In recent days, right-wing media sources from the Maine Wire to “Fox and Friends” have hustled to smear a 16-year-old runner in Maine who apparently participated at scholastic track events last year as a boy and is now competing as a girl. 

I’m not about to wade into the debate about what the rules for such things ought to be. It’s not hard to understand why people differ on the issue. 

The larger debate about who should be able to compete in women’s sports is one thing. But pointing the finger at one young person, who is only 16, is way out of line.   

A high school sophomore and the mother and father doing their best to support their kid are entitled to a reasonable level of privacy instead of something that looks an awful lot like a modern-day witch hunt. 

Let’s examine the Maine Wire story, for instance, which seems to have gone the furthest in putting this family in the spotlight. 

Its headline alone tells nearly the whole tale, from its warped perspective: “Trans Runner Who Destroyed Female Competition at Maine Cross Country Meet has Maine Medical Center Director of Clinical Ethics Father, Bates Feminist Ethicist Mother.” 

It includes all of their names and a picture of the student running in a cross-country race. It details the professional careers of the parents. 

It’s a disgusting invasion of a family’s privacy. 

So it’s not surprising that it appears the source of this groundswell of nastiness is Shawn McBreairty, a Maine pot-stirrer who calls himself “America’s Most Dangerous Dad.” 

In a Sept. 28 social media post that has drawn more than 1.1 million views, McBreairty declared that a “sophomore boy ranked 172nd in the cross country 5k flips over to race with the girls, now he’s ranked 4th.” 

“Parents need to know his selfishness will ruin the dreams of young women on Saturday in Belfast, ME at 1:50 pm. Parents need to revolt and call this madness out,” he wrote. 

Bad enough to single the youngster out, but to urge people to show up at a track meet to “revolt” is just revolting. 

But rest assured that McBreairty doesn’t see it that way. 

In a blog post that same day, he wrote, “Some media outlets might think that this article leans toward bullying this confused young man.” 

“However, the reality of this madness should feel like a slap in the face to every parent of a female athlete,” he wrote. “The root cause is that no female should ever have to compete against a male in their own class. Sports are binary. Hard stop.” 

But calling the young runner “cheater boy” and a “fake female,” as he did in other posts, has nothing to do with a rational debate about who should be eligible to compete in women’s track and field. 

All of this is just trashing a high school sophomore — a minor, by law — who deserves society’s help and support, not public shaming. 

It’s sickening to see the Daily Mail, which laughably referred to McBreairty as a journalist, along with Fox News and a host of iffy online media sources jumping on the bandwagon to smear this kid. 

I’m distressed that people and publications that claim they are pro-family and pro-children are so quick to try to destroy this young runner. 

We can debate the issues at play in all of this without condemning kids and mauling families. 

A 16-year-old who didn’t choose to become a public figure should be given the room to figure things out without becoming the subject of attacks from across the world. 

I don’t expect much from McBreairty, who seems to enjoy attention of any sort, but the Maine Wire and other self-declared sources of news shouldn’t be part of a posse taunting and trashing children. 

Staff Writer Steve Collins covers the State House and politics for the Sun Journal. He is also co-founder and board president of Youth Journalism International, a charity that teaches students around the globe about news writing, media literacy and issues of the day.