“The thing that is most upsetting about it all, other than the possibility of my kid losing this thing that they love, is that it is such a cruel and false construct of how the world works,” says Jesse, the parent to a teenage trans girl, of President Trump’s move to ban transfeminine athletes from women’s sports.
In September of 2020, the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion issued a report about the virtues of youth sports, linking them to lower rates of anxiety and depression, lower amounts of stress, improved bone health, reduced risk of cancer and diabetes, and reduced risk of suicide among young people, among other benefits.
Any parent would have trouble arguing with those outcomes, but for the parents of trans children—who are at disproportionate risk of depression, anxiety, and suicidality —the social and emotional upside of a rec-league swim class, or cheering for them as they play on their school soccer team, may be even more alluring. In an executive order issued in February—and praised by prominent anti-trans figures including South Carolina congresswoman Nancy Mace and Riley Gaines—however, President Donald Trump has sought to prevent transfeminine athletes from participating in women’s sports. And even with notably few out trans athletes competing in the NCAA, the order is already having a chilling effect on trans children—and their parents—around the country. “For transgender young people who simply want to play sports with their friends and enjoy the equal benefits of their educational experiences, these attacks are not abstract,” ACLU attorney and trans rights expert Chase Strangio tells me. “Transgender youth have endured years of relentless demonization and political attacks when they are harming absolutely no one by going to school and pursuing extracurricular activities with their friends.” Hazel Heinzer’s two children, 11-year-old Dylan and nine-year-old Sierra, are both nonbinary, and both currently practice with a youth rock climbing team in their home state of Arizona. Although neither child competes—they didn’t want to have to identify as male or female in order to register with USA Climbing—Heinzer says that her kids are among the lucky ones who have been “supported, accepted, and affirmed by coaches and teammates at their school and extracurricular activities.” A recent email that Heinzer, who once swam for the University of Arizona, sent to her representatives reads, in part: “Our children are proof that when trans kids are allowed to be themselves, and are affirmed and loved for who they are, they thrive, just like any kid who is loved and accepted for who they are.” Indeed, there is evidence to suggest that trans kids’ involvement in sports can lead not only to better mental and physical health, but also higher grade point averages. Yet for many parents, the rationale is far simpler: James enrolled his trans daughter in a rec-center sports league merely to give her “something to do with her time and productive way to move her body around in the cold climate where we live.” Jesse, the father of a teenage trans girl who currently plays rec-league basketball, worries constantly about his daughter absorbing the ugliness of anti-trans rhetoric in the US right now. While Jesse's daughter’s experience on her team has been largely positive, he’s still concerned about the effect that seeing trans athletes persecuted in the news will have on her, saying: “The thing that is most upsetting about it all, other than the possibility of my kid losing this thing that they love, is that it is such a cruel and false construct of how the world works. It is so clearly designed to upset people and convince people that my kid is bad.” While advocates of trans equality in sports often insist that trans, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming youth are no different than their cisgender and/or heterosexual peers, James is intent on teaching his trans daughter that her gender identity isn’t something merely to accept, but to celebrate. “As a trans guy who grew up playing women’s sports—it’s where I met all my friends, it’s where I met my wife—I think middle-of-the-road liberals are afraid to say that women’s sports are gay as hell and that trans kids are a part of the vibrant queer life that has long been associated with women’s sports,” James tells me. “I want my daughter to have access to sports not because she’s like everyone else, but because she’s queer, and I want her to have the same onroad to queer life I was lucky to have.”
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