I came out as trans in college. Then my lacrosse coach spoke out against trans athletes.

Last summer, Kimberly Russell, then-head women’s lacrosse coach at Oberlin College, defended herself after denigrating trans swimmer Lia Thomas’ 500-yard freestyle win at the 2022 NCAA Division 1 Swimming championships. Russell reported feeling “burned at the stake” after members of her team spoke up about her behavior and sparked conversations with her supervisors about what she could and could not post on social media. 

I was on that team. 

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The NCAA allows trans students to compete as their gender if they meet certain hormone requirements.

In Spring 2022, Russell reposted commentary from her friend’s Instagram story relaying the idea that Thomas had an unfair advantage and was not the “real” freestyle winner of that event. Some of my teammates at the time saw the story and voiced their concerns with the athletic director. This resulted in a mediated discussion with our coach and with DEI representatives. Usually on that team, I stayed quiet. But I was one of the only trans members, so I felt the need to speak up. 

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Russell champions herself as a protector of women’s sports. She has appeared on Fox News to declare, “The reason we have these opportunities to play and to coach and to do the things we do is because of the women who came before who fought for Title IX.” 

She also said she doesn’t think “the younger generation even understands that these opportunities weren’t here years ago, and if we are going to allow biological males to compete in women’s and girl’s sports, why do we even have women’s and girl’s sports, why do we even have Title IX, and why do we have legislation for women?” 

It is clear that she thinks trans rights and women’s rights are in contention, and the way she cut off conversation with our team was indicative of her unwillingness to learn, despite touting her office as a “place where people could come to cry, to be loved, to get support”. 

We explained the pain that her actions caused the majority of the team. She responded with arguments of biology, seeking to negate any possible validity of Thomas’ win. She lacked any understanding of why trans people are fighting to exist in sports in the first place. I chimed in about the importance of mental health and the necessity to be validated in one’s identity to be able to pursue our passions. 

When finding yourself could mean losing your team

I came out as trans during my time at Oberlin, and I experienced a profound wave of growth and self-discovery that I could not have found anywhere else. I no longer felt defined by being an athlete in “women’s” sports. I could simply compete as I was.

Having played field hockey for 14 years and lacrosse for 6, competing in these sports has made up most of my adolescence and is a huge driver of my work ethic to this day. But coming out enabled me to start redefining my relationship with sports, as well as with my own self-confidence. Trans athletes don’t want to steal competitions and podiums; we are simply motivated individuals who want to compete in the sports that have long made up huge facets of our identities on a team that affirms who we are.

Amidst the controversy with Russell, I decided to stay on the team for a while. Despite her anti-trans rhetoric, she prided herself on building a culture of love and understanding and at times had been quite a grounding presence through her belief in holistic wellness.  

Independent of Russell, Oberlin was the first place where I understood that my transness and my identity as an athlete were not mutually exclusive. But after Russell’s bouts of misgendering, her use of the term “trans-identifying”, and her insistence that “biological males” shouldn’t be in women’s locker rooms, I realized her cordiality was focused on the appeasement of her team, rather than a true effort to dismantle her preconceived notions of binary gender and to see us as we are. It became all the more clear that Russell’s baseline acceptance of her trans athletes was conditional on our capacity to exist within a space that seeks to invalidate our experiences and fails to foster true understanding.

I have a different experience with my transness than Thomas. I came out as trans masculine and put my own transition aside for the sake of the “women’s” sports that I’ve grown up playing. Still, I understand the pain of having to choose between the love of my sport and the love of myself. In my experience, these identities are so inextricably intertwined that the prospect of quitting my sports meant losing the realms through which I had come to understand my gender identity before I had even had the ability to put any of it into words. 

Even now, I am forced to contend with the mutual exclusivity that the present world of sports creates because to quit for the sake of my transition means quitting on the self that I worked so hard to build for so many years. For a while, the pain and frustration got so bad that I began to lose my love of both field hockey and lacrosse, and I began to lose sight of the person I needed to become in order to love myself in the process. 

The Catch-22 of competing while trans

Despite more of us coming out of the shadows in recent years, trans people have always existed in athletic spaces. But the question of what space we’re allowed to take up has become ever prevalent. Trans athletes have come out of hiding to fight for our right to exist and to compete in the gender category with which we identify, and trans women, being the most visible, have gotten the brunt of the blow. 

New regulations by World Athletics state that trans women “must not have experienced any part of male puberty either beyond Tanner Stage 2 or after age 12” and that “since puberty they must have continuously maintained the concentration of testosterone in their serum below 2.5 nmol/L.”  

These rules were put in place to maintain equality of competition among women, and yet societal values and new laws place trans women in a position where it is highly plausible that they are not able to transition in line with these rules before puberty. According to the Movement Advancement Project, 33% of trans youth live in states that have banned best-practice gender-affirming care.

Amidst these regulations, trans people have had difficulty transitioning in line with what is required of them to compete. But even trans folks who meet the requirements of their sport often find themselves in difficult positions. Thomas had followed all protocols, her testosterone levels having been tested to be within the appropriate threshold of the regulations set forth for the 2022 season. Clearly, it didn’t matter. 

Overall, these regulations come from a worry that the strength that comes with development as a biological male is an unfair advantage and that by allowing trans women to compete, we sacrifice the equality of the playing field. Thomas has received the brunt of this backlash, with critics saying that by transitioning, she rocketed from a mediocre swimmer to a Division 1 winner. However, many of these critics fail to mention that she was already a top swimmer, being ranked as high as 11th in the 1000 Freestyle among male swimmers by USA Swimming. 

Trans women face a terrible situation wherein they must meet nearly impossible regulations while still facing backlash from the public once they finally do get the opportunity to compete as their gender. 

Anti-trans is anti-feminist

Sports have the power to ignite meaningful change. The participation of trans athletes is not an end, but the beginning of an era that respects and values all women for who they are. This would also enable the advancement of the equality that women like Russell fight for, despite their fears that the changing definition of womanhood topples the work they’ve put in. 

We must also look at the rise in women’s sports as it pertains to the desire to amplify the beauty and strength of women, free from encroachment by men. There is a certain sacredness to this athletic space that many women like Russell have worked to uphold and that I am proud to fight for as well. Having competed in women’s sports for years and having understood what it’s like to exist under the male gaze, I am wholeheartedly grateful for the siblinghood that my teams have given me. I know firsthand the impact that this environment has on the advancement of self-love and self-actualization for those who are subjected to patriarchal suppression. 

This systematic sexism has visibly impacted women throughout history, but so too does the patriarchy impact trans individuals, who also do not exist within the mold of the man for whom most societies, including our own, were created. 

Amidst the realizations of the binary that my experiences within Oberlin Athletics upheld, I ended up transferring to a historically women’s college, with an understanding that a space that champions minority genders’ voices could be the place where I could relearn to find love for my sport and for myself, independent of societal expectations of what strength looks like. 

It is through this community that I am able to recenter my confidence in the sport that I love, knowing that I owe my masculinity and femininity to no one but myself, and knowing that the fight for women’s rights must encompass any individual who too experiences oppression in the face of a world that overarchingly has sought to only value man.

Feminists proudly boast an emphasis on individual feminine beauty and strength to self-determine the path of women, free from the influences of the male gaze. The idea that trans women are coming in and stealing victories from “rightful” winners directly contradicts this value, undermining the beauty that comes with the diversity of femininity in all of its presentations. 

Each athlete’s body, even among cisgender athletes, has its own strength, like Lia Thomas’ counterpart in the swimming scene, Michael Phelps. A 28-time Olympic medalist and most decorated Olympian in history, it is exactly his biological advantages of a longer wingspan, hyperextended joints, and building of less lactic acid that make him successful. Emphasizing the diversity of the human condition is the same principle by which Phelps is able to compete, and by allowing trans athletes to do the same, we honor the beauty of these differences across all kinds of people. 

We cannot focus on the select few who have found success in their sport — which still remains highly contingent on their ability to keep up with other elite competitors. To be truly liberated, all women — and that means all — must be respected, valued, and allowed to exist as their complete, unapologetic selves.