16-year-old Rebekah loves to play field hockey with her friends and is a valued team member. However, as a transgender teen, the joy and community she feels from the sport is constantly in jeopardy from those who would see her banned from playing with other girls. We wanted to show what it's like when we just let trans kids be kids because every child deserves to discover who they are and thrive as their true selves.
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00 (phone ringing)
00:02 Rebecca, wake up, come on,
00:06 you've got homework to do and practice today.
00:08 - I'm Rebecca, I am a 16 year old
00:12 transgender activist and author.
00:14 I play field hockey and I love singing
00:17 in acapella groups at my high school.
00:18 I love musical theater and I love to cook and bake.
00:22 I mean, I do the things that typical teenagers do.
00:25 (upbeat music)
00:27 (upbeat music)
00:30 I figured out that I loved field hockey
00:48 because of the support of my friends.
00:50 I had the ability to be so comfortable in my identity
00:52 that I could go out and discover new parts of me.
00:55 (upbeat music)
00:58 So I started sports at five.
01:04 I started with soccer and then I quit
01:06 and I went to gymnastics at seven
01:08 and I didn't really think I was a sports kid.
01:10 Sports never felt right for me.
01:12 When I was 10, fourth grade,
01:17 they held a field hockey clinic at the high school.
01:20 I went and I fell in love with field hockey.
01:22 The girls were so amazing, they were so sweet.
01:25 And I mean, the sports fun itself.
01:26 Like you get to hit a ball with a stick,
01:28 who doesn't love that?
01:30 And now I'm playing in high school
01:32 and field hockey's just been so crucial
01:34 in me being a part of my community and just growing up.
01:37 I think in my brain it doesn't click.
01:40 When someone says I don't support
01:42 that whole transgender thing,
01:43 well, it's just people being themselves.
01:45 We're not these big, like scary giants
01:48 on the field hockey field.
01:50 We're just having fun.
01:51 Sports is a place where everyone can belong
01:54 and everyone deserves the right
01:55 to be a part of their school community
01:57 in any way that they want to participate.
01:59 It's irresistible and the joy that comes
02:02 when you get to be yourself.
02:03 Having my family and friends support me
02:06 throughout my journey and now,
02:08 it's meant the world to me.
02:10 It's allowed me to thrive as myself
02:11 and discover different aspects of my identity
02:13 that I wouldn't have known about otherwise.
02:15 The summer of eighth grade, I moved.
02:18 It was COVID, I didn't go in person to school.
02:21 I didn't know anyone.
02:22 And I got to play field hockey with these kids.
02:24 And I got to meet friends.
02:25 We grew as a team 'cause we were two years
02:28 off of field hockey, like we hadn't been playing
02:29 for a while.
02:30 And they were so sweet and they welcomed me
02:31 and they kind of showed me the ropes.
02:33 Sometimes it's not always about field hockey.
02:35 Even when we're practicing, we're talking
02:37 about what happened in school that day,
02:38 what funny thing happened in the cafeteria.
02:40 It's so much more than just playing the sport.
02:43 I think when I'm on the field,
02:46 everything else washes away.
02:47 Like my daily life, whatever's happening in school,
02:49 whatever homework or stress I have.
02:51 There are a lot of challenges right now.
02:53 What motivates me to keep playing is my friends,
02:56 is this hope that we have as a team.
02:58 Seeing other kids out there like me
03:00 doing the same work that I'm doing.
03:02 Being that I'm like such a well-known advocate,
03:05 I think it's a little weird for my teammates.
03:07 And some of them don't even know that I do this work
03:09 or that I'm trans even.
03:11 They support me in everything that I do.
03:13 They see my posts on Instagram and they're like,
03:14 "Wow, that's so cool."
03:16 But it's never really a big deal.
03:18 They're my friends, they're my teammates.
03:20 It's not really about anything other than that.
03:23 I find seeing trans joy in blog posts,
03:26 things people have written in little short stories
03:28 or poems that I read online.
03:29 I see trans joy in meeting my friends, my community,
03:32 who happen to be trans and just coming together
03:35 and maybe baking a cake one day or doing puzzles,
03:38 something fun like that.
03:40 A lot of people come up to me and they say,
03:42 "Oh, you're so brave for being yourself."
03:44 I don't wanna be seen as brave for being myself.
03:46 It's not a hard thing.
03:47 I'm just thriving as a kid.
03:51 And so I think my impact that I want to have
03:53 is to create a world where kids can just thrive
03:55 as themselves and it doesn't have to be a big question
03:57 of if or how or when.
03:59 It's just there.
04:00 We don't have to make it a big deal.
04:03 We don't have to question someone's identity
04:05 when it's not even ours and it's not our business.
04:07 Your other hobbies and your other pieces of your identity
04:11 are just as important as you being trans.
04:13 You belong.
04:14 You belong on the team.
04:15 You belong on the field.
04:16 You belong in your school community.
04:18 In every way that you wanna show up
04:20 and in every way that is possible that you show up.
04:22 (upbeat music)
04:25 [BLANK_AUDIO]