Youth Sports Can Be Life-Changing—Here’s Why Everyone Should Get to Play

On a warm October day in 2019, Rebekah Bruesehoff sprinted across a big field in Latest Jersey. She was gripping a yellow-and-black field hockey stick, able to strike the ball in front of her. Up to now that season, her team was undefeated and Bruesehoff was excited to be a part of a squad that worked together each “on and off the sector,” she shared on Instagram.

“I’m a midfielder. So I’m type of in the midst of all of it, which is super fun. It’s exciting, it’s fast, and we’re all working toward a typical goal. And we win together, we lose together,” Bruesehoff recently told SELF.

Bruesehoff was assigned male at birth but has “deeply” known that she is a lady from a really young age. She socially transitioned by changing her name and pronouns on the age of eight—a call that each her family and medical professionals supported. Now 16 years old, Bruesehoff resides as her authentic self. “After I’m on the sector, no person cares that I’m trans. I’m really just like several other player.”

Many young athletes feel an identical sense of happiness and belonging after they’re out on the sector, court, or track with their peers, whether or not they’re constructing camaraderie through diligent training or resilience through friendly competition. It’s well-known that getting regular movement might be integral to kids’ physical and emotional well-being, yet trans youth like Bruesehoff are being systematically targeted by state lawmakers through a wave of bills that attack trans rights, including trans kids’ access to sports.

Currently 22 states ban trans students from simply existing as themselves while participating in the game they love, in response to the Movement Advancement Project. A law in Texas, for instance, requires a student to play on a sports team that corresponds with the sex listed on their birth certificate, which should have been issued near the time they were born.

Conservative lawmakers are also targeting trans youth, particularly trans girls, at a national level. In April, the US House Committee on Education and the Workforce passed the so-called Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act. The bill would amend Title IX—a civil rights law that prohibits schools that receive federal funding from discriminating based on sex—and require students to compete in sports “based solely on an individual’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth.”

As a society, we’ve generally agreed that sports are positive, healthy, and worthwhile activities that contribute to a well-rounded educational experience for teenagers, says Elizabeth Meyer, PhD, an associate professor who researches gender and sexual diversity in K–12 schools on the University of Colorado Boulder. So it’s important that all kids are welcomed and accommodated, she tells SELF. Listed below are just a couple of of the various reasons that politicians should take a back seat and allow them to play.

Trying a sport is usually a fun way for teenagers to remain lively.

Sprinting around bases as a crowd cheers, shooting the game-winning basket, and spiking a volleyball with every part you’ve got don’t at all times feel like a grueling gym workout. Sports could make exercise feel exciting, and that’s crucial during kids’ adolescence.