A Minnesota high school softball player says she was cheated out of playing in the state championship by an opposing team with a transgender pitcher. She’s no longer staying silent and shared her story with Liz Collin on her podcast.
Kendall Kotzmacher was a catcher for the White Bear Lake High School softball team and is now a recent graduate.
White Bear Lake lost to the Champlin Park team—and lost an opportunity to play in the Minnesota State Championship. Champlin Park has a transgender pitcher, a biological male, who carried that team all the way to winning the state championship.
Kotzmacher reflected on why she wanted to speak out now.
“I graduated last week, I’m going to college, and I know a lot of girls are really scared to say anything because they don’t know what it means for the rest of their high school careers. So me being able to speak out kind of for them, say everything they want to say, is really huge to me,” she said.
Girls’ softball, censorship and overlooked accomplishments
While Kotzmacher is speaking out, it seems others were trying to avoid any talk about the situation. The athletic director in Eagan sent a letter telling parents not to bring political messages to the game. Meanwhile, the Minnesota State High School League did not allow people to post comments online about the state tournament.
While others were trying to stifle the conversation, Kotzmacher explained that, “there’s so many girls that did so many amazing things that whole tournament and all anyone could talk about was Champlin. We upset the three seed of the whole tournament. And right after the game, it was like, you get to play Champlin now, and all the talk was about a biological male being on the team … ”
Kotzmacher told Collin, “I think for me and other women it makes us feel like we don’t matter … And obviously playing a biological male is not something I ever thought would happen in my lifetime. So going there and seeing that it was like everyone was supporting Champlin, it kind of felt like we were just pushed aside.”
Kotzmacher also said that it wasn’t just not being able to speak out, or being left out of the conversation that mattered. She also explained how some of the accomplishments of her team were overlooked.
“A girl on my team had a record-breaking hitting tournament, and I hit the home run to send our team to the second game, and our pitcher pitched amazing, but all anyone could talk about was Champlin,” Kotzmacher said.
Softball and Title IX sex discrimination in schools with federal funding
Yet as Collin pointed out during the interview, all of this played out and seemed to pose challenges to federal law. Specifically, Title IX gives equal athletic opportunity to play sports without sex discrimination in schools that receive federal funding.
Kotzmacher also talked about how the circumstances may have lasting repercussions.
“It hurts. It hurts a lot. Obviously softball is growing into such a big sport at the collegiate level and now a new pro league and Title IX paved the way for us. They set the tone and they set the standard for younger generations such as myself and to see that it’s ignored, and it just shows that a biological male can come in and take away everything we’ve worked through and for all of these years and it’s heartbreaking.”
“At the college level, I won’t have to deal with that personally because of the new law that was put into place. But the younger generations, it’s not something I want them to ever have to experience. And I have 10-year-old cousins and coach on a 10-year team. And I obviously was sobbing after the game. And I had these little girls coming up and saying, why are you crying? And I was like, I hope you never have to understand what I just went through,” she added.
