It would not be an exaggeration to say that sports saved my life.
I grew up in a small town in the American Southwest known as an offbeat refuge for artists and skiers. Locally, the area had a reputation for heroin overdoses, drunk driving fatalities, and high school drop-outs. But after school and on the weekends, my friends and I all played youth sports like soccer and basketball together. Athletics kept us occupied, supervised, and generally out of trouble. We also learned lifelong lessons about accountability, hard work, and time management.
When soccer season ended and the boys started playing ice hockey, I was one of the only girls who was eager to join them; I wanted to do what my friends did. Throughout my youth and into high school, I was often the only girl on the ice, and one of only a handful statewide, but I was welcomed and accepted by both my team and the league. Looking back, it makes sense that I was “one of the boys” because I was a boy, but we didn’t have language or resources to support transgender youth in the early ’90s the way we do today.
After high school, I played varsity women’s ice hockey at Bowdoin College in Maine. I can’t tell you what our record was during my four years of playing college hockey, which team won the league championship, or how many goals I scored, but I can say with absolute assurance that my hockey teammates are still some of my best friends. And that didn’t change after I came out as transgender in 2016 and started transitioning.
We’ve supported each other during marriage and divorce, while caring for ill parents and starting families, and through experiences of racism and discrimination. During the pandemic, we have remained connected online and debated whether or not we’re going to wear pants with elastic waists forever. We share a bond that can only be forged through long hours at the rink and grueling lifting schedules at the gym. We all remember the collective joy of celebrating a win and the shared grief after a loss.
As a kid who didn’t quite fit in, I always found safety and stability among my teammates. When the weight of the outside world felt like it was too heavy for a teenager struggling with identity, I knew that for an hour each day, I could leave it all outside the rink and just play hockey. Then in my 30s, while fighting for sobriety and battling depression, outreach from my college teammates saved my life: They made overt gestures, like flying to Maine when I was approaching rock bottom just so we could lie in a hotel bed, eat Thai food, and watch trashy reality TV. They messaged me on the daily group text where we offer support and accountability.
Only a person who has spent years working out with you can call you up and say, “I love you but you’re being an idiot,” with the sort of bluntness that you know comes from a place of love.
I’m not alone in my experiences. For transgender youth, having access to sports is quite literally life-saving; according to a study recently published by the Center for American Progress, the mere existence of transgender-insluive sports policies lowers the risk of poor mental health and suicidality for trans youth. Even if trans youth don’t participate in sports, the fact that they are able to reduces their risk of depression and attempted suicide. As a community, we need the mental health benefits that sport can offer. The largest survey of transgender people, the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey conducted by the National Center for Transgender Equality, reports that transgender people are nine times more likely to attempt suicide over our lifetime than our cisgender peers. And almost 75% of transgender people who attempt suicide are under the age of 18. Even without harmful and invasive laws, it is dangerous to be a young trans person.
But lawmakers in 31 states are preying on this already vulnerable population by trying to pass laws to ban trans kids from playing sports. Politicians are targeting young children who are already coping with trauma after a year of wearing masks and only seeing their classmates on Zoom. They are going after teenagers who, like each of us, miss spending time with their friends without being afraid for the future. They are harming college students who are preparing to enter an economy grappling with unemployment and low wages.
It’s important to note that the majority of these attacks are not coming from cisgender athletes. They overwhelmingly welcome their transgender teammates. Earlier this month, over 550 current student athletes from over 85 U.S. colleges and universities recently — and for the second time — sent a letter to the NCAA in support of transgender student athletes. They know that trans athletes just want to be included. I played hockey as a kid because that’s what my friends were doing and I didn’t want to be left out. These laws and policies don’t just leave out trans kids, they intentionally exclude us.
