Last month, Maine Governor Janet Mills made national headlines for publicly clashing with President Donald Trump. In opposing restrictions against trans athletes in women’s sports, Mills attracted the ire of the vengeful new administration, and federal funding was cut to the University of Maine. Amid such intense backlash, most liberals have gone silent or joined Republicans in attacking trans youth. Our governor is one of the few with the courage to stand against injustice, and she must not back down or be silenced. Her message—that Republican policies endanger young female athletes—should be heard by Bowdoin student-athletes and allies alike.

Mills’ rebuke of Trump is a show of true resistance that has been rare since the November election. While Republicans target trans athletes at every political level, Democrats largely acquiesce instead of fighting back. Their logic, of course, is that restricting trans rights is a popular position that propelled the right’s success in 2024. Recent polls have shown that the majority of Americans believe that trans women should not compete in women’s sports. Conservative activists frame the issue in terms of “equity,” “fairness” and “common sense”; in other words, to protect women’s sports, we must ensure that the biological playing field is level.

Yet, the last month has proven that the conservative effort to restrict trans participation in sports does not protect women and girls but rather endangers them. The Texas attorney general sued the NCAA to force them to adopt mandatory gender testing in women’s sports, a move which harkens back to the era of humiliating, invasive strip tests. Fortunately, a Republican judge ruled against the lawsuit. In Maine, a state lawmaker published the name, school and unblurred photos of a trans student, outing her to a hostile online environment. In nineteen states, laws restricting trans participation in sports and access to healthcare contributed to a significant increase in suicide attempts in the last few years. These laws require trans youth to be outed in places where it is not safe, forcing them back into the closet or putting them at risk of all-too-common violence.

The NCAA has already had plenty of problems with both restricting and attempting to monitor women’s bodies. The last few years have seen a reckoning in cross country and track and field, as allegations of body shaming through body composition testing and public weigh-ins have emerged across the country, including at the University of Oregon, University of Colorado and, in the NESCAC, at Wesleyan University. Athletes have spoken about these tests pushing them into eating disorders, which can lead to career-ending health complications. There’s much the NCAA and federal government can still do to push for safer women’s sports, but it means giving women more agency over their health and training, not regressing to abusive and humiliating restrictions.

Meanwhile, the Bowdoin community and the Athletic Department have remained in an uneasy silence, choosing to stand back rather than stand up in the face of harmful policies. Many student-athletes quietly echo the superficial “common sense” line, accepting new invasive policies as a false solution to the challenges facing women’s sports. Even though there are fewer than ten trans athletes in the entire NCAA (about 0.002 percent), such “common sense” endangers hundreds of thousands of female athletes. Moreover, support for these policies in the NCAA sets a precedent for the high school level, where millions more students would be at risk.

Athletes, we must champion women’s sports and speak out against the Republican campaign to undermine them. We must avoid becoming complicit in undermining the safety of girls, young athletes and the trans community. It’s not just a matter of allyship but protecting our own privacy from an increasingly invasive regime. While Republican politicians are using trans athletes as a Trojan horse, they distort the real problems facing women’s sports and are putting all athletes in danger. We cannot let them erode our safety and set the stage for a national surveillance state.

Jiahn Son and Addison Davis are members of the Class of 2025.