Page 4 — Thursday, May 11, 2023 — The Hastings Banner
The Hastings Banner
Devoted to the interests of Barry County since 1856
Published by... Hastings Banner, Inc.
A Division of J-Ad Graphics Inc.
1351 N. M-43 Highway • Phone: (269) 945-9554 • Fax: (269) 945-
News and press releases: [email protected] • Advertising: [email protected]Frederic Jacobs
Publisher & CEOHank Schuuring
CFO- ADVERTISING DEPARTMENT •
Classified ads accepted Monday through Friday,
8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Chris Silverman
Mike GilmoreTy Greenfield
Jennie Yonker- NEWSROOM •
Jayson Bussa (Editor)
Molly Macleod (Copy Editor)
Brett Bremer (Sports Editor)
Greg Chandler
Hunter McLaren
Subscription Rates: $78 per year in Barry County
$85 per year in adjoining counties
$90 per year elsewherePOSTMASTER: Send address changes to:
P.O. Box 188
Hastings, MI 49058-
Second Class Postage Paid
at Hastings, MI 49058Have you met?
Do you remember?
Did you see?
Defending sports for our
daughters and granddaughters
Sometimes government does good things.
When it does, those good things need our
protection.
Witness Title IX, the 1972 mandate that
equalized opportunities for women and
girls in sports traditionally reserved for men
and boys.
Most of us – men and boys especially –
went kicking and screaming into an era in
which athletic facilities and competition
opportunities had to be shared with women
and girls. But look at what has happened in
the past 50 years.
According to the National Collegiate Ath-
letic Association, fewer than 30,000 college
athletes were women in 1972. Now, more
than 218,000 college athletes are women.
The increase has also been massive at our
local high schools, where more girls are now
participating in sports than ever before. The
National Federation of State High School
Association says that more than 3.4 million
American girls play high school sports,
roughly a 1,000 percent increase from the
300,000 girls who played sports in 1972.
And they’ve done it all while reminding
us of the beauty of sport. Even the late leg-
endary basketball coach John Wooden of
UCLA once remarked, “If you want to see
basketball played in its purest form, watch
women’s basketball.”
The increased participation of women has
also increased interest in sports exponential-
ly. The sports you play become the sports
you follow, and today, there are just as many
women in the stands, in front of the televi-
sion and on the sports channels as men,
putting passion into our games.
But the progress that Title IX has engen-
dered is now under attack and in jeopardy
due to a culture war insidiously seeping into
our lives.
Earlier this month, the Biden Administra-
tion proposed a new rule through the U.S.
Department of Education that would expand
the scope of Title IX, allowing transgender
athletes to compete against biological
women and girls. It would also federalize
the issue, forcing states to comply with
national mandates for funding.
The proposed rule would allow transgen-
der men to compete as women. It would
completely dismiss the millions of women
and girls who have set records while com-
peting at the highest levels and have smashed
through glass ceilings because of their hard
work, dedication, and commitment.
Fortunately, House Republicans respond-
ed to the threat and passed the Protection of
Women and Girls in Sports Act, which
requires school athletic programs that
receive federal funds to fully comply with
Title IX protections for women and girls,
including recognizing gender at birth for
athletic purposes.
This important legislation preserves fair-
ness in sports and defends our daughters and
granddaughters from the destruction of the
opportunities and achievements made possi-
ble for them by Title IX.
This past summer at the NCAA Women’s
Swimming Championship, Riley Gaines, a
12-time All-American female swimmer with
five Southeastern Conference titles, was
forced to share a locker room with and com-
pete against transgender biological male Lia
Thomas. The swimmers tied – down to a
hundredth of a second – but then Gaines was
told that the NCAA hadn’t planned for a tie
and that Thomas had to have the trophy for
photo purposes.
Unfortunately, countless young girls and
women like Gaines are being sidelined as
transgender biological males, wanting to
compete as women to gain a physical advan-
tage, infiltrate and dominate women’s sports.
This has been and will become the great-
est challenge to sports in our era.
Recently, the World Athletics Council, the
governing body for international track and
field, barred transgender women athletes
from elite competition for women. The
council said that it ultimately decided to
prioritize the “fairness and the integrity” of
female competition over inclusion. Its con-
cern was whether transgender women had a
physical advantage over other female com-
petitors, even after transgender athletes low-ered their testosterone levels.
It only makes sense that men should com-
pete against men and women should com-
pete against women. Sadly, this concept is
lost due to a country that has allowed a cul-
tural war to dominate any common sense.
As a father of two daughters and two
granddaughters who were involved in sports,
I feel it’s unfair to allow male athletes to
compete against female athletes because the
science appears to be conclusive.
A report by Dr. Gregory A. Brown, exer-
cise professor at the University of Nebraska,
indicated the scientific facts and research
recognize that the irreversible physical dif-
ferences between males and females “pro-
vide a strong argument that males have an
intolerable advantage over females.”
“Even if male athletes are receiving
androgen inhibitors and cross-sex hormones,
it will not reverse the distinct advantage
males have over females,” says Brown.
Dr. Brown’s research shows that if female
athletes are forced to compete against males,
they will not have a fair chance to compete.
And young girls would never get the oppor-
tunity to fulfill their dreams, no matter how
hard they work.
“Men and women are not interchange-
able,” says Brown. “It’s a fact of both sci-
ence and common sense that they differ in
many ways. And when males who identify
as females are permitted to compete in
women’s sports, it is women and girls who
suffer.”
While some female athletes have taken a
brave stand on the issue, many are ridiculed
and bullied by activists who lash out against
them in the name of women’s rights. That’s
why we have separate men’s and women’s
sports. Somehow, we’ve allowed the line
between the two to become blurry and we’re
letting women and girls bear the conse-
quences.
It reminds me of the song, “I Enjoy Being
a Girl,” a show tune from the 1958 Rodgers
and Hammerstein musical "Flower Drum
Song". If these transgender men find them-
selves wanting to be a girl – that’s their
decision and we should respect that. But
transgender men should not be able to
infringe on a woman’s right to compete fair-
ly which goes directly to the argument that
transgender men should not be able to com-
pete in women’s sports due to their biologi-
cal differences.
“For the past several decades, female ath-
letes have seen their opportunities grow
where the number of women’s sports teams
has more than tripled since the passage of
Title IX,” said Brown. “In fact, many of
America’s most famous Olympic athletes
are women, such as Serena Williams, Sim-
one Biles and Katie Ledecky.”
But Brown’s research shows that if female
athletes are forced to compete against males,
even these Olympians would not have a fair
chance to compete.
Check out the professional women’s golf-
ers when they stop in Grand Rapids for the
Ladies Professional Golf Association Meijer
Classic on June 15-18 and look carefully to
find one errant shot. Let’s not step backward
from the beauty of women’s sports that
came with Title IX.
“Young girls would never get the oppor-
tunity to fulfill their dreams, no matter how
hard they work (without Title IX),” suggests
Brown.
It’s common sense that men should not
compete in women’s sports no matter who
they think they are or who they want to be.
They should not be allowed to threaten the
beauty of women’s sports.Off to the Races
In anticipation of the Kentucky
Derby, Middleville-based retirement
and assisted living facility Carveth
Village held its annual Derby Day
event last Friday. This event included
an up-close visit with some horses and
baby chicks in addition to the wheel-
chair races, which always gets fast
and furious.A look back at area rural schools
Banner undatedRural school consolidation was a hot topic in the 1930s. This photo of that era shows students at the Quimby School, which
later was absorbed by the Hastings district. It was unusual to see a Black child (third from the left, middle row) at an area
school. The girl (Emma Robinson) lived at the County Farm (now site of medical facility) and her classmates liked her so well
they fought for the right to walk her home from school each day, remembers Dorothy Hummel (Martich), who loaned the photo.
Shown are (back row, from left) Lawrence Greenfield, Harold Chaffee, teacher Cameron McIntyre, Dick Chaffee, Ernest (Bud)
Gross, (middle row) Maurice Greenfield, Keith Chaffee, Emma Robinson, Retah Hummel, Jane Clark, Marjorie Riteman,
Albert McIntyre, Clarence Chaffee, Junior Hill, (front row) Bill Barber, Russell Mix, Dorothy Hummel and Donna Smith.Hastings native Megan Baker left town
after graduating high school.
She left the small-town lifestyle behind,
spending time in Kalamazoo, Grand Rap-
ids and other cities elsewhere across the
country. But, even after seeing so many
different locales, something called her
back to Hastings.
She said it felt like home. Nowhere else
had the same sense of community.
“Bigger cities just aren’t for me,” she
said. “I love going to the bigger cities, but
the personal wholeness of people in our
community – like the willingness to drop
everything and help somebody – it doesn’t
transfer into those big cities as well.”
Baker worked as a body piercer for 20
years before she started tattooing. She had
wanted to do it for a long time, but it was
hard to break into tattooing as a piercer,
especially as a woman.
“For a long time, it was a man’s industry.
Especially if you were a piercer, it was a
funny joke that you wanted to become a
tattoo artist because they look at piercers as
untalented, skill-less artists,” she said. “I’m
going to tell you it’s hard to be a good
piercer.”
Baker worked various apprenticeships
before beginning to do tattoo work on her
own. It was another several years after that
before she owned her own shop.
It was an experience that stuck with her.
Baker remembers what it was like to
work hard only to have others reap the ben-
efits. It’s why she runs her shop, Tuff Love
Arts, as a collective. The artists there only
pay for their space in the shop, and they
keep all of their profits. They work with
her, not for her.
“I’m trying to share the space for equal
benefit. I have a hard time working for peo-
ple. I’ve always been a better ‘work with
people’ person. I think there are a lot of us
out there,” she said. “I would like to be the
person that can offer another person that is
in a situation I was in before the space that
they need to be successful.”Her thoughts on work and community
have also bled into other parts of her life.
In 2011, she founded the Buttermilk
Jamboree Festival and uses it as a place to
build community and share skills. Each
year, artists and craftspeople can gather and
learn from each other, learning things like
how to can and jar food, cultivate gardens
and other self-sustainable staples.
While her shop is now located in down-
town Hastings, she’s in the process of mak-
ing a move to 223 W. Mill St., a few blocks
away. The bigger space will provide a new
home for her shop next month, and she
plans to utilize the larger lot to host more
community events and gatherings.
While she recognizes she’s one of a
lucky few that can make a living from cre-
ating art, Baker also feels she has more to
give back to the community.
“At some point in my heart, I know that
this isn’t all I’m supposed to be doing. This
is what pays my bills, but it doesn’t fill my
heart,” Baker said. “It’s not making me feel
fulfilled.”
She’s excited to be able to be the gather-
ing place for members of the community,
and she hopes to expand on that part of herrole as a community member. She’d like to
establish a child advocacy and outreach
center in the future to create a place where
kids can safely gather and be themselves.
As the mother of kids who are part of the
LGBTQ community, Baker is a staunch ally
of the LGBTQ community in Barry County
and beyond. She said she’s no stranger to
being cast out or treated differently by her
peers. She hopes no other child must endure
that experience alone. She hopes to be the
person she needed to guide her growing up
in Hastings, both for her kids and her
younger self.
“I realized I needed to go be the person
that I needed, where I was when I needed
it,” she said. “I need to be in this communi-
ty for the kids that are like me, or are like I
was (when I was younger) and need a safe
place.”
For returning to Hastings to better her
community and be an advocate for Barry
County youth, Megan Baker is this week’s
Bright Light.
What the world needs now: The world
needs more community and empathy. Many
hands make light work!
Favorite teacher: Mr. Simon, an art
teacher at Hastings Middle School in the
‘90s. He never gave anyone less than an A
as long as they tried and often would give
us A+1000s.
If I could have any superpower, it
would be: Teleportation. It would save me
so much travel time, and I would be able to
see so many more places I haven’t yet!
What I like about my job: I love my job
because I am able to connect with so many
different people.
Each week, the Banner profiles a person
who makes the community shine. Do you
know someone who should be featured
because of volunteer work, fun-loving per-
sonality, the stories he or she has to tell, or
for any other reason? Send information to
Newsroom, Hastings Banner, 1351 N. M-
Highway, Hastings, MI 49058; or email
[email protected].Megan Baker Fred Jacobs, CEO,
J-Ad Graphics Inc.