The Guardian solemnly presents us with a think piece written by a 14-year-old girl. The girl is a boy, and I don’t believe he wrote the piece. I’ll show you why.
For as long as I can remember, I have known I am a girl. That certainty is as instinctive as knowing I am right-handed. It is difficult to explain to someone who has never been transgender or loved someone who is, but I have never lived this way to gain an advantage or take something from someone else. I live this way to honor what I know is true.
I transitioned at four years old. By sixth grade, my identity was public. I grew used to the double takes, the questions, the quiet skepticism. Most of it did not bother me. Curiosity, even when clumsy, is human. People understand gender differently, and I was taught to respect all ideas, just as I hope others respect mine.
Does that sound like a 14 to you?
But what occurred on 4 May was not respectful, nor was it curiosity – it was a blatant attack on the values I have always been taught to prioritize.
Does that? “nor was it” – is that a construction children use a lot? Do they say “prioritize”?
Days earlier, I competed in the Prep League Finals, a track championship for a small private school league in southern California. In the lane next to me was my older sister. Despite running on an irritated knee, my sister was chasing a likely victory in the 400 meters. She had won each of our prior races. So, when I crossed the finish line just milliseconds before her, I was as surprised as everyone else. My teammates rushed to me, cheering wildly. My sister wrapped me in a hug. My parents celebrated from the stands. It was a moment of joy, as simple, fleeting and shared as the victory of any other child.
Does the Guardian not have any sane editors? How can they solemnly tell us a 14 wrote this?
Through each degrading claim and ostentatious headline, I realized the conversation was more malevolent than I anticipated. Not because of what they said about my performance, but because of what they said about my character. This was not a healthy debate about fairness in sports; it was about my worth as a person.
I give up; my eyes can’t roll any farther back.
Countless adults absently unlocked their phones and devastated a 14 year old. It didn’t matter that my sister couldn’t have been prouder or that the scientific evidence on trans women’s advantages is mixed or even (and especially) that no child would upend their life for the chance of winning a race a decade later. It was far easier to comment than to question. Easier to react than to understand.
We can have conversations about fairness and equity in sports. In fact, we should. But the way we are conducting them is failing us. The line between debate and dehumanization has not just been crossed – it’s been erased. Opinion is being presented as fact. Disagreement is becoming ridicule. What masquerades as dialogue is amounting to something closer to public shaming.
There are six more paragraphs of this highly adult manipulative writing. The Graun has lost its tiny mind.
