School sports are an important part of school for many students. Being a part of a team and being able to compete is exhilarating for most — but many feel as if they cannot join one.
Sports teams are often separated based on gender. The only co-ed sports at Roosevelt High School are wrestling, ultimate frisbee, and football. Even then, these co-ed sports often separate people by gender for practices and competitions. One anonymous nonbinary sophomore said, “Often the team split up males on this side, females on that side.” They also said that because they don’t fit in the binary, they “don’t know what side to go on.” This can make it harder for transgender and nonbinary students to join a school sport.
Another nonbinary sophomore added, “There is a point in my life where I’d like to go on testosterone, maybe.” This student was assigned female at birth and is currently on a girls’ soccer team. They continued, “I love sports, and I’d like to keep playing soccer. But I do know that if I do make a big gender-affirming decision like to take testosterone, that might prevent me from playing soccer.”
On one hand, transgender students can pretend to be something they aren’t and join the team of the gender they were assigned at birth. However, for many, this can be extremely dysphoric. On the other hand, they could join the team that is a closer fit to their gender identity.
However, many transgender students may feel as though they are “intruding” or are unwanted by the other players. This explains why many transgender and nonbinary students end up deciding against high school sports altogether.
Before realizing they were transgender, Aderyn Kee, Roosevelt junior, was an absolute jock. They said that they “[were] a very active sports kid.”
After realizing they were transgender — thanks to playing a character named Ted in a play — they dropped every sport “for one reason or another. And it was just like, I don’t feel connected to the team. I don’t relate to the others, but when you really look at it, a lot of it’s just [being] gay and trans.”
There are still some transgender students who continue to participate in sports. An anonymous senior said that they had been on a swim team their whole life and around puberty, it got “difficult,” because it’s “a very small piece of clothing on your body. And that’s fairly revealing. And I noticed myself nervous about the chest area, especially.”
She is now on the water polo team and says that their team is a nice community where “Everyone is able to get to know and support each other,” and that they have “a really supportive coach” who is very good at using the correct pronouns.
Transgender kids, specifically transgender girls and women, have been getting more targeted in the past few years by law officials. Between Idaho becoming the first state to ban transgender children from participating in school sports that correlate with their gender, to the harassment of transgender Olympic athletes — it has been a particularly hard few years for transgender kids.
According to The Trevor Project, transgender and nonbinary youth are already at a higher risk for depression and thoughts of and attempted suicide. It also states that they are two times more likely to deal with these issues than their cisgender counterparts.
With all of that said, it’s important that all students who want to can comfortably participate in school sports, not just the cisgender ones.
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