High school cross-country runner goes from 72nd to first place; What’s her secret?

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Last year, Hoffman was a mediocre cross-country runner on Seattle Academy’s boys’ team. During freshman year, Aspen Hoffman competed as a boy and finished 72nd in the League finals. Now, as a sophomore competing as a girl, Hoffman broke Seattle Academy’s school record in the girls’ 5000-meter category and ranks 1st in League. Hoffman’s time in the 5000-meter would rank him 48th if he had competed in the boys’ division. Earlier this semester, Hoffman took 2nd at Districts, qualifying Seattle Academy for the State championship.

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It’s not just the coach that was upset over Hoffman’s wins. Libs of TikTok spoke to several parents of young female athletes in the conference who are understandably upset.

“[Hoffman] is larger than any of the girls, and shamelessly takes 1st place on the podium. Now my daughter is competing against a male for scholarships. And we can’t even say anything. You can’t even approach it in a nice way without being labeled a hateful bigot. You will get threats against you,” said one father.

Parents are terrified to even raise concerns about Hoffman’s presence on the girls’ team. Another parent noted, “parents are upset but they know it has to go to the state committee, which isn't politics, it's the state high school board, and unless there's any kind of pressure put on them to change the rule nothing's going to happen.”

In 2007, the Washington Interscholastic Athletic Association (WIAA) adopted the International Olympic Committee's position, which stated that trans individuals could participate in sports in their reassigned gender, provided they had undergone surgery and a minimum of two years of hormone treatments. Then in 2018, WIAA updated its policy lifting the surgical component, “an MTF [Male to Female] student must have one calendar year of medically documented testosterone suppression therapy to be eligible to participate on a female team, consistent with WIAA policy.” However, in 2021 they disregarded all scientific reasoning and eliminated all requirements related to medical evaluation and hormone therapy.

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