In Minnesota, a 6-foot-tall biological male continues to dominate girls' softball.

As a sophomore last year, Marissa Rothenberger helped Champlin Park High School win 14-straight games heading into the playoffs and was named First-Team All-State — the only underclassman in the 4A division to earn the honor. Now a junior, Rothenberger remains a standout on the mound, with a 6-1 record, 67 strikeouts and a 0.76 ERA in 46 innings pitched, per Minnesota Softball Hub.

But not everyone is cheering. Many parents and players are left wondering why a male athlete is allowed to compete in girls’ sports in the first place and why no one is willing to say anything about it.

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The father of a South Dakota club softball player, who asked to remain anonymous for his daughter's privacy, told OutKick that his daughter’s team played against Rothenberger’s team twice last year in travel ball.

"Our girls have played Marissa's team twice, and they’re a good club. They’re a top-notch club," he said. "However, when you’ve got a kid that goes 3-for-3 and 2-for-2 and pitches two innings and strikes out five batters... sometimes there’s just things you notice that are a little bit odd."

His daughter plays on a team with multiple Division I commits — seasoned athletes used to high-level competition — but none of them had been told they’d be facing a biological male.

"None of us knew that that girl was a boy," he said. "But when this came out... my 16-year-old knew exactly who it was, and she said, 'Man, that doesn’t surprise me.'"

The state of Minnesota allows residents to change the sex listed on their birth certificates. 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.'"

For this father, the issue shouldn't be a political one. It’s about safety, honesty and protecting female athletes, especially in a sport like softball where an errant pitch or a brutal comebacker could lead to serious injury. 

"You’re talking about somebody with exceptional size and strength," he said. "Forty-three feet [from mound to plate] is not that far away. The reaction times — the ball off the bat of a 17-year-old male versus a 17-year-old female — it’s just... different.

"The safety of the kids on the other side, from a legal standpoint, needs to be respected. Everybody’s so worried about getting sued by these left-wing woke groups. Well, what about the people on the other side of the coin that just want their girls in a safe environment?"

The lack of transparency (and the incorrect assumption that everyone on the field is female) is what struck him the most.

"There should be no disguise," he said. "If there’s a boy on the other team, the other team should know that— from a safety standpoint and just for open, transparent dialogue. Don’t be hiding players and presenting them as girls when they’re boys."

He admitted that although the issue of trans-identifying males has been a hot-button issue lately, he never imagined his family would be affected.

"Nobody ever thought it would hit this close to home," he said. "You hear about this stuff in Connecticut and Oregon and with Riley [Gaines] in swimming, and you think, ‘Oh, that’s far away.’ But when we found out, it hit us right at home. Everybody was shocked."

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This father also believes it’s time for people in leadership positions to be held accountable. He specifically pointed to those in charge of elite fastpitch softball clubs and organizations, who are supposed to be advocates for their female athletes.

"These people are making a lot of money," he said. "If you want to be in a leadership position, you need to represent these kids and step up and do what’s right."

He cited the original intent of Title IX — and how far we’ve strayed from it.

"When Title IX was enacted in 1972, there was not one congressman, not one judge, not one person in the country that didn’t know the difference between men and women," he said. "They knew why that law was passed. There was no ambiguity.

"For whatever reason, people do not stand up for what’s right. There are really three camps: the people who think these kids should be able to play wherever they want, the people like me who say it’s flat-out wrong, and the people in the middle just sitting on the side and doing nothing. Those people need to stand up."

He left the conversation with a plea to those in charge. He wants to see a strong policy in place, not just for the rights of his own daughters but for future athletes down the road.

"It absolutely sickens me — the cowardice, the apathy on the sidelines," he said. "It’s not even about being gay or trans. It’s cowardice. And if you’re making that call, you need to be called out."

OutKick reached out to three leading organizations in girls' softball (USA Softball, the Alliance Fastpitch and Premier Girls Fastpitch) as well as Midwest Speed, the club for which Rothenberger played last summer and fall. 

While the other organizations failed to respond, Alliance told OutKick that its Board of Directors approved a new Athlete Eligibility Policy in January 2025, which limits participation in national events strictly to biological females.

"The eligibility conditions established in this policy are driven solely by the Alliance Fastpitch's desire to ensure safety, maintain fairness and avoid any unfair competitive advantage within our female-only, youth fastpitch competitions," Alliance said in a statement to OutKick. "The Board is actively working to communicate this policy to all member leagues."

It's important to note, though, that the Minnesota State High School League (as well as all other state high school governing bodies) is separate from club softball and operates under its own set of rules. Further, it's difficult to enforce a female-only policy in states, like Minnesota, where individuals can simply change the sex on their birth certificate at will.

As this South Dakota father stated, until state lawmakers and athletic organizations are willing to draw a clear, uncompromising line — one rooted in biology, not ideology — girls and women will continue to be put at risk.

Jose Mujica, a one-time guerrilla and later president of Uruguay who drove a beat-up VW Beetle and enacted progressive reforms that carried his reputation well beyond South America, has died aged 89.

The straight-talking Mujica, known to many Uruguayans by his nickname "Pepe," led the small farming country's leftist government from 2010 to 2015 after convincing voters his radical past was a closed chapter.

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"It is with deep sorrow that we announce the death of our comrade Pepe Mujica," President Yamandu Orsi said in a post on X. "Thank you for everything you gave us and for your deep love for your people."

As president, Mujica adopted what was then a pioneering liberal stance on issues related to civil liberties. He signed a law allowing gay marriage and abortions in early pregnancy, and backed a proposal to legalize marijuana sales. The gay marriage and abortion measures were a big shift for Catholic Latin America, and the move on marijuana was at the time almost unprecedented worldwide.

Regional leaders, including leftist presidents in Brazil, Chile and Mexico, mourned Mujica's passing and praised his example.

"He defended democracy like few others. And he never stopped advocating for social justice and the end of all inequalities," said Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Mujica's "greatness transcended the borders of Uruguay and his presidential term," he added.

During his term in office, Mujica refused to move to the presidential residence, choosing to stay in his modest home where he kept a small flower farm in a suburb of Montevideo, the capital.

Shunning a formal suit and tie, it was common to see him driving around in his Beetle or eating at downtown restaurants where office workers had lunch.

In a May 2024 interview with Reuters in the tin-roofed house that Mujica shared with his wife, former Senator Lucia Topolansky, he said he had kept the old Beetle and that it was still in "phenomenal" condition.

But, he added, he preferred a turn on the tractor, saying it was "more entertaining" than a car and was a place where "you have time to think."

Critics questioned Mujica's tendency to break with protocol, while his blunt and occasionally uncouth statements sometimes forced him to explain himself, under pressure from opponents and political allies alike.

But it was his down-to-earth style and progressive musings that endeared him to many Uruguayans.

"The problem is that the world is run by old people, who forget what they were like when they were young," Mujica said during the 2024 interview.

Mujica himself was 74 when he became president. He was elected with 52% of the vote, despite some voters' concerns about his age and his past as one of the leaders of the Tupamaros rebel group in the 1960s and 1970s.

Lucia Topolansky was Mujica's long-term partner, dating back to their days in the Tupamaros. The couple married in 2005, and she served as vice president from 2017-2020.

After leaving office, they remained politically active, regularly attending inaugurations of Latin American presidents and giving crucial backing to candidates in Uruguay, including Orsi, who took office in March 2025. They stopped growing flowers on their small holding but continued to cultivate vegetables, including tomatoes that Topolansky pickled each season.

BEHIND BARS

Jose Mujica's birth certificate recorded him as born in 1935, although he claimed there was an error and that he was actually born a year earlier. He once described his upbringing as "dignified poverty."

Mujica's father died when he was 9 or 10 years old, and as a boy he helped his mother maintain the farm where they grew flowers and kept chickens and a few cows.

At the time Mujica became interested in politics, Uruguay's left was weak and fractured and he began his political career in a progressive wing of the center-right National Party.

In the late 1960s, he joined the Marxist Tupamaros guerrilla movement, which sought to weaken Uruguay's conservative government through robberies, political kidnappings and bombings.

Mujica later said that he had never killed anyone but was involved in several violent clashes with police and soldiers and was once shot six times.

Uruguay's security forces gained the upper hand over the Tupamaros by the time the military swept to power in a 1973 coup, marking the start of a 12-year dictatorship in which about 200 people were kidnapped and killed. Thousands more were jailed and tortured.

Mujica spent almost 15 years behind bars, many in solitary confinement, lying at the bottom of an old horse trough with only ants for company. He managed to escape twice, once by tunneling into a nearby house. His biggest "vice" as he approached 90, he later said, was talking to himself, alluding to his time in isolation.

When democracy was restored to the farming country of roughly 3 million people in 1985, Mujica was released and returned to politics, gradually becoming a prominent figure on the left.

He served as agriculture minister in the center-left coalition of his predecessor, President Tabaré Vázquez, who would go on to succeed him from 2015 to 2020.

Mujica's support base was on the left, but he maintained a fluid dialogue with opponents within the center-right, inviting them to traditional barbecues at his home.

"We can't pretend to agree on everything. We have to agree with what there is, not with what we like," he said.

He believed drugs should be decriminalized "under strict state control" and addiction addressed.

"I do not defend drug use. But I can't defend (a ban) because now we have two problems: drug addiction, which is a disease, and narcotrafficking, which is worse," he said. 

In retirement, he remained resolutely optimistic.

"I want to convey to all the young people that life is beautiful, but it wears out and you fall," he said following a cancer diagnosis.

"The point is to start over every time you fall, and if there is anger, transform it into hope."