Her trans daughter made the volleyball team. Then an armed officer showed up.
Her trans daughter made the volleyball team. Then an armed officer showed up.
Jessica Norton tried to keep raising her youngest child as a boy. But that child, identified in this story by her middle name, Elizabeth, insisted nearly from the time she could talk that she was a girl. (Cindy Karp for The Washington Post)
By Casey Parks
September 28, 2024 at 6:00 a.m.
COCONUT CREEK, Fla.
Jessica Norton eased her minivan out of the driveway, and she told herself shed done what any mother would. Her daughter Elizabeth had wanted to play high school volleyball, and Norton had let her. Norton had written female on the permission slips. Shed run practice drills in the yard, and shed driven this minivan to matches all across their suburban Florida county.
A bumper sticker on the back said mom. A rainbow pin tacked inside read safe with me. Norton and Elizabeth had spent hours laughing and singing in this extended cab chariot. But this time, Norton had decided to leave her daughter at home. Good luck! the teenager called. Dont get fired!
Until recently, Norton had worked at the high school Elizabeth attended. But last fall, an armed officer with the Broward County Public Schools Police had told Norton she was under investigation for allowing Elizabeth to play girls sports. District leaders banned Norton from the building. They discussed the investigation on the local news, and soon, everyone in Coconut Creek seemed to know Elizabeth is transgender. (Norton asked The Washington Post to use the childs middle name to protect her privacy.)
{snip}
Casey Parks
Casey Parks is a reporter on The Washington Post's America team.
NoMoreRepugs
(10,526 posts)jimfields33
(18,900 posts)Broward county leadership needs to answer for this.
cyclonefence
(4,873 posts)Voltaire2
(14,719 posts)TommyT139
(700 posts)Many thanks to mahatmakanejeeves for posting this powerful article. As it happens, I have been discussing trans people in sports -- usually trans women -- in a thread on another site for the past several days. The conversations are almost always about biological minutiae about which there is not much research, exemplified by a miniscule percentage of trans people at competition levels. So much angst and energy expended for, what, several hundred people on earth, currently.
This powerful article reveals what the conservative agenda is really aimed at: restricting the joyful lives of ordinary people who happen to be trans. Sports, particularly team sports, have been integral to humanity for thousands of years. The global right-wing wants to deny to trans people any access to this part of human experience.
The next time you see a thread on whether trans people should be allowed to engage in sports -- whether that thread is on DU or elsewhere -- please think about Elizabeth. She and others like her are the real target.