NH House misuses sports

So the New Hampshire House has voted to ban transgender girls from sports (Valley News, March 23). If we’re generous and assume lawmakers aren’t baldly bigoted, then they must think trans girls have an edge that is somehow “unfair.” Such a concern may feel plausible on the surface. And frankly I haven’t seen hard evidence on whether trans girls have marginally better sports potential than cisgender girls.

But so what if they did! Think about it: Having Caitlin Clark sure gives the Iowa Hawkeyes an edge over other teams, one others are unlikely to beat. But is that advantage “unfair?” Should she be banned from women’s basketball? Of course not! The House is acting like those apoplectic parents who take winning too seriously — who yell curses from the stands, embarrass their kids and take away the fun.

Competition, by its nature, entails somebody suffering the sorrow of losing. But when you sign up to play, you’re consenting to that risk, the same way patients give “informed consent” to a risky surgery. Granted, I think far too many kids are forced to compete before they’re mature enough to knowingly consent. But if they do fully consent, what they’re consenting to includes this: That it’s only a game. That you play fair. That you do your best in a way that encourages others to do their best too. That sure, somebody always loses, and everybody loses sometimes — but that says nothing about anybody’s worth as a human being.

By contrast, to ban a group of people from sports altogether is a statement about their worth as humans. And the statement isn’t a pretty one. The innuendo is that trans kids (unlike Caitlin Clark) are some sort of fakes. At the very least the majority of the New Hampshire House needs a lesson in rudimentary sportsmanship.

Bernie Waugh

Hanover

Protect national forest

The U.S. Forest Service (USFS) has released its latest plans to log nearly 12,000-acres of Vermont’s Green Mountain National Forest (GMNF) northeast of Rutland.

This plan would devastate an area larger than the city of Burlington. It endangers the water quality of the White River and Otter Creek, risks introducing invasive species, and destroys habitat needed by threatened and endangered wildlife.

After more than 1,500 comments submitted during the last comment period the USFS has altered its plan slightly. However, these alternatives are for only small sections of the forest.

The deadline for making comments and signing the petition April 8. Please submit letters to Vermont newspapers and to our senators and representatives ASAP. For more information on how send comments to the Forest Service, to sign our petition or to send letters of concern, go to standingtrees.org.

Please join us, speak out to save our public forests.

Laura Simon

Wilder

Hanover traffic solutions lack a problem

Those traffic cones in front of the Hanover post office are nothing more than latest version of a committee looking for problems that their unnecessary “solutions” can be applied to. The traffic light sequencing and walk timing at the corner of Main and East Wheelock streets is absolute genius. Everyone is accommodated, even at heavy pedestrian times, and has been for 20 years or more. The Main and Lebanon streets corner flow is just about as good, and needs no “improvement” so that somebody can take credit for it.

This stuff comes from the same self-regarding committee which around COVID time came up with the idea of removing parking on Main Street, presumably for picnic tables and shuffleboard courts. The psychology of it is “give us enough time and we’ll perfect this place,” as if it needed it. The Selectboard should put this group out to pasture until a real problem is identified.

Dick Mackay

Hanover