Quick, without using Google, name one member of the University of Montana women’s cross country team. Just one.

OK, let’s make it easier on you. Name any woman who ever ran for the Grizzlies cross country team.

Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock.

Time’s up.

My bet is that at least 99 percent could not do it you gave them all day to think about it.

You know who does know one former member of the Grizzly women’s cross country team, though? Aaron Flint. But I will bet you a sandwich form Pork Chop John’s that he cannot name two. Milkshake included, of course.

Flint, the Republican nominee for Montana’s First Congressional District, knows the name June Eastwood.

He knows June for one reason. June was the first transgender woman to run NCAA Division I cross country. Flint also knows that selling hate is probably his best bet to win the election in November.

For whatever reason, it seems to be easy to convince people that they should hate transpeople. It is easy to hate what you do not understand.

Eastwood started identifying as a female in the middle school, but the Belgrade native did not transition until after she ran three seasons for the UM men’s team under the name Jonathan.

She made national news when she was named the Big Sky Conference’s Female Athlete of the Week after placing second at the Bronco Invitational in Sunnyvale, California in 2019, and that made a lot of people who did not even know UM had a cross country team really mad.

Now Flint is trying to rekindle that anger and hatred to wrangle up some votes.

My point is not to diminish the importance of the Grizzlies women’s cross country team. I have tremendous respect for women and men who can run at that level. It just might be the hardest sport there is.

The runners on those teams, though, should not decide an election.

That is not to say that I think it was fair that a transgender woman was allowed to run against women. I do not think it is fair for any transgender women to compete in women’s or girls’ sports, and I do not know a single person who does think it is fair.

But that doesn’t make me hate the transgender people who want to compete or just want to live the life they choose. Transgender people only want the same thing you and I want. They want to be happy, and Eastwood said running brought her joy.

I am happy that she was able to find the outlet to improve her life while studying at the University of Montana. I also feel bad for any womon who might have missed on a chance to run for the team or earn a scholarship because Eastwood took her place.

It really is possible to have two conflicting feelings.

The transgender people I know have two things in common. First, seem to be happier now that they are living in what they say is their true identities, and good for them. We should all be happy trying to live our best life.

Second, none of them asked any of us to pay for their sex-change operation.

We do not have to understand a lifestyle to respect it, and I respect and support my transgender friends. But I don’t think they should be lined up against your daughter on the volleyball court.

And from my nearly 30 years of experience writing about sports, I can safely tell you that they are not. The NCAA has a population of more than 500,000 athletes. Estimates range from fewer than 10 to up to 40 of those athletes are transgender.

That does not mean “men playing in women’s sports,” as the hatemongers put it, is a non-issue. It just means that the issue is on par the number of people killed by sharks each year. You are about as likely to get eaten by a shark as you are to see your daughter lose a race to a transgender athlete in college.

Actually, you are probably more likely to suffer a shark attack. But sharks don’t swing elections. Not even in the movie Jaws, where the mayor apparently won reelection after his soft-on-sharks policy was so badly exposed.

Yet, transgender athletes — and the hatred some politicians manufactured toward them — swung the 2024 election. People like Flint are trying to make them do the same in 2026.

That is why his dark money groups are sending us 12 mailers each week telling us that Sam Forstag, Flint’s Democratic opponent, wants to use taxpayer money to fund sex-change operations.

It is why Flint is posting on Facebook that Forstag wants men to use the same restroom as your little girl — after he bounces a volleyball off her face, that is. It is why Flint brought up the name of a transgender cross country runner who hasn’t donned a Grizzly uniform since before the COVID shutdown.

When I ran for chief executive of Butte-Silver Bow in 2024, one woman told me that her No. 1 issue was transgender women competing in women’s sports. Her No. 1 issue.

I told her that I have been covering sports for decades, and I had only ever heard of one transgender athlete competing against women in Montana. I also told her that is not an issue that will ever cross the chief executive’s desk.

It didn’t matter. She was going to cast her vote based on that issue, and she was not alone. I am confident she did not vote for me.

Transgender people have been turned into the political bogyman, and it has proven to be a winning issue. It is also an issue that Flint has spent his radio career talking about, pushing for people to hate other people, particularly members of the LGBTQ+ community.

Do not fall for it this time. We are facing too many real issues to let a handful of transgender athletes — and the phony hatred for them — influence your vote.

Have you seen the price of gas lately? It is approaching $5 per gallon and showing no signs of going down. We can’t afford to drive around the state to watch our high school athletes compete.

Our two-week war in Iran is also showing no signs of stopping, and we could be invading Canada any day now.

Households with two working parents cannot afford health insurance. People are choosing between paying for life-saving medicine or buying groceries.

Some high-level artificial intelligence executives think that AI might destroy all of humanity before the end of the decade, and our governments at all levels are still pushing data centers like they are the be-all and end-all.

Our education secretary thinks AI is steak sauce.

We have masked agents snatching people off the street and taking them to concentration camps. The same agents are killing citizens. The First Amendment is under constant attack, both with late-night comedy shows and White House correspondents.

A major aquifer in the center of the country is going dry. Our ranchers are losing their shirts while the United States is importing beef from God knows where. We can’t eat a salad without getting the runs, and the measles have triumphantly come out of retirement.

On top of it all, Caleb Williams has a hamstring injury.

We literally have 99 million problems, but a former college cross country runner is not one of them.

We are all free to vote based on whichever issue we want to when we go to the polls on Nov. 3. I just hope you vote based on one that is real, not one that is made up to try to keep us hating each other.

And if you happen to see Aaron Flint before then, ask him to name one more UM runner. Just one.

Tell him you have a pork chop riding on his answer.

— Bill Foley, who will vote for the candidate who can heal Caleb’s hamstring, can be reached at foles74@gmail.com. Follow him at twitter.com/Foles74 or Bluesky at @foles74.bsky.social. Listen to him on the ButteCast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.