Something we all know, but for some reason, it's controversial on this topic: If your support stops at words, it isn’t support.
Quickly, let's look at the ideals of an “ally”. In theory, it means to show up in real, personal ways. But when it comes to trans people, its usually more perfunctory. It's a post online or a sign at a rally, isn't it? But when the chips are down, the number of people who show up for the trans people in their lives is often disturbingly small.
Today, I watched a video of a trans girl's mother defending her daughter to other moms at a championship sports event. Her daughter, AB Hernandez, won two golds. Other girls who competed have also praised her win.
That's family. That's community. That's real support and care.
It is against that kind of love that the contrast is sharpest. Without real inclusion, flags and pins and noddings of formal approval can feel just as hollow as the cold embrace so many other queer kids still chase from their own families.
Picking and choosing areas of 'fair' and 'appropriate' inclusion and exclusion for trans people misses the point and the needs. And if you don’t make space for trans people in your communities—your workplaces, your friend groups, your families, your politics, and yes, even your sports teams—then nothing else you say really matters.
No, it doesn’t help to create new categories. No, it doesn’t help to draw new lines in the sand. Because these roles—sister, mother, girlfriend, teammate—aren’t just about function or ideology or athleticism. They’re social spaces, emotional spaces, places where people feel like they belong.
When that’s denied? Many of us don’t want to live. That’s not hypothetical. That’s not poetic. That’s reality. And the blood from that reality—that genocide—will be on the hands of every cis person who refuses to include. All while you keep arguing over who gets to win a game.
But the trans kid? They just want to play. They want to be seen. And what we’ve collectively forgotten is: that’s what sports were supposed to be about in the first place.
My grandfather was a football coach—an amazing one. He was once offered a job coaching college ball, but he turned it down to stay close to his family. He loved sports, but even more than that, he believed in what they were meant to teach: teamwork, accountability, showing up for each other. He never taught me that it was about domination. Sure, he’d say, “Winning matters.” But he’d always follow it up with: “It’s about the people who help you get there. Your team. Your coach. Not just you, but your family.”
Then he'd add, “That's your grandmother and I, you know. We'll be your greatest allies in life, and you cannot ever afford to forget that.”
I wish I’d been able to tell him what happened. I stopped speaking to him after I transitioned—not because I wanted to, but because I was afraid of how he’d see me (or not). Those words he said felt like he must have meant them for someone else, so I never came out to them. My mother had already rejected me by then, and she never told him the truth. He and my grandmother died without ever really knowing why I was gone. They only knew that my mom was unhappy with me, and that I’d left the fundamentalist cult she raised me in.
I guess I forgot the things he taught me—about showing up for people, about the strength of a team.
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Competition should teach us how to be part of something. How to lift each other up. How to belong to a community that values more than just the winner.
Yes, someone wins. But no one gets there alone. Not cis athletes. Not trans ones. Every win is the product of practice, of coaches, of teammates, of support. The belief that some people just deserve to be idolized—that they “earned” a spot above the rest of us—and that trans athletes are somehow threatening that? That idea doesn’t come from truth. It comes from a country with broken values. A country that worships winners and punishes difference.
And trans people were never the threat.