Trans Student-Athletes, Under Siege, Stand Tall
Youth track stars, pro soccer players honored at Athlete Ally annual awards gala
BY MATT TRACY
There were perfectly good reasons why
a pair of trans student-athletes honored
at Athlete Ally’s annual awards
night on November 12 were described
throughout the evening as “courageous” and
“fearless.”
Connecticut high school track stars Andraya
Yearwood and Terry Miller — who were recognized
alongside out gay Major League Soccer
player Collin Martin and out lesbian World Cup
soccer champions Ali Krieger and Ashlyn Harris
— have been targeted by the right’s latest
wave of attacks on transgender, non-binary,
and intersex student-athletes, but they have
not been fazed — they’ve been emboldened.
The pair have been outspoken in response to
legal challenges, lodged by cisgender studentathletes
backed by the anti-LGBTQ legal group
Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), against a
Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference
(CIAC) policy that allows student-athletes
to participate in sports in accordance with their
gender identity. The complainants in that case
previously lost competitions to Yearwood and
Miller and claim the trans athletes had an unfair
advantage over them and that the cisgender
youth were therefore victims of discrimination.
The Trump administration couldn’t resist
jumping into the mix, either: The Department
of Education’s Offi ce for Civil Rights is investigating
the complaint.
In June, Miller and Yearwood issued a response
to that complaint through the American
Civil Liberties Union in which they recounted
the discrimination they have faced as black
trans girls in the athletic realm and stressed
the importance of speaking up for their right
to compete when others have told them to stay
quiet. At the awards ceremony held at New
World Stages in Hell’s Kitchen, they continued
to explain why they would not be silenced.
“I want everyone to be comfortable being
themselves,” Miller told Gay City News. “Don’t
be scared to participate in sports, because we
have rights, too.”
These kinds of attacks have not just been
limited to high schools in Connecticut. The issue
is a part of a broader, concerted effort by
conservatives — including, increasingly, Donald
Trump, Jr., for whom it’s become something
of a leisure-time obsession — to undermine the
rights of trans athletes to participate in sports.
High-profi le sports fi gures like Caster Semenya
of South Africa , who is also black, have fallen
victim to years of abuse — for what she has
consistently said is merely a naturally occurring
high testosterone level — but efforts to kick
SPORTS
Connecticut high school track stars Terry Miller and Andraya Yearwood smile as they are honored on stage at Athlete Ally’s annual awards
event in Manhattan on November 12.
her off the playing fi eld have escalated as of
late. The International Association of Athletics
Federations (IAAF) announced new rules last
year requiring women athletes with high levels
of testosterone to use medication to reduce
their levels — and it specifi cally implemented
those rules in the kinds of races Semenya participates
in. Semenya has fought those regulations
in ongoing court battles that have thrown
her professional future in the jeopardy.
“It’s tricky because the global sporting system
is interconnected,” said Hudson Taylor, a
straight ally who has long led trainings on inclusivity
in his role as the founder and executive
director of Athlete Ally. “The athlete who
is competing on a local level in Connecticut
might be impacted by a policy implemented by
the International Olympic Committee. The policies
really come through and across all those
boundaries in ways that could either be an opportunity
or a major obstacle.”
Those sobering realities underscored Athlete
Ally’s decision to include Miller and Yearwood
among their honorees this year. Taylor pointed
to testimony during congressional hearings
for the federal Equality Act earlier this year
as prime examples of how conservatives have
weaponized trans athletes in their arguments
against providing full LGBTQ equality.
LGBTQ leaders at Athlete Ally’s star-studded
awards ceremony were just as impressed with
Miller and Yearwood. Rick Welts, the out gay
president of the Golden State Warriors who became
the highest-ranking sports executive to
come out when he spoke to Dan Barry at The
Times in 2011 , sat in the Green Room ahead of
the event, seemingly in awe of the duo.
“The two transgender student-athletes we’re
ATHLETE ALLY
honoring tonight are literally writing history every
day of their lives,” he said. “They’re doing it
in a fearless way, not exactly knowing what the
end of the story is going to be.”
Welts, a co-chair of the event, has remained
active on behalf of Athlete Ally, traveling around
the nation speaking about his own experience
as an out gay man in sports. His own coming
out experience has given him greater appreciation
for others who are continuing to pave their
own paths in an industry that has long been
hostile for LGBTQ folks, as evidenced by the
profound lack of male professional athletes in
major professional leagues. He touched upon
other honorees of the night like Martin, who in
2018 became the only out gay and active MLS
player, as well as Krieger and Harris, who are
engaged to be married and fresh off a world
championship.
“We’re celebrating an out male professional
athlete, which is very hard to come by in our society,”
Welts said. “We’re celebrating two women
who are champions in the greatest competition
of the world.”
As for Miller and Yearwood, their journey is
only just beginning — and they are cognizant
of the questions that legal and cultural battles
pose for the future of trans athletes, especially
black trans women. But they are nonetheless
brimming with self-confi dence as they prepare
to enter the next chapter of their lives. Unsurprisingly,
they aren’t shying away from ambitious
aspirations, even in the face of adversity.
“I’m going to college,” Miller said minutes before
she stepped on stage to be honored. Then,
with a bright smile, she concluded, “But it would
be nice to be a professional athlete. That’s the
goal.”
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