Transgender High School Softball Pitcher Exposes Potential Problems With NCAA Policy
There is a high school junior in Minnesota competing on a girls' softball team and, apparently, the athlete is a male, according to Reduxx. The player, who now goes by "Marissa" Rothenberg, competes on the girls' varsity softball team at Champlin Park High School in Minnesota.
As a sophomore, Rothenberger helped Champlin Park win 14 games in a row heading into the state playoffs. The coach of the team said Rothenberger had been doing a "phenomenal job" as one of the team's main pitchers. Rothenberger "earned" First-Team All-State honors from the Minnesota State High School Coaches Association. The transgender athlete was the only underclassman to receive First-Team honors among 4A Minnesota high schools.
Minnesota is a state that tends to lean very left-wing, and they have extremely lenient policies when it comes to transgender athletes. Consider that it is one of the states currently under investigation by the Department of Education for potential Title IX violations related to allowing males to compete in girls' and women's sports.
In addition, Minnesota is one of the states that allows people to change their gender on their birth certificate and have a new certificate issued. The state doesn't require the birth certificate to be marked after the change, either. As far as the Minnesota government is concerned, if a male says he is a girl or woman, that's good enough.
According to documents obtained by Reduxx, Rothenberger's mother, Heather, "applied to the Hennepin County District Court to alter [the athlete's] birth certificate shortly after his 9th birthday. The petition was approved, and Rothenberger was issued a new birth certificate showing that he was born ‘female’ and altering his name from ‘Charlie Dean’ to ‘Marissa.’"
The major problem with the new NCAA transgender athlete policy
In a 2024 article on the Alliance Fast Pitch website, Rothenberger was named "Player of the Month." In the story, the writer says, "Currently, Marissa has two major goals: playing Division 1 softball in college and becoming a physical therapist. Her ambition and dedication extend beyond the field as she works toward both her athletic and career aspirations."
The NCAA updated its transgender policy in 2025 to reflect the executive order by President Donald Trump, which seeks to ban males from competing in girls' and women's sports. Theoretically, Rothenberger would be banned from playing women's softball at the Division-I level.
A Minnesota transgender high school softball pitcher, a biological male who "identifies" as a girl, could expose the new NCAA policy on transgender athletes as problematic.
(Getty Images)
However, the NCAA uses birth certificates to determine a person's sex. While the policy explicitly states "that there are no waivers available, and students assigned male at birth may not compete on a women’s team with amended birth certificates or other forms of ID," how would the NCAA know if a male is using an amended birth certificate if that's not made clear by the state who issued it?
Although Democrats have tried to scare people into believing that banning males from women's sports means invasive "genital inspections" for female athletes, that's not true.
Recently, World Athletics introduced a new policy banning males from women's competitions, and they laid out the plan to perform sex checks. So, what is this "invasive" test that Democrats warn about? A cheek swab. And it only needs to be done once in an athlete's life and would be administered by a medical professional.
This is the only accurate way to ensure that males are not competing in girls' and women's sports and stealing roster spots, scholarships, awards and championships from deserving women. The NCAA must do better if it is truly committed to protecting fairness in women's sports.