Missouri father's plea to let transgender daughter play sports on girls' teams

Brut America

"My daughter did not choose to be a girl. She's been a girl from Day 1. God made her that way."   The father of a transgender girl pleads with Missouri lawmakers to let trans girls play sports alongside cis gender girls.

Transcript

00:00As a parent, the one thing we cannot do, the one thing, is silence our child's spirit.

00:07And so on that day, my wife and I stopped silencing our child's spirit.

00:13The moment we allowed my daughter to be who she is, to grow her hair,

00:18to wear the clothes she wanted to wear, she was a different child.

00:22And I mean it was immediate. It was a total transformation.

00:30I didn't get it either. For years, I didn't get it.

00:39For years, I would not let my daughter wear girl clothes.

00:44I did not let her play with girl toys.

00:46I forced my daughter to wear boy clothes and get short haircuts, play on boy sports teams.

00:53Why did I do this? To protect my child.

00:56I did not want my daughter or her siblings to get teased.

01:00And truth be told, I did it to protect myself as well.

01:03I wanted to avoid those inevitable questions as to why my child did not look and act like a boy.

01:10My child was miserable. I cannot overstate that.

01:13She was absolutely miserable, especially at school.

01:16No confidence, no friends, no laughter.

01:19I honestly say this. I had a child who did not smile.

01:24We did that for years. We did that against the advice of teachers, therapists, and other experts.

01:30I remember the day everything changed for me.

01:34I'd gotten home from work, and my daughter and her brother were in the front lawn.

01:40And my daughter had sneaked on one of her older sister's play dresses.

01:46And they wanted to go across the street and play with the neighbor's kids.

01:49It was time for dinner. I said, come in.

01:51She asked, can she go across the street? I said, no.

01:55She asked me if she went inside and put on boy clothes, could she then go across the street and play?

02:04And it's then that it hit me that my daughter was equating being good with being someone else.

02:10I was teaching her to deny who she is.

02:13I now have a confident, a smiling, a happy daughter.

02:17She plays on a girls' volleyball team. She has friendships. She's a kid.

02:26My daughter did not choose to be a girl. She's been a girl from day one.

02:30God made her that way.

02:33And the God I believe in does not make mistakes.

02:37And those kids who I feared would tease her, they embraced her.

02:41This is a non-issue for them.

02:44Because here's the thing. For kids, rarely is it a problem.

02:49In so many ways, and I agree with the former speaker, in so many ways, this legislation is a solution in search of a problem.

02:57Supporters like to present the situation out there like there are these hulking men, representative, the man behind me,

03:06out there playing on girls' teams, trampling girls on the fields.

03:10Folks, that's not the real world. That's not happening.

03:14In the real world, transgender kids are taking hormone blockers, reducing the testosterone in their body,

03:22giving them no advantage over their female peers.

03:26That's what's actually happening.

03:30I came here today as a parent to share my story.

03:33I need you to understand that this language, if it becomes law, will have real effects on real people.

03:41It will affect my daughter. It will mean she cannot play on the girls' volleyball team or dance squad or tennis team.

03:48It will mean she will not have the opportunity that all of us had to be part of a team,

03:53to be part of something bigger, greater than ourselves.

03:57I ask you, please don't take that away from my daughter or the countless others like her who are out there.

04:03Let them have their childhoods. Let them be who they are.

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