I have never been much of a crier.
So when my softball team lost in the semifinals of the Minnesota state tournament, I surprised even myself. I sobbed to my parents and family. I was devastated, confused, and hurt. But underneath it all was a sense of helplessness.
I was a senior, and my biggest goal was to make the state tournament and play alongside my younger sister. We made it. We battled through the tournament as underdogs. And then our season ended because the opposing team was allowed to put a boy in as the pitcher on a girls’ team. His team went on to win the girls’ high school state championship.
WE WERE FORCED TO COMPETE AGAINST A MALE. THE SUPREME COURT HAD OUR BACKS
I wasn’t crying because we had simply lost a softball game. I was crying because I couldn’t understand how the adults who were supposed to protect girls like me had allowed this to happen.
I later learned that his parents had changed his legal documents to reflect the opposite sex when he was a young boy. What shocked me even more was the realization that the adults around us—administrators, policymakers and legislators—had allowed it and left girls like me tossed aside, hurt and abandoned.
We were expected to accept it, play through it and remain quiet.
But the consequences didn’t stop with my team. When a male athlete advances through a girls’ state tournament, every girl who might have faced that team is affected. Every roster spot, inning, championship, award and recruiting opportunity matters. At the elite level, one tournament can change a player’s future. The impact extends across girls’ teams throughout an entire state.
RILEY GAINES: SUPREME COURT HANDS WOMEN AN IMPORTANT WIN, BUT THE FIGHT ISN’T OVER
After our loss, I decided I wasn’t going to stay quiet. I never imagined that decision, or that loss on a softball field in Minnesota, would eventually bring me to Washington, D.C. On Wednesday, I spoke at a press conference on Capitol Hill following a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on opportunity, fairness and safety for female athletes.
Getting to this point has not been easy. My decision to openly share my experience has come at a price.
DEMOCRAT SENATORS FLEE OR NO-SHOW JUDICIARY COMMITTEE HEARING ON PROTECTING WOMEN’S SPORTS
I was recruited to play Division I softball at Western Michigan University. I entered college hoping to find my voice and pursue my dreams as a student-athlete. Instead, I felt isolated and shamed for speaking publicly about what I had experienced. I was even directed not to identify my university to the media. The message was clear: Keep quiet.
I believed then, and still believe now, that girls should not have to surrender roster spots, playing time or championships to boys because some adults have decided that the feelings of boys mean more than the feelings and opportunities of girls.
JONATHAN ALPERT: WOMEN WERE TOLD TO SPEAK UP. EXCEPT ABOUT WOMEN’S SPORTS
In an introductory sociology class, I was assigned a paper explaining the difference between sex and gender. I received a zero. My professor told me to “remove any bias and dive deeper into the difference between the two.” She was telling me I was wrong to treat sex and gender as synonyms and that a person could identify as another gender by adopting stereotypes associated with the opposite sex.
Confusing? Yeah, I know. I felt like I was being asked to erase my own perspective and accept something I believed was untrue as fact. I won’t accept that women can be defined by sexist stereotypes. This wasn’t just a classroom debate. I had lived it.
The lack of support from my coaches and the pressure in my coursework led me to transfer after my freshman season.
Today, I play softball at Colorado Christian University. I feel supported, encouraged to speak out and, most importantly, unashamed to tell the truth about what happened to me.
I am now a sophomore in college, but I still think about that girl crying after the state tournament. I think about my younger sister, my cousins and all the girls coming after us.
I WAS A FEMALE ATHLETE, NOW I FIGHT FOR THEM IN COURT. WE NEED MORE SOPHIE CUNNINGHAMS
I can’t change what happened on that field or give my team back the opportunity we lost. But I can refuse to let that loss teach the next generation of girls that they have to accept being pushed aside.
I want my sister and little cousins to grow up knowing that when adults fail to protect girls, girls can still find the courage to protect one another.
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I just wish we didn’t have to.
I lost a state championship to a boy. I refuse to let girls lose their voice, too.
