Editor’s Note • The following is columnist Robert Gehrke’s letter to the young woman recently profiled in The Salt Lake Tribune who quit swimming after the Utah Legislature banned transgender girls, like her, from competing in high school athletics.
Dear … well. I don’t know your name.
But I don’t really need to know it. Because after you had the courage to share your story with my colleague Courtney Tanner, I feel like I know some more important things; like that you are brave, dedicated and seem to have tremendous support from those around you.
I also have a sense of the hurt and frustration you’re feeling and I want you to know — on behalf of myself and so many other people moved by your story — you’re not alone.
Being a teenager is challenging enough already, and I can’t claim to know what it is like to have the added pressures and scrutiny of being a transgender girl. I haven’t been in that fishbowl.
I do know what it’s like to live in the pool. I spent more than a decade doing what you do, stroke after stroke, lap after lap, trying to whittle a few fractions of a second off my time before the next meet.
A lot like you, I loved those friendships with my teammates and the adrenaline rush that comes with the competition. And I loved the serenity I felt gliding through the water. All the noise went away.
That noise has probably been harder to silence since the Republican Legislature passed a hateful bill intended to keep you from competing in high school sports. The voices of people you’ve never met debating your future and questioning your worthiness must stick in your head.
I understand why you quit swimming and that being in the water now is “not the same” as it was.
I felt your pain when you told Courtney that, “Now the state is saying I’m not girl enough to compete … And that really hurts. Because I am. I am girl enough.”
It’s more than you should have to bear, and the last thing you need is another adult who looks like me and doesn’t know your journey telling you what you should do. But I hope you get back in the pool.
You are a powerful girl who deserves to do what you love. Every kid deserves that, whether it’s swimming or running or swinging a racquet or a club.
If it brings you joy, don’t let them take that away. I recognize some callous so-called leaders in this state are trying to do that.
I hope those lawmakers read your story and felt the hurt they have caused you and other nameless girls in this state, and that they carry their shame.
This ban will be stopped. The ACLU will file a lawsuit in the near future and the courts will block the ban from being enacted. Even those trying to exclude you acknowledge that will happen.
The fact that they knew that and chose to inflict pain on kids who just want to play a sport so these politicians could score some points in an election year adds to the cruelty of it. Being singled out like this must feel like an unfair burden — because it is.
The truth is there is a remarkable community of people who support you — from your remarkable mother to your coaches to the lawyers fighting for justice to the governor of the state. If you walk away from swimming, they will understand and have your back.
And if you get back in the pool — which I would see as triumphing over narrow-minded hate — know that they’ll be there to cheer you on to victory.
I’ll be cheering for you, too, even if I never know your name.
from The Salt Lake Tribune https://ift.tt/58HIP6F
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