WASHINGTON, DC, April 13, 2021 — Highlighting the volume of bills in legislatures across the country that would prohibit trans children from playing sports at public schools, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) — the largest LGBTQ civil rights organization in the country — released a video today featuring Rebekah, a 14-year-old field hockey player and trans girl from New Jersey and her mother Jamie.
In the video, Rebekah talks about what she loves about playing field hockey with her friends, and why attacks on kids’ abilities to play sports in school are unfair and hurtful. “Sports are something that I really like doing. I’m so much more than trans. That doesn’t make me less of a girl, doesn’t make me less of a human, either. I’m just me!”
To date, there are more than 200 anti-LGBTQ bills under consideration in state legislatures across the country. Of those, over 100 directly target transgender people, and over 50 would ban girls like Rebekah from playing on sports teams consistent with their gender identity.
Watch the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yf9MfYZ-Bl4
Rebekah: “Ever since I was a kid I’ve always had a passion to make the world a better place. I’m Rebekah, I’m fourteen years old. I’m a nerd, I love school, I read a lot, and I just love to laugh!”
Jamie: “Rebekah is a bright and sassy fourteen-year-old girl with a big heart and a love of life.”
Rebekah: “I’ve been playing field hockey for four years now. The concept is so fun because like, you get to have a stick and you get to hit a ball with it. I also really love the people I’m always surrounded with and the community that I create. It’s such a tight-knit group.”
Jamie: “Rebekah’s really good at a lot of things. She aces her schoolwork with very little effort. She’s great in music and theater. She doesn’t have to try really hard. And so sports are this place where she does have to work hard. She learns a lot from not being the best, and from really having to commit to get better at something.”
Rebekah: “When we’re on the field, my teammates, they just see me as me. They see me as a teammate who they’re going to play with, who they’re going to win with, who they’re going to lose with, and just someone who they will work with together.”
Jamie: “Rebekah wouldn’t play sports if she had to play on the boys team — because she’s a girl. She belongs on the girls team. To say, ‘Oh, you belong in every way throughout the day. We see you, you’re a girl, this is your life, these are your friends, oh — but not on the athletic field.’ It doesn’t make any sense.”
Rebekah: “I would worry about my friends, and the other kids at my school, because I know what it’s like to have my gender questioned, to have to prove I’m a girl, and I don’t want them to have to go through that because it’s violating and embarrassing.”
Jamie: “When you don’t understand something, it can be scary. And when we react out of fear, then we can do really harmful things. The only people that should be afraid of Rebekah are her little brothers, perhaps, because like any good big sister, she terrorizes them at times. My kid is just a kid. She wants to go to school, have fun with her friends, and play sports just like anybody else.”
Rebekah: “Sports are something that I really like doing. I’m so much more than trans. That doesn’t make me less of a girl, doesn’t make me less of a human, either. I’m just me!
The Human Rights Campaign is America’s largest civil rights organizations working to achieve equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people. HRC envisions a world where LGBTQ people are embraced as full members of society at home, at work and in every community. www.hrc.org