Op-Ed: Princeton Kicked a Trans Runner Off the Track. Now Athletes Are Organizing A Boycott
The alleged targeting of transgender runners at non-professional events marks an alarming escalation.
Editors Note: The following article is an Op-Ed submitted by Max Freedman. Max Freedman is a journalist covering LGBTQ+ topics, primarily but not entirely politics and music, from Philadelphia, PA.
When transgender runner Sadie Schreiner was allegedly removed from the heat sheet at Princeton University’s May 3, 2025 Larry Ellis Invitational track meet simply for being transgender, she sued the university and accused it of discrimination—and she’s not the only transgender runner taking action. Winter Parts, a well-known transgender running advocate, is organizing a boycott of Princeton’s two spring 2026 track meets, the Sam Howell Invitational on April 4 and the Larry Ellis Invitational on May 1.
“I want to see [the Larry Ellis Invitational organizers] face visible consequences for excluding someone from their meet,” Parts said. “My hope is that a lot of [athletes boycott]. I think it would send a strong financial and visual message to the Princeton officials if they’re going through the effort of trying to put on this meet, and nobody wants to show up because everyone’s upset with how they treated Sadie.” Notably, Parts doesn’t personally know Schreiner—who ran as “unattached” at the 2025 Larry Ellis Invitational, meaning unaffiliated with a running club or university track and field team but eligible to participate based on prior official race times—but was moved to take action nonetheless.
Although excluding transgender runners is, unacceptably and despicably, par for the course these days at professional running events—current NCAA and USA Track & Field policies ban transgender women from competing with other women—the two Princeton track meets aren’t professional events, making their alleged transgender exclusion an alarming escalation. Just as potentially concerning is that, whereas both track meets have previously been open to unattached runners and runners from clubs, Parts said that a coach from a prominent running club told them that, for the 2026 meets, only runners on university track and field teams are eligible to participate. It is unclear if or how this newly restricted eligibility is related to Schreiner’s pending litigation against Princeton athletic director John Mack and Princeton director of track operations Kimberly Keenan-Kirkpatrick. Mack, Keenan-Kirkpatrick, and a representative for the third defendant in Schreiner’s lawsuit, Leone Timing & Results Services, did not respond to multiple requests for comment, and Schreiner was unable to comment due to her litigation.
Parts has emailed the track and field coaching staff at just under three dozen prominent colleges and universities, including Rutgers University, Temple University, and Columbia University, to demand that they and their runners boycott the 2026 meets. They have also contacted Mack and Keenan-Kirkpatrick to inform them of the boycotts, and some of their friends have joined their boycotting efforts and contacted their alma maters to encourage non-participation.
Avery Prizzi, a non-binary runner who has encouraged eligible runners not to attend the events, said that it feels like an escalation of transphobic rhetoric that a mere track meet, rather than a professional race, has excluded transgender runners. “[The events are] an experience [where] there’s no qualification, there’s no prizes, no first-place trophy,” Prizzi said. “People go to run fast and get a time for themselves. It’s all post-collegiate stuff. There’s no incentive besides running fast. To know that [the event organizers are] just gonna be garbage toward what, effectively, is just a place for people to go and better themselves or race a clock seems completely pointless or outside the mission I figured they were touting.”
Non-binary runner Will Vedder said that “the whole issue that’s been raised on a national level around trans inclusion or exclusion in sports is this, pun intended, trumped-up issue.” Vedder is a 2025-2026 board member of Philadelphia Runner Track Club (PRTC), and although PRTC members are ineligible to participate and the organization does not endorse boycotts, Vedder has told people about the boycotts to nevertheless support transgender runners, saying that excluding transgender people from sports is “based on misinformation. As we know, trans women don’t have any advantage over cis women when it comes to competitiveness in sports. Studies have shown that again and again. The fact that people are acting against what science says and excluding people who just want to run and compete, it’s infuriating.”
A 2023 Frontiers in Sports and Active Living study acknowledges a lack of evidence that transgender athletes are superior in performance and concludes, “Individuals should not have to make a choice between being their authentic selves or being athletes.” Only one transgender person, Quinn—a non-binary Canadian soccer player who uses a mononym in place of a traditional first and last name—has won a gold medal at the Olympics. Additionally, some transgender women runners, including Schreiner herself, have noticed that their performance permanently decreases after starting hormone replacement therapy (HRT). As made clear by the lack of scientific evidence about transgender runners’ supposed athletic advantages, transgender participation in not just running but all sports harms absolutely nobody. It’s the exclusion of transgender athletes that causes harm, and the consequences of this maltreatment reach far beyond the field.
“In the context of the things going on with trans people,” Parts said, “small actions like kicking a trans person out of a track meet build up to the general public thinking lowly of trans people, thinking it’s okay for laws to be passed affecting our lives, demonizing us, trying to eventually result in us being jailed or killed. Trying to push back against that will, hopefully, help increase acceptance of trans people in the public eye.” And with that, the chances of anti-transgender laws being passed — or even proposed — could decrease. A boycott might feel small, but it could help reverse the tides in a big way, and if you know runners on college and university track and field teams, you too can demand that they not participate in the 2026 Sam Howell and Larry Ellis Invitationals.
Scottie's Playtime 
I know Im going to have my head handed to me but…
If a runner is physically male, no matter what gender he identifies as, then he is still physically in a male body. Same with a trans woman in a man’s race, competing against people who are physically in a different category.
Most of the time we are constructed one of two ways: women have a different musculature from men. Call yourself whatever you please, your body rules, when it comes to muscle and stamina. Much of our muscularture has to do with hormones, not attitude.
look at it this way: you wouldn’t dream of sending a 23 year old hormonally female woman up against a male line up in racing, football, or any activity that requires a certain amount of muscle and speed. no matter how she trained, she would still be lighter, smaller, and with more fragile bones than her male counterparts. The reverse is also true when a male runs or competes in a woman’s sport. His legs are longer, stronger, and he can be overwhelming.
This isn’t prejudicial, this is common sense.
Then again, if they want to run, or wrestle, or whatever, that is up to the team, the coach, the sport.
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No one will hand your head to you, Judy! We know your spirit.
However, I only want to toss in the hormone aspect. When a person transitions to their actual gender, they usually take hormones. We know these make a difference even in people who generate their own, staying in the gender they were assigned.
Now, yes, if you’ve got a 6’4″ person taking hormones to transition, they’re not going to lose height (well, except as all humans do with age.) But their body changes in accordance with what the hormone tell their brain to do with the body.
So that takes away the so-called “men’s” advantages, as well as the “women’s” disadvantages. Have you seen some of the transmen who could be forced to play women’s sports, use their showers and restrooms, etc.? Holy cow, they could dance for Chippendales…😂
Now, if you get your head taken, so will I get mine taken, because likely in my explanation I still wasn’t using terms perfectly, coming from my cis point of view. But I mean well to make sense.
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(smiles). Im thinking of the men who are still male, hormones and all, and just gliiide into the feminine side of things. Hormones do make a difference, but not all men (or women) change that much. And I will admit, some of the women I’ve seen who grew up to be “tough broads” were never all that feminine to begin with. Same with men.
I know men who are (and always have been) effeminate (that is hard to spel) and women that would scare the socks off of most guys. No hormone treatment there, nope.
I think a lot of height loss with age comes not so much from shrinkage but from stooping, you tend to lean forward, you hunch over, and b’gosh, you’ve lost two inches…
The other change that happens, the transition of the body, can only go so far, and a transgender tall male may have a body just jam packed with lady hormones, but those long legs can cover a LOT more territory per stride. My husband is three inches taller than I am, and when we used to hike he was always just-that-much further ahead of me, because his legs were just that much longer.
(Fear not, I have had my head presented to me more than once, but it’s a renewable source, thank goodness.)
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Well, of course, those men you mention are actual men, but they’re not women. Not even trans women.
Genetics have a great deal to do with everyone’s appearance, no matter where they are on the gender scale. I’ve seen what you’ve seen, and agree.
I could go on about swimmers being built like swimmers; runners, basketball players, etc. being built to do such things. But you know all that!
I get what you’re saying. And you already said the team, then the coach, (and the sport) ought to decide amongst themselves. I think that’s fair; they’d likely have good input if it was any other subject, I bet! I appreciate chatting with you, Judy! 🙂
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Hi Judy. You wrote The other change that happens, the transition of the body, can only go so far, and a transgender tall male may have a body just jam packed with lady hormones, but those long legs can cover a LOT more territory per stride. And that is true if the person has not transitioned. However it is not true with gender affirming care and hormone treatment. Think of all the things that go away if a person transitions with gender affirming care. Those longer legs have to be carried and pushed by muscles with less strength and size. Those muscles have to be supported by lungs and a heart that is not getting the male hormones but female ones, losing the extra strength and bone density of most males. So much of the chemical soup changes inside the body that people who transition that way really are the gender they identify as not the sex assigned at birth. But none of that would be needed if the child could go on puberty blockers and then when sure and ready go on the hormones of the gender they identify as. They never develop wrong and have to hide the effects of a worng publerty. But that fact terrifies the fundamentalist Christians who demand the woman they are having a afair with behind their wife’s back be assigned female at birth so they don’t have to admit being attracted to a trans woman. As to some women being more physically capable than some males. I was a small thin boy in a man’s body when I was in the military. The fact is I was often taken down in combate self defence training by women of all sizes who put in more effort and had me beat in size or strength. It never bothered me. I remember one woman former shore patrol kicked my butt all over the mats, then after we cleaned up took me out for drinks. She about had to carry me in to the barracks after. Hugs
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Hi Judy. I will not hand you your head because like Ali I know you’re a basicly good person. How ever you are misinformed and not seeing the medical truth of the situation. It was mentioned in the article above. I dug deeply into this when failed fifth place swimmer Riley Gaines came to fame being a bigot and then became the darling of the hateful right spreading misinformation. I would like to start by making my reply in different sections.
The truth is the idea that sex is binary is wrong and an outdated idea that medical science / studies have disproven. According to my research and reading articles / watching videos detailing the science people are a mixture of chemical stew / soup. There is no true male or true female but a spectrum or line that goes from most feminine markers to the most masculine markers. No two people are at the same place on that chemical mixture. I posted about the woman who lived all her life as a woman, had female genitalia, and had given birth to three children. For a medical procedure she had to have a complete genetic work up. It was discovered that her markers placed her on the male side of the line. If you looked at her chemical makeup, she was male.
The attacks on trans women in sports are based on patriarchy’s need to control females and ensure their position as the ones in charge. To that end they use misinformation and lies to create fear about trans people in the minds of the public. Notice it is always trans women in bathrooms as a threat to your little daughter and never a trans kid in a bathroom with adult strangers. Or a trans man in the bathroom with your 8 year old son. Why because the first scenario is scarier to a parent, they imagine a big hulking bearded man / woman drooling while staring at their 8 year old daughter. Or a man is stealing your daughter’s award / title, but the men who make this claim of wanting to save women’s sports for girls never care enough to fund these same women’s sports. Think about these sports bans for children before pubperty is silly isn’t, yet the right / republicans / religous fanatics still push trans sports bans in all grades. Shades of don’t say gay or show a rainbow sticker. It is also never about trans men. Ok so that is the back ground for the hate. The attacks on trans atheletes was spearheaded by religious groups that felt they lost the culture war against gay people by not attacking them soon enough and decided to vilify the trans community as much as they could to influence public opinion.
The science is listed in the article but I will go over it. Being on gender affirming care of female hormones and blockers for male hormones for 2 years reduces the benefits of the male frame, lungs, and muscle structure to a liability, not an advantage. The frame is weaker but still larger and has to be supported and carried by muscles that have drasticly reduced in size and strength. Those muscles have to be supported by lungs with less capacity than when male hormones were in the body. Viced Rhino has a very comprehensive list of medical studies on trans issues. It is here. https://linktr.ee/rhinostransresearch He has a section on trans athletes.
Some of these studies below are older, and there are probably newer ones to check as well. But aside from medical studies we can use reason and observation to show that trans women under gender affirming care are not just “a man pretending to be a woman”. If in fact that was the case and every trans woman was carrying the strength and extra abilities that are ascribed to males then the few trans athletes in all competitions would be taking all the top spots, awards, and titles. But dispite Fox emotional channel acting like this is true it is not happening. Trans people are not sweeping the sports events and winning every time. the few times trans women have won in the top spots it is like the Lia Thomas swimming situation with Riley Gaines. Thomas was a great swimmer who trained religiously for her events. She was winning against men and after transitioning won against some women. She lost more swimming meets as a woman than as a man. But she put the effort into the sport. Riley Gaines was not so interested in training, was not at the top of any swim meet. She would have still been in fifth place if Thomas had not been in the meet. They tied which meant that four other women beat both of them. But the right hates to look at the facts. Also as Ali mentioned there have been trans teen boys on testosterone forced to compete against teen girls. These boys did not want to do that. One wrestler who was clearly well into male puberty with male muscle growth was forced to wrestle girls who did not have his mass or strength and the girls would lose quickly. That was the result of the laws forcing people to be on the sports teams of their sex assigned at birth. Anyway we can talk more at length about this subject if you like. I put the medical stuff below with the links to them. Hugs
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After one year of GAHT, the transgender athlete showed declines in handgrip strength (7–13 %), countermovement jump (23–29 %), and V̇O2max (15–30 %). After 3 months, several performance indicators (absolute handgrip, peak power, relative peak power, average power, relative average power, V̇O2max and relative V̇O2max) were above the mean of cisgender female athletes, while others (Relative handgrip, countermovement jump and relative countermovement jump) were below. Similar trends were observed at 6 months and 1 year. https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/teb-2024-0017/html?lang=en&srsltid=AfmBOoqF3mUeFE1v842_0frrZ0JABnh1KgSZHsivXe7sZ01SUzXxYWRq
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Methods 19 cisgender men (CM) (mean±SD, age: 37±9 years), 12 transgender men (TM) (age: 34±7 years), 23 transgender women (TW) (age: 34±10 years) and 21 cisgender women (CW) (age: 30±9 years) underwent a series of standard laboratory performance tests, including body composition, lung function, cardiopulmonary exercise testing, strength and lower body power. Haemoglobin concentration in capillary blood and testosterone and oestradiol in serum were also measured.
Results In this cohort of athletes, TW had similar testosterone concentration (TW 0.7±0.5 nmol/L, CW 0.9±0.4 nmol/), higher oestrogen (TW 742.4±801.9 pmol/L, CW 336.0±266.3 pmol/L, p=0.045), higher absolute handgrip strength (TW 40.7±6.8 kg, CW 34.2±3.7 kg, p=0.01), lower forced expiratory volume in 1 s:forced vital capacity ratio (TW 0.83±0.07, CW 0.88±0.04, p=0.04), lower relative jump height (TW 0.7±0.2 cm/kg; CW 1.0±0.2 cm/kg, p<0.001) and lower relative V̇O2max (TW 45.1±13.3 mL/kg/min/, CW 54.1±6.0 mL/kg/min, p<0.001) compared with CW athletes. TM had similar testosterone concentration (TM 20.5±5.8 nmol/L, CM 24.8±12.3 nmol/L), lower absolute hand grip strength (TM 38.8±7.5 kg, CM 45.7±6.9 kg, p=0.03) and lower absolute V̇O2max (TM 3635±644 mL/min, CM 4467±641 mL/min p=0.002) than CM.
Conclusion While longitudinal transitioning studies of transgender athletes are urgently needed, these results should caution against precautionary bans and sport eligibility exclusions that are not based on sport-specific (or sport-relevant) research. https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/58/11/586
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The authors recommend that all reasonable efforts should be made to make sport inclusive and accessible for transgender individuals. They conclude that there is no firm basis available in evidence to indicate that trans women have a consistent and measurable overall performance benefit after 12 months of testosterone suppression.
“This literature review makes it clear that we need more scientific data derived from methodologically sound research focused on trans women athletes to build a foundation of solid evidence and to ultimately guide policy recommendations. The review suggests that sports should support inclusion of trans women in the female category in sport until there is robust and peer-reviewed evidence that it is not safe or fair for other competitors,” said Paul Melia, CCES president and CEO. “Thank you to E-Alliance for this important in-depth examination of the current biological and sociocultural research on transgender athlete participation in competitive sport.” https://sportintegrity.ca/news/literature-review-does-not-support-bans-transgender-women-athletes
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“Sport has traditionally been built around categories for males and females, but as we continue to better understand the complexities of gender identity and diversity, we realize that this construct doesn’t make space for everyone to participate, particularly trans athletes,” said Paul Melia, President and CEO of the CCES. “Sport communities can apply this policy guidance and these best practices to create an environment in which all athletes feel included.”
“The thoughtful deliberations and professional advice of the Expert Working Group brought this to life. We are grateful for their engagement and leadership throughout the project,” added Melia.
“This policy guidance reflects a significant shift in social dialogue around inclusion and gender diversity. It’s a departure from a way of thinking that demanded trans and gender diverse people to change who they are in order to be included,” said Ryan Dyck, Director of Research, Policy and Development, Egale Canada Human Rights Trust. “This places the onus on sport organizations to foster open, nurturing and equitable spaces for all people to live authentically, reach their whole potential and have a fulfilling sport experience. It opens the door for sport to be a leader in building inclusive communities.” https://sportintegrity.ca/news/cces-releases-guide-creating-inclusive-environments-trans-participants-canadian-sport
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Limited evidence suggests that physical performance of nonathletic trans people who have undergone GAHT for at least 2 years approaches that of cisgender controls. Further controlled longitudinal research is needed in trans athletes and nonathletes. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37437247/
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the officials making the decision to ban specific groups should have a few medical lessons before they do so…anyone knowledgeable about a transition knows that hormones are given to assist in the transition. Those hormones ALSO change musculature, strength and agility. Thus the supposed “advantage” of a “male” in a woman’s sporting event.
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dang it…the rest of the last statement is: is no longer an issue. Sorry, my fingers don’t work as well as they used to do. lol
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🤣 It’s good to see you, suze! You make good sense.
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Hi Suze. Well said Suze, well said. Good to hear from you again. I do understand the finger issues and hitting send before I finish what I wanted to write or even worse before I do a proofread to spot how incoherent I was typing. Hugs
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