00:00 (phone ringing)
00:02 Rebecca, wake up, come on,
00:06 you've got homework to do and practice today.
00:08 - I'm Rebecca, I am a 16 year old
00:12 transgender activist and author.
00:14 I play field hockey and I love singing
00:17 in acapella groups at my high school.
00:18 I love musical theater and I love to cook and bake.
00:22 I mean, I do the things that typical teenagers do.
00:25 (upbeat music)
00:27 (upbeat music)
00:30 I figured out that I loved field hockey
00:48 because of the support of my friends.
00:50 I had the ability to be so comfortable in my identity
00:52 that I could go out and discover new parts of me.
00:55 (upbeat music)
00:58 So I started sports at five.
01:04 I started with soccer and then I quit
01:06 and I went to gymnastics at seven
01:08 and I didn't really think I was a sports kid.
01:10 Sports never felt right for me.
01:12 When I was 10, fourth grade,
01:17 they held a field hockey clinic at the high school.
01:20 I went and I fell in love with field hockey.
01:22 The girls were so amazing, they were so sweet.
01:25 And I mean, the sports fun itself.
01:26 Like you get to hit a ball with a stick,
01:28 who doesn't love that?
01:30 And now I'm playing in high school
01:32 and field hockey's just been so crucial
01:34 in me being a part of my community and just growing up.
01:37 I think in my brain it doesn't click.
01:40 When someone says I don't support
01:42 that whole transgender thing,
01:43 well, it's just people being themselves.
01:45 We're not these big, like scary giants
01:48 on the field hockey field.
01:50 We're just having fun.
01:51 Sports is a place where everyone can belong
01:54 and everyone deserves the right
01:55 to be a part of their school community
01:57 in any way that they want to participate.
01:59 It's irresistible and the joy that comes
02:02 when you get to be yourself.
02:03 Having my family and friends support me
02:06 throughout my journey and now,
02:08 it's meant the world to me.
02:10 It's allowed me to thrive as myself
02:11 and discover different aspects of my identity
02:13 that I wouldn't have known about otherwise.
02:15 The summer of eighth grade, I moved.
02:18 It was COVID, I didn't go in person to school.
02:21 I didn't know anyone.
02:22 And I got to play field hockey with these kids.
02:24 And I got to meet friends.
02:25 We grew as a team 'cause we were two years
02:28 off of field hockey, like we hadn't been playing
02:29 for a while.
02:30 And they were so sweet and they welcomed me
02:31 and they kind of showed me the ropes.
02:33 Sometimes it's not always about field hockey.
02:35 Even when we're practicing, we're talking
02:37 about what happened in school that day,
02:38 what funny thing happened in the cafeteria.
02:40 It's so much more than just playing the sport.
02:43 I think when I'm on the field,
02:46 everything else washes away.
02:47 Like my daily life, whatever's happening in school,
02:49 whatever homework or stress I have.
02:51 There are a lot of challenges right now.
02:53 What motivates me to keep playing is my friends,
02:56 is this hope that we have as a team.
02:58 Seeing other kids out there like me
03:00 doing the same work that I'm doing.
03:02 Being that I'm like such a well-known advocate,
03:05 I think it's a little weird for my teammates.
03:07 And some of them don't even know that I do this work
03:09 or that I'm trans even.
03:11 They support me in everything that I do.
03:13 They see my posts on Instagram and they're like,
03:14 "Wow, that's so cool."
03:16 But it's never really a big deal.
03:18 They're my friends, they're my teammates.
03:20 It's not really about anything other than that.
03:23 I find seeing trans joy in blog posts,
03:26 things people have written in little short stories
03:28 or poems that I read online.
03:29 I see trans joy in meeting my friends, my community,
03:32 who happen to be trans and just coming together
03:35 and maybe baking a cake one day or doing puzzles,
03:38 something fun like that.
03:40 A lot of people come up to me and they say,
03:42 "Oh, you're so brave for being yourself."
03:44 I don't wanna be seen as brave for being myself.
03:46 It's not a hard thing.
03:47 I'm just thriving as a kid.
03:51 And so I think my impact that I want to have
03:53 is to create a world where kids can just thrive
03:55 as themselves and it doesn't have to be a big question
03:57 of if or how or when.
03:59 It's just there.
04:00 We don't have to make it a big deal.
04:03 We don't have to question someone's identity
04:05 when it's not even ours and it's not our business.
04:07 Your other hobbies and your other pieces of your identity
04:11 are just as important as you being trans.
04:13 You belong.
04:14 You belong on the team.
04:15 You belong on the field.
04:16 You belong in your school community.
04:18 In every way that you wanna show up
04:20 and in every way that is possible that you show up.
04:22 (upbeat music)
04:25 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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