Ttime. A blog of sorts.

 

06.01.XXI

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Lost in Translation 

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I spent the first almost 8 years of my life on Long Island, my father's love of sports spilled over into my brother and I, none more than our love for the Mets. Gary Carter and Mookie Wilson were my favorite players, but the attainable job was none other than that of the Bat Boy. How I longed to be the Mets first Bat Girl. I'd grab the bat from the on deck circle and at the top of the inning, take a seat in the chair right after the dugout, make amazing catches on the foul line, and be cheered for my well doing. My dreams were crushed when my family flipped coasts and we moved out to California. I remember beginning my west coast sports endeavors. It would be the first time I played with only girls and without my brother. As the start of baseball season grew near, I was informed I would not be playing baseball but I would be playing softball. What? Softball?! Softball is what's played at my family reunion and it requires a lot of alcohol and a lot of money neither of which I had access to. Also, I'm not sure the language used in softball is appropriate for young California girls.

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This was the conclusion I came to:

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Ok so you're a girl so we're going to move the bases and pitching mound closer together, also the field will definitely not be as big. We made the ball WAY bigger along with the bats. Oh! And you can pitch underhand! How easy is that!? And don't worry, your games aren't as long. We're sure you have to get home early to help with dinner and the dishes like a good girl.

 

I know what you're thinking; "Wow! So progressive for an 8 year old!" My thoughts exactly.

 

I started playing roller hockey at age 13 and caught on pretty quickly. When I progressed to ice hockey at 15, I did the normal stint playing in-house leagues then tried out and made the Midget B travel team. At this time, there was no “girls” hockey so I was playing full contact hockey with all boys. There were many drawbacks. The first one which really put me in an awkward position was when one of the kids father's pulled him off the team, stating a girl has no place playing hockey. It didn't help he was also the parent who paid for the teams warmup joggers and jackets in previous years. At certain rinks, I was not allowed to change in the same locker room as the boys. Parents said "having a girl change with the boys was inappropriate and a distraction." I was relegated to the handicap stall in the women's bathroom. My favorite was the targeting. Yup. I would get crossed checked, slashed, I even took a stick blade around my neck one time. All while receiving degrading comments about my sex not belonging on the ice. Alas, By the middle of my junior year in high school, I started receiving letters from schools to play women’s college hockey. The conversations generally went something like this:

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Them: How long have you been playing competitve hockey?

Me: Almost 2 years.

Them: Wait, you’ve only been playing two years? 

Me: Yes.

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How does one said female progress so fast in a sport?? Talent? Maybe. Intellect? Hard no. Limitations? NONE. That's right! I had no limitations put on me. My father never said I can't play with the boys, My coaches never said I was incapable of competing, and my teammates never treated me "like a girl". Women didn’t put themselves in a separate category, men did. Women didn’t say “we should play best of 3 instead of best of 5” Men did. Women didn’t make the ball bigger. Men did. Men have been telling us science says we are not physiologically equal, yet where did they come from? A woman.

 

Here is my question; Are men really more physically skilled than women? Or is this just what we’ve been told all these years. Did we not watch Breanna Decker win the NHL skills competition 2 years ago? And in the same year, Kendall Coyne skated only a second slower than Connor McDavid in the fastest skated competition? Isn't the only transgender Olympic athlete, Chris Mosier, a trans-MALE?  

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My whole point to writing this is to show people that men and women are closer than we think. Letting trans-women compete in said "female sports" will not create an uneven playing field, it will level the playing field. Now is the time let go of the boundaries which have held us back for so long. Let's elevate each other to the levels we've been told were previously unattainable. Let's be limitless.

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. You only get better in a sport by playing with people who are better than you.  Let’s even the playing field. Together.