On trans kids in sports, Colin Allred left his most passionate followers off the team | Opinion
Mandy Giles understands, or at least she’s trying to understand, Colin Allred’s recent apprehension to stand up for kids like hers. “My guess is that he’s looking for maybe some voters in the middle who haven’t decided yet,” she said.
But as the founder of Houston-based organization Parents of Trans Youth, Giles said that the Texas families she knows — most of whom intend to vote for Allred for Senate — are livid.
It started when Allred recently took to TV to deflect Sen. Ted Cruz’s attacks on Allred’s record in the House, which includes votes against anti-trans legislation, by accepting Cruz’s premises about trans kids. In an ad released Oct. 11, Allred assured voters that he is a Christian and a father, then insisted that, like Cruz, he “doesn’t want boys playing girls sports.”
Then, he doubled down during Tuesday’s debate. While acknowledging that “folks should not be discriminated against,” the congressman repeated Cruz’s “boys in girls sports” trope twice.
“Transgender people that I have talked to are mad at that language, and the parents of trans kids that I’ve talked to are extremely disappointed [in] that language,” Giles said. “It’s just kind of a gut punch to the queer and trans people and their allies who are supporting him.”
Anybody who has seen me play a sport knows why I sling words instead of footballs. So, I tried to speak to some of the parents of trans athletes who bring them to practice no matter what their senator says.
Giles calmly and graciously shut my efforts down.
“Nobody wanted to go on public record to say, ‘Hey, I’m the parent of a trans kid,’ ” Giles told me about her recent efforts to drum up testimonies for the myriad Texas legislative battles she fought in 2023. She graciously explained the stakes to me, giving me a brief timeline of this last decade of attacks. It ranged from Attorney General Ken Paxton writing a nonbinding opinion that says providing a minor with gender-affirming care — which by the way, doesn’t necessitate them going under the knife — can “constitute child abuse” to Gov. Greg Abbott threatening to investigate families of trans kids suspected of giving their children that care.
Of course, it means these kids and their folks are functionally muzzled. “If you can’t stand up for your rights, nobody is there to speak for you,” Giles added. She agreed to chat only because her trans kids — Giles has two of ‘em — are grown-ups. One is in college, she said, and the other just got their degree and a job.
“My children are over 18. And so I’m able, for now,” she made sure to emphasize, “to speak … for those whose voices have been silenced.”
So, she supports apprehensive parents unwilling to give a nosy journalist a sitdown. Imagine dealing with the real possibility that a quote might trigger a Child Protective Services visit at the governor’s orders? I’d pass on me, too. Democracy may die in darkness, but at least your kids get to sleep in their bed tonight.
Allred’s designated surrogate spokeswoman at the debate, Houston-area Rep. Lizzie Fletcher, stressed Allred’s support for the Equality Act, which Cruz and Allred bantered on during the debate. But she avoided going much further into explaining how that applies to trans athletes. I shared with Fletcher that some LGBTQ advocates are frustrated by Allred’s ceding this ground to Cruz, and asked if he, or even the Democratic Party, believes that trans women athletes are little more than boys sneaking onto teams on which they don’t belong.
Fletcher wouldn’t answer it outright. “I’m here to talk about what I saw tonight, and I do think that the congressman’s answers speak for themselves,” she said, then pivoted to accusing Cruz of “trying to divide Americans.”
Cruz seems to agree on one thing: Allred’s answers speak for themselves. The senator has already started airing ads portraying Allred as a flip-flopper by juxtaposing his Cruzian choice of words against his legislative record. During the debate, Cruz attacked Allred’s support for the Equality Act, which, as Cruz put it, would have “mandated that boys be able to go in girls’ bathrooms and their locker rooms and their changing rooms.”
In truth, the act would update the Civil Rights Act to prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity, and thus loop in transgender people under its protections.
The senator reminded viewers that Allred voted against the “Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act,” which would redefine Title IX to prohibit trans women, which it defines as “individuals of the male sex,” from women’s sports. Supporting the Equality Act and opposing this is why Allred has LGBTQ fans. But Allred shies away from the apparent logic of the Equality Act towards his young, sports-playing constituents. As a result, what should be a feature of his campaign is becoming a bug.
Cruz is “taking the Equality Act that says that people are equal and says it’s about something else,” Fletcher told me. “We’ve been through these fights in Texas before, with bathroom bills, other things, trying to say that supporting equality of all Texans is something it’s not.”
Allred was an NFL linebacker, but I wonder if he knows what it’s like to be on the other side of a blitz.
Brooklyn Ross is a tennis player who lives in her native Colorado, but she knows a little about how it goes for trans athletes in Texas. Ross had a stint at UT-Tyler until the state’s ban on trans college athletes pushed her to transfer to another school so she could continue competing in women’s sports. (Remember what Giles said about finding people in Texas willing and able to chat?) She said that the kind of discourse Cruz facilitates in his campaign impedes trans athletes’ ability to focus on their game.
“I have a friend who stopped competing not because they were legally barred, but because they were publicly outed and had a smear campaign run through many mainstream conservative news outlets,” she wrote in an email. “This had also happened to me, where our identities are publicly revealed without our consent or knowledge, referring to us as ‘mentally-ill biological males,’ ‘failed-male athletes’ and ‘predators against girls.’ ”
She said she’s had her name and identity posted across numerous Neo-Nazi websites and social media pages. “When [trans athletes] are allowed to compete, the strategy is to harass and attack them until they stop and to stop other trans athletes from beginning to compete,” Ross said.
Giles said that despite her disappointment with Allred, she endorses him. Despite her problems with him using “language that is often used as conservative dog whistle” against trans people, “I do wholeheartedly believe that Colin Allred believes in trans rights and trans equality and supports trans kids.” She believes that “he is by far the better candidate for LGBTQ rights.”
So, for now, the parents of these Texas kids are prepared to take one on the chin for Team Allred. Even if it means still waiting for their chance to play.
This story was originally published October 18, 2024 at 5:31 AM with the headline "On trans kids in sports, Colin Allred left his most passionate followers off the team | Opinion."
