WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — For Noah Greenfield, a potentially difficult part of life was made easier by sports.

 

Greenfield competed on the girls cross country and Nordic ski teams at Mount Greylock Regional School as a ninth-grader, leading the Mounties to a skiing state championship in 2017.

 

Greenfield finished his high school career competing for Mount Greylock's boys teams after transitioning to his true identity.

 

"It was something that I started thinking about around sixth or seventh grade but didn't have the knowledge or vocabulary to name what it is or look into it that deeply," Greenfield said of his transition journey. "Around eighth or ninth grade, I found out that transgender people exist.

 

"I told my parents maybe a couple of months after that, after I had the words to use. Then it was two, maybe three years before socially transitioning."

 

Greenfield says he is grateful for the reaction he got, and sports played a role.

 

"People ended up being like, 'Sure, OK,' and not really caring about it as much as I thought they would," he said. "I was worried, especially about sports, because competing in sports had been such a big part of my life for a long time, and I knew I wouldn't stack up if I competed on the boys team. I worried about what that would mean for me.

 

"[Nordic ski coach Hilary Greene] was the first person I told, and she was just so incredibly supportive. She said, 'Do what you gotta do,' and made an effort to make sure I was still involved with the team to the same degree even if I wasn't competing."

 

Greenfield said participation in team sports continued to provide the benefits it offers tens of millions of kids across the country.

 

"It did make it easier [to transition] in the sense that it got me out of the house and interacting with people," Greenfield said recently. "It would have been easy to transition and let fear take over and not put myself out in public as much. It was nice to have that structure in my day to have to go out and see people."

 

Monday, March 31, marks the International Transgender Day of Visibility, a time to "celebrate the joy and resilience of trans and non-binary people everywhere by elevating voices and experiences from these communities," in the words of the Human Rights Campaign.

 

This Transgender Day of Visibility comes at a time when the trans community is under attack like never before, and transgender athletes are the focus of that attack.

 

This month, the Maine Department of Education was threatened with prosecution by the U.S. Department of Education over its practice of allowing transgender girls to compete on girls sports teams.

 

Closer to home, the DOE in Washington has said it is investigating the policies of the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association.

 

According to the state governing body's website, the MIAA says school districts are responsible for determining the eligibility of individual athletes, but, the association notes, "A student shall not be excluded from participation on a gender-specific sports team that is consistent with the student's bona fide gender identity."

 

Politicians, including the president of the United States, claim that they are "protecting women's sports" by discriminating against transgender Americans. The argument used is that transgender people competing in women's and girls sports have an inherent advantage over cisgender women and girls.

 

Greenfield does not buy it.

 

"I can't imagine it being worth it to transition to get a competitive advantage," he said.

 

"And even if we decided we were going to care about this a lot, I don't know how anyone could enforce that without violating the rights of a bunch of ciswomen — which is not to say that's more important than violating the rights of transwomen.

 

"I think it's an impractical thing to care about. And when people try to spin that into a big issue, it's like, 'What do we do about it?' There isn't really a concrete way to test someone and see what their assigned sex was at birth, and intersexed people are going to throw that off all the time."

 

Scientific research backs up Greenfield's point about the impracticality of transitioning just to be be better at sports.

 

Last year, Forbes magazine reported on a study in the British Journal of Sports Medicine that found, "Transgender women performed worse than cisgender women in tests measuring lower-body strength … [and] tests measuring lung function."

 

The study looked at 23 transgender women, 12 transgender men, 21 cisgender women and 19 cisgender men. All of the trans athletes were receiving gender-affirming hormone therapy for more than a year.

 

Ashley Shade laughs at the notion that transgender athletes have some kind of unfair advantage.

 

"The only thing that is unfair is [they] think women are so weak that they can't compete with someone who is bigger than them," Shade said. "That is unfair to them.

 

"They say men have a physical advantage, and that may be true in some aspects, but there are women who are faster and more agile than many men. That gives them other advantages."

 

Shade, like Greenfield, is a former Northern Berkshire County high school athlete. She played football at McCann Tech, in college and for semi-pro teams in North Adams and Bennington, Vt., before publicly coming out as a transgendered person.

 

And, like Greenfield, Shade benefited from what sports had to offer.

 

"Sports do shape people in tremendous ways," said Shade, now a city councilor in North Adams. "They teach the values of teamwork, learning to compete, training.

 

"It is disheartening to see a group of the most vulnerable people excluded from participating in society, to learn the amazing things sports teaches you. To be excluded from that is just wrong, especially in a publicly funded sports league. If it's open to the public, all students should be allowed to participate.

 

"There's nothing fair about a national ban that would require a coach or school administrator to check your child's genitals."

 

But Shade does not think the movement to ban trans athletes is about fairness at all.

 

"It's about erasing trans people from participating in society," she said. "Texas recently introduced a bill that would make it a felony to be trans publicly — to sign official documents or apply for a job without using the gender you were assigned at birth. So they're literally trying to make it illegal for trans people to exist.

 

"Their whole agenda has always been about trying to erase trans people from society. It's not going to work, but it is scary, and it is difficult for a lot of people."

 

Shade notes that Massachusetts laws still protect trans people, but there is more work to be done at the local level. Local school committees can come out in defense of trans students, and municipalities can follow the lead of Pittsfield, where the City Council recently passed a resolution declaring it a sanctuary city for transgender and gender-diverse people. North Adams joined on Tuesday, passing a similar resolution.

 

But keeping with the theme of Transgender Day of Visibility, Shade said she hopes that more transgender Bay Staters like herself stand up, be counted and run for elected offices. She pointed to an incident late last year where Montana legislators killed an anti-trans bill — likely because transgender legislator Zooey Zephyr was there to stand up for herself.

 

"Zooey Zephyr and another colleague spoke out against the rhetoric and the damage they were doing because of Zooey and her experience and being able to sit at the table and say, 'I'm a human being. This is about me and my community,' " Shade said. "That's a vital missing element in a lot of these red states and even here in blue Massachusetts. There are very few trans elected officials. … I encourage trans people in the Berkshires to run for office and get involved."

 

Greenfield, now a graduate of New York's Skidmore College, said it was "cool" to return to Williamstown and see Progress Pride flags flying around town.

 

"I don't think that was as much of a thing when I was in middle school," he said. "It's beautiful to see how much change has come about in just six years around Williamstown."

 

Greenfield said he feels fortunate to live in a Northeast community where he generally feels safe.

 

Nowadays, "My baseline feeling of safety is not as high," Greenfield said.

 

"The big part for me — and, I'm guessing, for many — was the last election," he said. "I think, leading up to that, I'd been using my time in college to build up more confidence and more of a willingness to challenge myself.

 

"I think part of that was going to Skidmore, a school with a pretty solid trans community, and being involved with the theater department, which has a lot of trans people in it, and being more aware of people like me. I think that was helping me come out of my shell more.

 

"Ramping up to the 2024 election and seeing what Trump's plans were and how well he was polling was scary. And then, on election night, it was like, 'Here we go.' "