For most high school athletes, their sport is the perfect way to de-stress after a long school day. Athletes look to sports to not only get a good workout in, but also to learn from and cooperate with a like-minded community. Although all high school students should be able to benefit from participating in sports, many states have been making it significantly more challenging for transgender athletes to participate.

Across the United States, 18 states have enacted laws that limit or ban transgender athletes from participating in sports. According to New York Times sports correspondent David Chen in 2022, those in favor of the law want to “promote fairness,” particularly in women’s sports.

At PHS, rules about transgender athletes at PHS follow the state rules given by the New Jersey Interscholastic Athletic Association. The rules are non-restrictive, meaning that transgender students are allowed to compete in accordance with either their birth sex or gender identity.

“The state [of New Jersey] back in 2009 took a position based upon the law against discrimination, which is titled NJS-18 column 36-41. So all of our board policies are in compliance with that,” said PHS Athletic Director Brian Dzebenski.

These rules have been applied to an emergence of transgender athletes at PHS. Nonbinary athlete Abby Walden ’22 started swimming when they were five years old. After Walden discovered their gender identity, they still continued swimming for the girls team. For them, the biggest change after coming out has been educating others to be conscious about their language while referring to them.

“It can be a struggle [to correct people on] my pronouns over and over again. But I found that PHS, for the most part, is supportive. [Now], there are a lot of people who will help [correct my pronouns] for me,” Walden said.

For trans swimmer Sylven Waldman ’25, the transition from girls to boys swimming was more apparent. Waldman began swimming when he was eight, and this season, he transitioned to swimming for the boys team. Although coaches and many teammates made his experience on the boys team mainly positive, he never truly felt like he fit in with the cisgender boys on the team.

“I think there’s this feeling of alienation, particularly because your body does not look like what others expect,” said Waldman. “It’s especially made apparent in changing rooms, where everybody is wearing [male]speedos, but I’m wearing more of a ‘female swimsuit’ with shorts.”

Varying public opinion has made trans athletes, especially trans women, currently a hotly debated topic. When discussing transgender athletes in sports, many reference University of Pennsylvania trans female athlete Lia Thomas. Many believe her Division I National title was an unfair win because of her biological sex, despite following all the National Collegiate Athletic Association rules for testoterone suppression. While her times have slowed significantly since before her transition, she is still almost always far ahead of her competitors.

Some say that since the height and size of the heart and lungs of trans women can not be suppressed by hormone therapy, they should not be able to compete. However, medical physicist Joanna Harper described in a 2022 CBS interview that although trans women will maintain certain advantages, those advantages are not significant enough for them to outdo all the competition. Others have noted that cisgender athletes, such Michael Phelps, also have biological advantages that allow them to have an advantage over the competition. Instead of receiving backlash for these biological advantages like many transgender women, they are praised for their accomplishments.

For Walden and many young transgender athletes in the U.S., the Lia Thomas controversy and debate about biological advantages has raised many questions regarding the true intentions of the opposing side. “There’s a slippery slope of people saying if [Thomas] can win, then the regulations aren’t strict enough. But really, the question is: When do you stop? Do you stop when trans athletes can never win anything?” Walden said.

In consequence to the heated debates, there has been lots of misinformation around the topic. In order to combat this issue, Walden believes that there needs to be more education about the topic.

“There [has been] a lot of fear-mongering done, especially by politicians, to make people afraid of trans people or what they are doing to sports. There’s still a learning curve of the scientific community figuring out what the hormone regulation should be. But since trans people are currently allowed to compete, acceptance is the most important,” said Walden.

However different the experiences of trans athletes are, the main point the trans athletes we interviewed wanted to drive home was that trans people in athletics just want to compete and enjoy their sport, something cisgender athletes are able to do with far less obstacles. “Trans people have worked so hard compete in the sector that identifies best with the gender that they are. It is such a complicated process that cis athletes never have to experience,” Waldman said.