Maine’s Own William (Lia) Thomas Situation Unfolding In Cross Country
Sophomore boy, Soren Stark-Chessa, is running as a girl - Crushing times and crushing the dreams of female athletes
Will the prestigious 2023 Maine XC Festival of Champions trophy go to a boy for the “girls” division this year?
Shawn McBreairty
September 28th, 2023
Freeport, Maine - Sophomore boy Soren Stark-Chessa, who was running cross country last year as a freshman boy, now is running as a sophomore “girl” and beating the second place girls by nearly 2 minutes. Some of the best female runners in Maine who have trained for years, if not a decade or more are being bullied by this boy. Some girl’s dreams, athletic success and potentially future college track scholarships could be denied this weekend because of him and those enabling him. Everyone is guilty.
Some media outlets might think that this article leans toward bullying this confused young man. However, the reality of this madness should feel like a slap in the face to every parent of a female athlete. The root cause is that no female should ever have to compete against a male in their own class. Sports are binary. Hard stop.
The Soft Outrage:
The real girls running are not happy about this. One anonymous young woman who is a Maine cross country athlete stated, “It is not fair to a female who has trained hard. Males are biologically faster than females, with testosterone. They need to run under their biological gender.” But girls don’t want to be socially “hung” by the tallest tree by the LGBTQIA+/-$ trans-cultists inside their school, or online. They just drop their heads, they don’t dare complain and they are forced to try harder, beyond their means. But this lesson should not have to be taught to these young women.
Most parents are afraid to speak up for fear of being called a “transphobe,” or some other far-left name. The parent of two current Maine high school cross country runners and a physician comes at it from a very interesting angle. “If a boy, competing in a sporting event, were found to be using ‘performance enhancing’ drugs, he would be disqualified due to the presumption of unfair competitive advantage.”
“If instead, that same boy chose to compete as a girl, he would not only NOT be disqualified due to his enormous presumptive competitive advantage, he would be lauded, feted and applauded. If five boys chose to compete as five girls, they would not only NOT be disqualified, but they could quite conceivably win the top 5 places. Thus we would have the spectacle where the top 5 athletes in the girls' XC race were, in fact, boys,” he states.
“For the boys, it would be tragic, for it teaches them things that simply do not apply outside of the very narrow time and place in which we currently reside. For the girls, it is the grossest of injustices in every conceivable way, because it forces them to participate in, and to some extent accept, something which is manifestly false. They must, like it or not, participate in the lie.”
Until parents stand up to this insanity and publicly speak up, this will continue and it will get worse. Staying silent, or anonymous is no longer an option for parents. Is being called names your real concern, or is sticking up for your daughters who have trained for a decade to get to this very spot? It is your parental obligation to protect her! What if your daughter fails to medal this weekend because she comes in 11th and this boy steals her medal? The damage will already be done.
Women’s rights are being set back decades by the far-left crazies running our K-12 school systems. Today’s feminist movement has replaced girls with boys. Girls are now canceled from their own competition. Will this young man also be changing and showering naked in the girls locker room next to your daughter?
If I were a dad with a daughter running against a boy who has declared himself “female” to play on the girls sports team likely due to the fact that he can’t keep up with the top tier boys, I’d be enraged. I’d speak up. I wouldn’t accept anything other than this kid being thrown out of the girl’s class and all of his records erased.
If that didn’t happen, I’d sue the Maine Principals Association and the schools for Title IX discrimination. It is an easy win and it would be precedent setting here in Maine and across the country. Someone needs to step up, or young women in Maine will continue to be run over.
The Fraud:
Soren Stark-Chessa is a male sophomore at the private and very expensive Maine Coast Waldorf School in Freeport, ME. He currently sits 4th in the state for one of the best high school girls 5K times this year. He came in 2nd at the meet in Poland at 20:59 behind Cary Drake of York. He won the girls race in Freeport at 18:55 and won by a whopping 1:42 over Emma Young of Cape Elizabeth (20:37.90).
Rankings provided by MaineTrackXC as of 9/26/23.
Mr. Stark-Chessa competed as a boy his freshman year in both cross country and skiing. Placing in six boys cross country meets in 2022; 45th 19:54.57, 14th 19:36.01, 25th 19:04.02, 14th 20:54, 39th 19:09 and 23rd 20:48. Not great times for a boy. Decent, but not semi-dominant as his times are on the girls side. Boys like Soren who can’t hack it find resistance much more limited from the girls. He will also get celebrated as being a “trans-girl” by the very school which is supposed to be educating him on reality.
“So brave,” the far-left will say as they give him the slow clap, with liberal tears flowing down their cheeks. “So brave.”
MaineTrackXC stated in a recent girls cross country rankings update, “Our biggest mover was Soren Stark-Chessa of Maine Coast Waldorf who went from unranked to fifth.” Just out of the blue…unranked to fifth!? An athletic miracle of sorts! Almost any boy in any sport could just walk over to any girls team and instantly become one of the best “female” athletes in the state and break records. It’s that easy. Too easy parents. Many young women will be hurt by this either physically, or emotionally.
A Maine high school track mom, Katherine Collins from Winterport, Maine is willing to speak out, “Men are simply larger, faster, and stronger than their female counterparts. To compare, the top ranked female high school runner in all of New England would only be ranked #47th among high school boys in Maine. This boy, Soren Stark-Chessa, ranks #172 among Maine boys, but #4 among Maine girls.”
This reeks of the William (Lia) Thomas swimming situation all over again, but now this insanity is here in Maine. You may remember William couldn’t hack it with the big boys in the pool. He was ranked the 462nd swimmer in the nation and then destroyed nearly every female swimming record since the beginning of record keeping, because…shocker, he was a dude pretending to be a woman.
Not one person had the sense to call “bullshit” on Thomas?
The university told the women athletes on the team that if they didn’t like it, they could receive counseling. That they were the problem! President Joe Biden is actively trying to rewrite Title IX to include the rights of “transgender youth in sports.” This is an overly democrat laden issue being pushed and it’s all about division. Division of the family, the school, the community, the nation.
Finally people like Kentucky’s Riley Gaines began to speak out about this idiocy, but only after he had stolen all the trophies and female swimming records. Now this same idiocy is in your backyard, running wild here in Maine.
William “Lia” Thomas, University of Pennsylvania male swimmer and fraud.
Biological Advantage:
When you look at the comparative picture of Soren Stark-Chessa, the first thing you should notice is the vast difference in his muscle bound legs compared to the female who is ranked right above him in third place for girls cross country. She is also a sophomore. Research has shown that an average male athlete's leg is 80% muscle, while a female’s leg is only 60% muscle.
Photo of Samantha Moore from the Falmouth Forecaster.
Photo of Soren Stark-Chessa from MaineRunningPhotos.com
Any boy playing sports with girls has a vast muscular and physical advantage. It’s the reality of biology. Not only are boys built with more muscle mass, larger bones, and larger body parts in general; but their cardiovascular and respiratory systems function differently and provide a huge competitive advantage.
It’s just science folks…real science.
Men’s hearts are reportedly 20-25% bigger than a woman’s heart, particularly the left ventricle. This increases the ability to pump oxygenated blood around the body making it easier for males to run faster for longer. On average, a female’s lung capacity is 10-12% less than a male’s, meaning the amount of oxygen produced in exertion rises higher in males. More oxygen going to a male’s muscles, the better he will perform over girls in the race. Testosterone stimulates muscle development in boys, while estrogen in girls stimulates fat accumulation.
The Big Race:
This Saturday in Belfast is the Festival of Champions, which has a rich history and is billed as “Maine’s Biggest XC Race.” It will feature Soren Stark-Chessa running at 1:50pm EST in the 5k with his 2023 personal best of 18:55. But, with 222 boys entered into the seeded race, this fake female would rather be given more advantageous odds of getting a medal around his neck.
Last year he finished a distant 51st, competing as a male. This year, barring a parental revolt, he looks to be a shoe-in for a top 10, probably a top five and most likely a podium finish in the Girls Seeded Section. A travesty.
In 2022, Soren Stark-Chessa posted a 51st place finish in the boys division of the Festival of Champions as noted by the Portland Press Herald.
The School:
Maine Coast Waldorf School is an expensive, private school located in the heart of liberal Freeport. The school did shockingly reply to my request for comment. Susan Sonntag, their athletic director and sexual narcissist (she/her pronouns in email signature means she’s crazy) gave me this very weak and generic response:
“We support all our students at Maine Coast Waldorf School, and are proud that our students are given the opportunity to participate in all of our school programs. Additionally, MCWS adheres to the Maine Statute, Title 5, §4602 "Unlawful educational discrimination" which is further supported by Maine Principals’ Association (MPA) policy.
Regards,
Susan
Susan Sonntag
Athletic Director
Maine Coast Waldorf High School
highschool@mainecoastwaldorf.org
207.865.3900 x201
she/her”
She/her is of course completely wrong and she/her is doing a disservice to all girls across the state and any female runner in Maine’s history. One question that never seems to be answered…is it ok to discriminate against all the girls running cross country at the behest of one boy?
Also, why do girls not run with the boys? If girls do have an inkling to run with the boys, like a girl at Hampden Academy, in Hampden, ME they get creamed. Even if her parents and doctors are abusing this child by poisoning her body with testosterone. She’ll never be a boy. Soren will never be a girl.
The language on the school’s website goes against this athletic director’s own words. “Tenth graders begin to think more deeply and consequentially. In every subject, teachers want students to exercise logic to understand the underlying structure of the world.” In history, students consider ancient Greece, the birthplace of logical inquiry. Environmental Studies introduce sophomores to the connected forms of a healthy environment.”
Logic at Maine Coast Waldorf School clearly does not include biological reality. Any school employee that enables mental illness should be immediately fired from their jobs. Imagine paying vast amounts of money to send your child to a school where a boy, who is decent at running, now dominates the female circuit because this athletic director is afraid of the honest conversation with him? It gets even more hypocritical when you look into the school’s athletics language:
“Athletics - THE WAY WE MOVE AFFECTS HOW WE THINK, HOW WE FEEL, AND WHAT WE CAN DO.
Maine Coast Waldorf athletics program fosters teamwork, a life-long joy for movement, and the confidence to meet new challenges. Our teams are positive and supportive environments where athletes set goals, strengthen their physical health, and cultivate respect for self and others.”
No, there is no respect for self and others when you are beating young women to a pulp because of your physical advantages. It’s completely discriminatory against the female species. It’s misogynistic and it’s disgusting. It’s also disrespectful to enable this young man. Everyone involved should feel ashamed at their failure.
What is happening in today’s mental health laden K-12 public education system run by the hapless government, is that students are force-fed a narrative of being “inclusive.” That it is somehow demeaning to call out that a boy shouldn’t be competing against girls. This needs to change. You need to call it out.
The right way to address this would be to sit him down and say, “Do better Soren. Train harder Soren. Push further and get back in your biological lane Soren.” Boys should not be able to compete with girls on the field. That’s the lesson. It’s that easy. You can also blame bad parenting for his situation. Yes, I wrote “bad parenting.” It starts in the home with boundaries and teaching young men to respect young women.
The parent of two current Maine high school cross country runners and a physician states the impact, “And what of the adults, those grown ups- teachers, principals, coaches, ‘medical professionals’ and most importantly parents who are supposed to be overseeing the formation of the young people entrusted to them? Words fail me, these adults have, simply and completely, abdicated their responsibility to those young people and their future.”
What happens to young Mr. Stark-Chessa when he gets into the real world? Does anyone think that the gifts he’s been handed because he believes in fairy dust and unicorns are going to help him to succeed? Does anyone think that eventually he will come to the realization that he's just a middle of the bench athlete and that his high school running career as a girl was just a woke dream?
Maybe he starts to “tuck his junk” and starts down the road of taking chemical castration drugs? I mean, if you are going to run down this road then one should probably just cut off their twig and berries and maybe go all in on a set of nice perky B cups?
Whatever you do when you are an adult is your own business. But, none of it will change whatever is messed up in your head. There are three paths to choose when this kind of distress takes over a young person. We can work with them to treat the mind, treat the body, or teach them to deal with the distress they may be experiencing in a therapeutic manner. Maybe it was a sexual trauma, maybe it was a physical trauma, but some type of harm is there that needs to be addressed.
Enabling Our Troubled Youth:
The enabling of our youth is not solving the root cause of the issue. It pushes the problem further and further down the road, until it crashes into reality. Someone needs to have the balls, or ovaries to say, “No.” So far, the only balls on display in these girls' races are young Mr. Stark-Chessa’s. For your daughter's sake, hopefully they are not also on display in the locker room.
Comments of an anonymous mental health professional, “People celebrating these kids while they’re quite likely in a state of mental health deterioration, have confused enabling with empowering. Empowering our young people to work through their distress is one of the most wonderful gifts we can provide. Discussing with this young man mindfulness would go a long way. Discussing with him what he can control to improve his running times to become a more sophisticated competitor would be an amazing, empowering conversation.”
“Instead, we have become a generation of “snow plow” parents, clearing the path of obstacles for our young people, convincing them that they are too fragile to overcome those obstacles through hard work and, you got it, empowerment. It’s tricky, when your kid is struggling, you just want to fix the problem.”
“With these kids struggling with gender identity, instead of doing good exploratory work with them, we are simply removing the obstacles. We want to remove the hard, blinding them with the quick fix that is removing the distress from their table, but only temporarily, by buying into the delusion that they were born in the wrong body,” she states.
This mental health professional continues, “This situation begs the question. Is the distress gender related, or is this young man finding an easy way to be celebrated as a gold star athlete? Only he can answer that question, but either way, he is being enabled by the adults who should know better, not empowered. This young man is not being served a platter of truth by allowing him to become that gold star athlete, by giving him the option to compete with a sex that simply does not have the capacity to compete with him.”
“What will happen when this young man receives his first college rejection letter? Do you suppose he will become introspective, digging into what he needs to improve upon to reach his goals? Or will he perhaps look for the loopholes that will allow for a “pass,” much like his sudden declaration as a girl to compete in female sports? I’d be willing to bet on the latter. We’re raising a generation of people who find it easier to tap into their fragility to become the exception to the rule, instead of raising a generation of people who learn from failure, and work harder next time.” These are the words from someone who helps people with their desire to improve themselves everyday and has seen the darkness of the public K-12 educational system.
The Governing Body:
I wrote about this very subject of the Maine Principals Association (MPA) in detail just a couple weeks ago and the DrummondWoodsum lawyers pushing this trans-cultism and forcing school board members to comply, or fear individual reprisal.
When reviewing the MPA “2022-2023 Handbook,” you’ll see that the word “gender” is used a whopping 48 times in the 49 total pages. There is actually a super-woke group within the MPA which formed a “Gender Identity Committee” who use the new world order’s World Professionals Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) standards of care as their north star. It’s like walking toward a random street lamp and thinking you are heading north, then running right into the pole, knocking yourself even more dazed and confused than when you started walking.
From the MPA handbook, “M. A student is eligible to compete on a single sex team only if he or she is a member of that sex, either as reflected on his or her birth certificate or, in the case of a transgender student, as approved in accordance with Article II, Section 12.” The MPA uses the terms, “sex,” which is reality and “gender” which is a false social construct back and forth in their publication, further confusing things. If they just stayed with “sex” being used as the determining factor, they would be fine and have a reality based solution.
Section 12 - Gender Equity and Inclusion Policy - “Consistent with its principles, the MPA believes that all students should have the opportunity to participate in MPA activities in a manner that is consistent with their gender identity, unless such participation would result in an unfair athletic advantage or would present an unacceptable risk of injury to other student athletes.”
“...unless such participation would result in an unfair athletic advantage...”
This is where you as a parent of a female athlete call them all out publicly before the big event on Saturday. Before your daughter is beat out on the podium by a weak male. What are you going to say to your daughter when she finishes 11th and misses a medal because of a penis? By a male much physically stronger than your little girl will most likely ever be. Even if she is more mentally fit than he.
“As a former high school runner and a current parent of two high school runners, I find it reprehensible that the Maine Principals Association currently allows males to pretend to be female and compete in high school athletics.”
“How the athletic directors, coaches, and the MPA think that it is fair to women to allow this boy to take away their awards, their recognition, and their potential scholarships is beyond me. The top female nationally in high school XC would be 6th among Maine boys, which is not a pool of amazing athletes.” Ms. Collins is right on point here.
“There are simple reasons that men and women compete in different categories. If all athletes were lumped together in one pool, the boys would play and the girls would sit at home. Title IX came into existence to give girls and women the opportunity to compete and not be pushed to the side. However, this current obsession with transgender children forcing their way onto women's sports teams and into women's spaces such as locker rooms and bathrooms, has led to girls being pushed off the sports field and being made unsafe. Men do not belong on women's sports teams. It is not fair, it is not right, and it is not acceptable,” Ms. Collins states. It’s so easy to see this grievous error.
The Bottom Line:
A lie is a lie, no matter how many times you choose to not address it, or think that you live in a fantasy land where boys can suddenly become girls. A land of rainbows where a boy crushes girls in their own sport and people not only choose to ignore it, they celebrate it.
I personally hope several girls kick young Mr. Stark-Chessa’s ass on Saturday, if he is allowed to run in this or any other female sports competition ever again. I also hope that this young man gets the mental health assistance and straight talk that he needs. He’s living a lie and that lie will eventually catch up with him, either on the cross country course, or in the course of his life.
We requested comment from Derek Veilleux from MaineTrackXC about their ranking of Soren Stark-Chessa into the girls division of cross country and reached out to the Maine XC Festival of Champions through their Facebook page, but there was no return from either at the time this article was published.
Shawn McBreairty is the Director of Special Projects at Maine First Project, a non-profit organization offering grassroots advocacy training in multiple areas. He has recently taken a position on the board with the newly formed counter to the American Library Association, the World Library Association, a common sense alternative to the “Marxism” being pushed by the ALA. For three years, Shawn has been exposing CRT and the hyper-sexualization of minors (“aka” grooming in the classroom) as well as many dangers within the programs, teachings and curriculum of Maine and this nation’s public, K-12 schools. Check out Shawn's Podcast, “Maine Source Of Truth,” which can be found anywhere you listen. Follow the podcast page on Facebook and @ShawnMcBreairty on social media.