I turn 60 years old. In my entire life, I have met only one transgender person. I never paid any attention to what bathroom she used. In fact, I thought she was a lesbian when I worked with her more than 10 years ago. I didn’t find out that she was transgender until 2016 when Representative Bennett and her fellow Republicans in the Minnesota State Legislature sponsored one of those transgender bathroom bills. The transgender woman that I knew testified at the Legislature in opposition to the 2016 Minnesota transgender bathroom bill, and it was defeated. That same year the Republicans in North Carolina also passed a transgender bathroom bill. The Republican governor of North Carolina, Pat McCrory, and the Republicans in the North Carolina state House and state Senate all lost their elections badly because businesses there threatened to leave the state and other businesses who were considering coming to North Carolina decided that they would not come to the state because of the bathroom bill.

Last fall, the president of the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) — the head of all college sports for the entire country — Charlie Baker, testified to a United States Senate panel that there are fewer than 10 transgender women playing in all of college women’s sports in the whole country. Less than 10 transgender athletes playing in women’s sports in the whole nation. If you read Representative Bennett’s column carefully, she and her Republican colleagues cannot cite a single transgender person playing in girls’ sports in the state of Minnesota or any girl playing any sport who has suffered any alleged injuries because of transgender athletes playing in girls’ sports in Minnesota.

The Minnesota House Republicans offered the testimony of a ninth-grade girl as their expert witness. The Democrats offered the testimony of a psychologist from Minnesota Children’s Hospital to testify how discriminating against transgender children in sports is harmful to their mental health. Transgender girls playing sports is not a serious issue, Representative Bennett, and you know it.

Douglas J. Schiltz
Albert Lea