A controversial high school softball team has made the Minnesota state championships for the first time after their star transgender pitcher smashed two doubles and pitched a complete game in a walk-off win.
Trans athlete Melissa Rothenberger’s performance helped her Champlin Park team beat White Bear Lake 3-2 on Wednesday, leading a girl on the losing team to cry and ask her father, “Why can’t you do something?” according to OutKick.
Rothenberger, a junior, went 2-3 at the plate for Champlin Park, sparking her team’s comeback victory after falling behind 2-0 and sending them to the Group 4A state championship Friday.
“She’s always clutch,” Champlin Park coach Bryan Woodley told Twin Cities Pioneer Press after the semi-finals win. “I think she’s the best centerfielder in the state. She’s just a great all-around player.”
Two fathers of girls on the White Bear Lake team told Outkick they were frustrated that their daughters were forced to compete against a biological male.
One said that players’ parents regretted voting for Minnesota Democrats who’ve allowed the youth athletic system to operate this way.
“You’re looking at a whole team of future Republicans,” one dad said.
The Minnesota State High School League [MSHSL] permits students to compete under gender identity, despite President Trump’s executive order barring all biological men from women’s sports.
The league has said that the inclusion of trans athletes is protected and “determined by state law, through the Minnesota Human Rights Act and the Minnesota Constitution,” Outkick reported.
While national governing sports organizations such as USA Softball and the NCAA have implemented female-only policies in women’s sports, state-level laws have created loopholes that allow trans athletes to participate.
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