Anti-transgender Missouri bill protects no one, but it would hurt vulnerable students
This month, state Rep. Charles Basye introduced a bill in the Missouri House that claims to push for fairness in school sports. But House Bill 1045 isn’t fair at all. In fact, it’s a cruel attempt to ban a small segment of already-vulnerable kids and teens from playing sports at school with their classmates. The bill singles out transgender girls specifically, stating that they should be allowed to play sports only with boys or in coed environments, but not with other girls.
Bills such as this one show how little lawmakers know about what it actually means to be transgender. Right now, we see a lot of confusing talk about “men in women’s sports,” but the irony is, that’s only going to happen if trans boys aren’t allowed to compete as boys and instead are made to compete against girls because of what it says on their birth certificates. Trans boys are boys, and trans girls are girls, and to think anything otherwise usually stems from misinformation. More important, trans boys and girls deserve the right to participate in whatever other boys and girls are doing. Just like other kids, they only want to play with their friends.
It’s extremely troubling to think of a world where any kids — especially those who already feel different or left out — are locked out of the opportunity to play in the sport that they love. Just a few years ago, I participated in track and field, football and wrestling at Blue Springs High School. For me, high school athletics was the great equalizer. All anyone cared about was whether I could play and bring championships to Blue Springs High School — and I did.
When University of Missouri alum Michael Sam came out to his teammates as gay (later becoming the first openly gay NFL draft, for the Rams) I thought, “If he could come out to his football team at Mizzou, then I can do it here at my little ole high school in Blue Springs.” I came out the same day. I really don’t think that I would have come out if it wasn’t for the courage shown to me by Sam, who stood up as his authentic self. After coming out, I finally felt that I could compete and show others that I was a good athlete, a cooperative teammate and a fierce competitor.
I would later move on to compete at West Virginia Institute of Technology and then at Northern State University in Aberdeen, South Dakota. With the same support and sense of self I felt in high school, I decided with the help of my coach to come out on the national stage. That summer, I did a Huffington Post interview on what it meant to make history as the NCAA’s first openly gay multicultural college wrestler. To this day, I do not think that I would have been on this path and been so sure of myself now if it were not for the support of my coaches and teammates in both high school and college, especially NSU Coach Rocky Burkett. I am who I am today because of their support for me to be my authentic self, which came through the principles I learned doing high school athletics.
I’m not transgender, but as a gay athlete, I know what it’s like to worry that my teammates will see me as different. I know what it’s like to face discrimination and to be at risk of being targeted by violence just for who I am. But for trans kids, that discrimination and violence occurs at even higher levels. The U.S. Trans Survey found that nearly half (46%) of trans people reported being verbally harassed in the year leading up to the survey because they were trans, and nearly 1 in 10 reported having been physically attacked in that year. In a survey from the educational organization GLSEN, 75% of trans youth said they feel unsafe at school, and a majority of trans youth (59%) said they were denied the right to use school restrooms that matched their gender. When we tell trans kids that they don’t deserve to use the bathroom and don’t deserve to play sports, we are telling them that they don’t belong. And no one should feel that way.
This story of who I am today would be completely different if I were barred from the sport I wanted to play. This story would be different if I had adults, coaches and politicians telling me my identity was a threat to my teammates and competitors. This story would be different if I stayed in the closet and felt that I could not come out because of anti-LGBTQ legislation. Throughout high school and college, I was just trying to survive — and once I started playing sports as my authentic self, that’s when I finally started to thrive. Transgender kids should have that same opportunity to have their life positively shaped by playing in the sports they love. I know in my soul that I would have not excelled, won championships and competed at the collegiate level if I was not doing so as my full, honest self.
We owe it to every single kid to let them grow and develop into who they are supposed to be. That’s why I’m speaking up today — not only to let transgender youth play, but to let them play as their true and authentic selves.
Justice Horn of Kansas City is a community leader, social justice activist, political strategist and former NCAA wrestler.