Chris Goodwin is the girl’s basketball coach at Mid-Vermont Christian School in Hartford, Vermont. Mid-Vermont is an Evangelical institution.
In a February 2023 game, Mid-Vermont played a team with a transgender player. Rather than infect his players with transgender cooties, Goodwin forfeited the game.
When asked about why he forfeited the game, Goodwin said:
The team was not on our schedule during the year but we did see we might have the possibility of playing them in the playoffs,” he said. “As the season came to an end, that is the scenario that worked itself out. After discussions with our administration and players and parents, we decided that instead of going against our religious beliefs, … we decided to forfeit that game and withdraw from the tournament.
I’ve got four daughters. I’ve coached them all at one point in their careers playing high school basketball. I’ve also filled in for the boy’s coach when he can’t make a practice, and I run those practices, and boys just play at a different speed, a different force … than the girls play.
Goodwin also said that he was worried that one of his players could be hurt if they played against a biological boy.
Vicky Fogg, the head of Mid-Vermont, stated:
Allowing biological males to participate in women’s sports sets a bad precedent for the future of women’s sports in general.
While Goodwin wants people to think that he forfeited the game out of concern for player safety, the real issue, as Goodwin himself stated, is the school’s beliefs about transgender people. In other words, the real issue is religiously motivated bigotry, not basketball. Having watched girl’s high school basketball since the 1980s, I can tell you that the girl’s game is every bit as physical and violent as the boy’s game. Yes, the boys can run faster and jump higher, but when considering physicality itself, the girls’ game is quite physical — especially when players hit the floor over a loose ball or when playing aggressive full-court man-to-man defense.
There’s an argument to be had about transgender girls/women in sports. Many transgender people agree. However, the place to have that discussion is not the gymnasium, right before the start of a game. Goodwin thoroughly embarrassed the transgender player and her teammates — was that his intent? — and robbed his own players of the opportunity of playing in a tournament game. Why? The Bible says ___________.
And people such as Goodwin wonder why an increasing number of people think Evangelicals are bigots.
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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