Chelsea Mitchell, a senior at Connecticut’s Canton High School, is one of three plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit challenging transgender student-athletes in Connecticut. Two weeks ago, she declared “No matter how hard you work, you don’t have a fair shot at victory,” when competing against trans girls. But within the space of eight days, Mitchell has twice defeated a top rival who is trans, and while doing so, won two state championships.

Those two titles for Mitchell include a state all-class title at the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference Open championship on Feb. 22.

And now comes word that next month, Mitchell and two other cisgender student athletes will receive a special award from the state Republican party for their “courage” off the track.

In her latest 55-meter race, Mitchell came in at 7.15 seconds to win the state’s all-class title. Bloomfield High senior Terry Miller finished 3rd at 7.37 seconds; she was named along with Andraya Yearwood of Cromwell both in the lawsuit and in the Alliance Defending Freedom’s complaint to the U.S. Department of Education last year.

Yearwood ran one event as a member of her school’s 4×400 relay and finished 12th overall.

For Mitchell, the win was vastly different from the neck-and-neck race she had with Miller on Feb. 14 in the Class S state final with a storming start out of the block. She surged away from Haddam-Killingworth’s Kedarjah Lewis and Miller mid-race for a definitive victory.

In the race on Feb. 14, Yearwood was seeded first in the 55-meter dash but was disqualified in the preliminaries for a false start. The Courant reported she put her hands over her face as she walked off the track. Miller was the first to console her as parents in the crowd cheered her disqualification, according to The Middletown Press.

“At the start of my heat, I was too anxious, and that contributed to my false start,” Yearwood told the Connecticut Post. “The lawsuit was definitely in the back of my mind and it probably will be when I continue to compete here.”

For Miller, the CIAC Open marked the rough end of the indoor track season.

“My head just wasn’t in the game today for personal reasons, people can make their assumptions if they want,” Miller told the Courant. “I just feel like I gave up. I got into my head too much, usually I’m more focused. This is just a learning experience, to be honest. I feel like this will help me drive for my next race, especially outdoor.”

Mitchell told the Hartford Courant that any thought of the headlines off the track gave way to thoughts of executing on the track. “I was just trying to focus on getting a good start, getting a clean start, working on my acceleration,” Mitchell stated. “When it comes time for a practice and a meet, I just try and push all of that out of my mind.”

In addition to gold in the 55 meter dash, Mitchell also netted a silver-medal performance in the long jump, while ending up 4th in the 300 meters. Miller anchored her school’s 4×200 relay to a fourth place finish, behind the winning Glastonbury High School quartet that featured fellow lawsuit plaintiff Selina Soule.

Soule, Mitchell and Alanna Smith, a sophomore at Danbury High School, will receive awards for courage during a GOP fundraising event on March 25, according to the Middletown Press, at “a location to be determined.”

J.R. Romano, Connecticut state Republican chairman, told the paper Monday that Soule, Mitchell and Smith have dealt with “a lot of hostility” in challenging Miller and Yearwood.

“When it comes to today’s day and age, it takes courage to sue and challenge today’s cancel culture,” Romano told The Middletown Press. “When it comes to athletics, there is a physical difference between girls and transgender athletes. We’ve come a long way promoting female athletes, so we’ve started a ‘She Leads Courage Award.’ It’s not a moral question. We’re not saying you can’t be who you want to be.”

“This particular assault against these trans girls is specious and not based on anything actionable,” said Robin McHaelen, executive director of Our True Colors Inc., a Hartford-based education and advocacy group for LGBTQ youth. “Terry and Andraya are girls.”

She called bullshit on the claims that any athlete transitions because they believe they can perform better as girls, or women.

“Nobody.” McHaelen told The Middletown Press, “transitions to win medals.”

Besides, the ones winning those medals lately are the cisgender plaintiffs in the lawsuit brought by what McHaelen calls the white-centric, anti-abortion, evangelical-focused non-profit organization, Alliance Defending Freedom.

Don't forget to share: