Rec Sports
Simone Biles’ coach Aimee Boorman: Finding ‘balance’ wasn’t easy
Simone Biles’ message for foster care children: ‘You can do anything’
Simone Biles is a national ambassador for Friends of the Children, and she shares her message for children in foster care.
“Simone never would have made it in my gym.”
Aimee Boorman has heard that line, over and over, from other coaches when they talk about the gymnast she helped lift to heights never seen within their sport.
“They say it with a sense of pride,” Boorman tells USA TODAY Sports, “and it’s like, ‘So you realize how many potential Simones you have pushed out of your gym?’ “
Biles was the kid who always loved the gymnastics part, but not the work that went into making her the best. Some days she just wanted to go home.
Those characteristics didn’t necessarily change as she grew into the decorated champion America knew. Boorman, though, was willing to manage them in a way others wouldn’t.
Biles’ coach from age 7 through her four-gold-medal performance at the 2016 Rio Olympics remembers her as one of her more challenging pupils.
“If everybody is just strict and obedient, you grow stale as a coach,” Boorman says. “So when you have somebody who’s throwing something new at you all the time, on an emotional level, on a personality level, you gotta grow. And I think some of those other coaches weren’t willing to grow.
“When people say, ‘Well, there’s only going to be one Simone,’ I’m like, ‘That’s not true.’ You have to know how to manage that athlete to get them to the point they could be a Simone.”
Boorman’s approach – nurturing, forgiving, even relenting – was novel to coaching within a sport of forced discipline and regulation. She lays out her methodology, ingrained in her by a tumultuous childhood experience, in “The Balance: My Years Coaching Simone Biles.”
The book, which was released last week, reveals a back story of how athletes develop and mature but also how they can have giggles on their face before and after their most triumphant Olympic moments.
Boorman and co-author Steve Cooper spoke with us about facing unique challenges while coaching and parenting our athletes and how we can overcome them in unexpected ways.
“Nothing about Simone’s greatness was inevitable,” Cooper said during our Zoom interview. “It was a process. It wasn’t just luck.”
‘If it wasn’t fun, she wasn’t having any part of it’: Without love for a sport, it’s difficult to move forward
Boorman is often asked if she knew when Biles would become superstar. The answer: When she became one.
“Up until that point, anything can happen,” she says, “and any given day, if Simone didn’t have that passion and that love for gymnastics inside of her, she could be like, ‘I’m done. I’m gonna go run track.’ “
Boorman recalls the joy she felt as a young girl in the early 1980s, when she first flung herself from the bars of Lakeshore Academy in Chicago, but also how quickly a reckless coach drained it from her.
No matter how long she stood on the balance beam, her arms raised until they were numb trying to get Coach Jeremy’s attention, he wasn’t satisfied. His name is a pseudonym, but also an extreme archetype for an era of the sport: No positive reinforcement, no acknowledgement of effort and sometimes little hope.
“That constant negative input made me have total lack of belief in myself,” she says.
And yet, like most kids, Aimee yearned to please him. She arrived early one day, straining to grab his undivided attention by working out on her own. She broke her leg. Then he ignored her for months until she finally quit.
“I was really useless to him because I couldn’t compete,” she says.
She was pulled back when she coached preschool kids after school a couple of years later. There was something bright within them that she used to feel, something we can so easily push out of young athletes if we don’t nurture it. It was a light she saw in a 7-year-old who bounced around Bannon’s, the gym north of Houston where Boorman started working as a young adult.
Simone Biles couldn’t sit still, but when she did, she pushed herself up off the ground with her arms and slid her legs from straight in front of her to a position in which she was lying on her stomach.
“What she was doing is not normal,” Boorman says. “We knew that she was going to be able to learn very quickly, but she was just a little girl, and she didn’t like to do the conditioning, and she didn’t want to have to take extra turns. She just wanted it to be fun. And when it wasn’t fun, she wasn’t having any part of it. She didn’t want to be involved at all.”
COACH STEVE: 70% of kids drop out of youth sports by 13. Why?
‘There is no possible way you could disappoint me’: Every day, even a bad one, is an opportunity to move forward
Like other kids, Biles had fears. One was a mental block on her beam series. Boorman would ask her to complete it three times, but would never leave her out there too long like Jeremy had done. They would just come back the next day and try again, a give-and-take that would continue throughout their time together.
“There were times that she would come in the gym in the morning and she would have a sense of dread about what she was going to have to do based on what she did or didn’t finish the day before,” Boorman says. “And I hope that when she walked in and saw me, and I was like, ‘Good morning,’ and I was very light with her, that then she could go, ‘OK, wait a minute. Maybe I’m not in trouble. Maybe I didn’t disappoint her.’ “
Boorman, through the torture, had felt like she was letting Coach Jeremy down. To this day, she tells her students, “There’s no possible way you could disappoint me.”
It’s up to them, not her, what they became. It’s her job to support what they want.
“As a coach, you could never want it more than the athlete,” she says, “and if you do want it more than the athlete, then there’s a problem. I know a lot of overzealous young coaches who are like, ‘Oh, but I want an Olympian,’ but you’re never going to have an Olympian because that’s what you want.
“If we focus too much on the championship and on that win, then we’re losing the human in the process.”
She likes to live in a “compliment sandwich,” where constructive criticism is surrounded by praise of effort, even on so-called bad days. Those are a matter of perspective, anyway.
“I have an elite gymnast (who) had been out of the gym for a couple of months, not really training, and she came back in and successfully did a skill that she hadn’t done in two months, and she was like, ‘That was terrible,’ ” Boorman says. “And I was like, ‘You haven’t done it in two months, and you did it. We’re going to celebrate those wins, and it’s going to be better tomorrow.”
Boorman wanted her students to be comfortable around her so they would express themselves. That way, she could see deep inside and better understand them.
“Simone’s not a person to go (in) the corner and go through her stuff in her head to get her in the zone,” she would learn. “She has to be there, completely relaxed, cheering on other people. And then when the green light goes on for her to compete, she’s like, game on. But she doesn’t waste any of that in her mind. In her mind, that focus is a waste. Other athletes are completely different.
“So it doesn’t say anything about what process is correct, but it’s what process is best for each athlete. So for younger coaches who are bringing up the athletes who are not elite yet, you have to give them all of the different tools, and they’re going to find out which process works best for them.”
‘Its just gymnastics’: The needs of the athlete – not those of the coach – have to come first
Biles realized her connection with “Coach Aimee” at 13, when she was invited to a U.S. women’s national team development camp and saw teammates who weren’t as close with their coaches.
They all trained under the strict orders of the program, which wasn’t for Biles.
“People who are ridiculously talented don’t have to work that hard,” Boorman says. “So when she had to work hard because she was struggling with something, she was not the most pleasant to be around, because it was very frustrating for her and it was easy for her to give up. I can say she was incredibly dedicated. I can’t say she was an incredible hard worker. She knew it became the job that she chose to do and coming in and putting in the hours and everything. But I’ve known a lot of people who are much harder workers, I guess is the gentle way is to say it.”
Martha Karolyi, the program leader, called Biles sloppy and lazy at one of her early visits to camp. Boorman says that killed her confidence, and she declined their next invitation.
Biles didn’t start training a lot of hours until she was 16 or 17.
“If we had focused on the refinement earlier, she could have been winning meets earlier, but there was also the risk of burnout,” Boorman says.
Those mid-teen years coincided with what Boorman calls the toughest days coaching Biles.
“It was never, ‘I don’t want to do this, I want to do this,’ ” Boorman says. “But there were the normal teenage antics, the head butting and things like that. And so I had to be very strategic about when I would push and when I would let go. I know this can be construed as you’re kicking somebody out of practice, but there would be days that I would say, ‘I think practice should be over for today because we’re not getting anywhere. Neither one of us is having fun.’
“And sometimes she was like, ‘Bye,’ and other times she’s like, ‘No, I’m sorry. I want to get this done. I’m just frustrated.’ But no matter what every day was, we turned the page.”
Ahead of the U.S. Classic in 2013 in Chicago, Boorman says Biles intentionally fell off the apparatus, jumped off the beam and let herself fall on her vaults. It was her way, her coach said, of controlling an environment where she didn’t want to work.
Boorman wouldn’t force Biles through workouts, but she would let her fail in competition to make a point. When she took a nasty fall, they moved on to the next event.
“I’ve always been a big supporter of family vacations and take the day off,” Boorman says. “We need mental health days. When I was a gymnast, there was no such thing, and I think that there’s too many sports in general, they want you to come in when you’re sick, when you’re tired, when you’re mentally exhausted, because that’s going to build character. And I just disagree with it. I feel like, if you take one day off and you rest, you’re going to come back so much stronger.
“It’s just gymnastics. You shouldn’t be risking your health just to achieve a sports goal.”
When she was no longer working with Boorman, Biles removed herself from the 2020 Games when she developed “the twisties.” She had concluded, Boorman says, that “the Olympics were not more important than her life.”
“I think somewhere in her she knew it was going to be OK, and I think that was probably because early on in her career, it was OK to just pull yourself from the competition,” says Cooper, Boorman’s co-author.
Overcoming ‘the twisties’ in 2016: ‘You only have to live up to your own expectations’
The twisties occur when a gymnast can’t tell where he or she is in the air. Biles also beat them ahead of the Rio Olympics, which Boorman reveals in her book.
She was 19 and had won three all-around world championship titles in a row and feeling the weight of being the favorite in her first Olympics.
Instead of forcing twists, Boorman temporarily removed them from Biles’ routine, which relieved the pressure.
“And each day I would say, ‘OK, do you feel like twisting today?’ And she’d be like, ‘Well, yeah, but I think I can only go off beam.’ And so she would only do her beam dismount.’ She wouldn’t twist off bars or floor or falls.
“It would be baby steps from there. She might come in one day and say, ‘OK, I think I’m ready to do this today.’ And then she would start to do it and be like, ‘No.’ And I’m like, ‘OK, don’t worry about it. There’s so many other things we can do.’ And then instilling that confidence in her that she wasn’t going to lose her skills was important as well.”
They were relying on the repetition they had already done.
“We had taken so many years to refine them that the muscle memory was there,” Boorman says. “We just had to clear out her brain.”
They gradually noticed she was cured over time, like the way we notice other peoples’ children growing, then realize ours are, too.
“I always told her that she wasn’t responsible for other people’s expectations of her,” Boorman says. “That was their problem and shame on them for setting those expectations. She only had to live up to her own expectations.”
(This story was updated to add new information.)
Steve Borelli, aka Coach Steve, has been an editor and writer with USA TODAY since 1999. He spent 10 years coaching his two sons’ baseball and basketball teams. He and his wife, Colleen, are now sports parents for two high schoolers. His column is posted weekly. For his past columns, click here.
Got a question for Coach Steve you want answered in a column? Email him at sborelli@usatoday.com
Leader, Customer Delivery
Americas CX SP Canada
I launched my Cisco career in 2012 as a bilingual logistics agent, energetically supporting the LATAM team, within our dynamic supply chain and logistics operations. Motivated by an unwavering commitment to excellence, innovation, and collaboration, I joined the Cisco High Touch Operations team in 2016, where I delivered outstanding support to American and Canadian customers.
Embracing new opportunities for growth, I advanced in 2021 to Service Delivery Manager, further progressing to Team Lead, Expert Care Lead, and now proudly serve as PMO and Expert Care Lead for Service Provider (SP) Canada. I am especially enthusiastic about the integration of artificial intelligence within our organization, recognizing its transformative impact on efficiency, customer experience, and the future of technology. Throughout my journey, I have remained deeply positive and grateful for the teamwork, mentorship, and visionary leadership that have shaped my professional path.
Beyond my fulfilling career, I am a proud mother of two and an active volunteer with the Canadian Red Cross and Saint John Ambulance dog therapy program in Halifax, Nova Scotia. My passion for community engagement extends to youth sports, where I serve as a backup coach for my daughter’s soccer team and actively support my son’s baseball team.
In my spare time, I am dedicated to continuous self-improvement, challenging myself through self-study, pursuing Cisco-recommended learning paths, and advancing my knowledge in AI and IT security. I approach every aspect of life and work with enthusiasm, optimism, and a genuine desire to create a positive and lasting impact.
Articles
Many in the area have their attention in the sports world on the Buffalo Bills after the exciting win over the Jacksonville Jaguars in the wildcard round. But there is reason to be excited when it comes to boys high school basketball in the north county.
Both Fredonia and Dunkirk are off to fantastic starts — and have brought renewed energy to a rivalry that played out more than a week ago. For the first time in eight years, the Marauders were victorious over the Hillbillies.
Sixto Rosario, longtime advocate and youth basketball enthusiast, is the Dunkirk coach. His emotions came out once the buzzer sounded.
“I want to thank all the fans and everybody for believing,” Rosario said. “I love Dunkirk. I love the program. I love the kids. This is a great feeling.”
Both teams play again in February in Fredonia. Based on the current winning ways for both schools, the tilt will be highly anticipated.
ROSEMONT — The Chicago Snowballs, a new team mixing baseball and family-friendly entertainment, are gearing up for their spring debut, with the team hosting a scrimmage in Rosemont last week.
The Snowballs, who brand themselves as pro baseball’s first co-ed “sportstainment” experience, hosted tryouts all last week at the The Dome at the Parkway Bank Sports Complex in suburban Rosemont.
Tryouts culminated Friday with an event called Inside the Snowglobe, a benefit for local youth sports. Fans watched the prospective players sing, dance, perform trick plays and perform with the Jesse White Tumblers and the Bucket Boys. Proceeds from the benefit went to support youth sports organizations in Chicago.
RELATED: Chicago Getting Its Own Savannah Bananas-Inspired Team
The players were spilt into teams that took turns scrimmaging and then would perform
dance and cheer routines for the fans during inning breaks.
CEO and co-founder Cherie Travis said the team will aim to give opportunities
to players who want to continue in baseball or softball and might not otherwise have
the chance to keep playing.
“If you played baseball or softball in college and you don’t make the majors or the
minors, you’re done,” Travis said. It was “the idea of creating another opportunity for
athletes; they don’t have to be the best pitcher. They need to be good ball players, and
they need to have a ton of fun and put that energy on the field.”
The Snowballs plan to play players a salary and profit share — and advertise equal
pay for male and female players.
“I feel like it was a great opportunity to come out and play coach, possibly get involved in management and help show that the women can compete with the men and have just as much fun,” said coach Allie Lacey.
KJ Gaiter, a youth baseball coach at Oz Park, said that his family and fiends encouraged him to try out.
“Playing baseball, I was always energetic, silly, goofy, but there’s a limit to it because you want to win at the same time,” Gaiter said. “To be able to be in a facility like this, an environment like this, where you can come out and play baseball and you can also be silly with it, it’s almost like being a kid playing baseball again. I feel like a kid in a playground.”
The Snowballs will play their first game May 3 at Kerry Wood Field, 3400 N. Rockwell St. in North Center.
The team will be based in Chicago and will tour the Midwest, operating in a similar fashion to the Harlem Globetrotters or the Savannah Bananas.
The Bananas, known for combining baseball with physical stunts, comedy, dancing and other skills, sold out Sox Park this summer and are making their way to Wrigley in July.
See more photos from Friday’s scrimmage:
Listen to the Block Club Chicago podcast:
Rec Sports
The trans youth athletes in the US fighting for their rights: ‘Playing is an act of resistance’ | US news
The US supreme court on Tuesday is considering state laws banning transgender athletes from school sports.
The cases were brought by trans students who challenged bans in West Virginia and Idaho barring trans girls from girls teams. The outcome could have wide-ranging implications for LGBTQ+ rights. A total of 27 states have passed sports bans targeting trans youth while more than 20 states have maintained pro-LGBTQ+ policies.
As the highest court in the US debates their rights to participate in school sports, five trans youth and their families spoke to the Guardian about the role athletics has played in their lives. The students are based in California, a state that has long had trans-inclusive policies.
The youth described the joy sports brings them and how meaningful it has been to play on teams that match their gender identity. They said sports were about community, team-building, socializing and exercising, like they are for so many youth in the US. Some expressed frustration and anxiety about the national debates focused on “fairness” in competition, saying the legal battle was about fighting for their place in society and their fundamental rights to access the same opportunities as their peers.
Here are some excerpts of their reflections.
‘Sports is my escape’
Lina Haaga, a 14-year-old Pasadena student, has played sports since age four, starting with soccer: “My entire family is very athletic,” she says. “I wasn’t particularly good at soccer, but it helped me realize what an asset sports is in my life – as a release and an escape, but also a way to connect with other people and make new friends.” A trans girl who transitioned at a young age, Lina always played on girls’ teams, eventually doing basketball, swimming, water polo, lacrosse, tennis and track.
When she has faced stressors, “sports was always a place where I could find a reprieve and just think about the ball that was ahead of me or the next step in the race,” she says.
The attacks on trans girls in athletics have taken a toll, says Lina: “The political climate has put into question my relationship with sports. Instead of it being something innocent I can just enjoy without fear of being discriminated against, I’ve had to now worry every time I step on the track or the court that somebody might disagree with my participation. That’s been really scary, because it’s started to steal something that’s precious for me – that moment of bliss.”
There are times, she says, when she has avoided games out of fear someone might object.
Her message to the supreme court? “We’re still human. We’re just kids. We’re just trying to have fun … We’re not trying to be monsters or predators or anything malevolent. We’re just trying to find connection and community.”
Lina hopes other trans kids continue to pursue athletics: “Playing sports and loving being out there on the field is in its own beautiful way an act of resistance.”
‘I defied the president’
In May, AB Hernandez, a 17-year-old track and field athlete, won first place in the high jump, first place in the triple jump, and silver in the long jump in the California state finals. It should have been a moment of pure celebration for the high schooler from Jurupa Valley, a city east of Los Angeles, but she and her mom had to worry about something else: Donald Trump’s attacks.
The US president turned AB into a media spectacle, targeting her in a social media post and claiming he was “ordering local authorities, if necessary, to not allow” her to compete, writing her participation was “TOTALLY DEMEANING TO WOMEN”.
Now a senior, AB says she has learned to brush aside her detractors: “People are always gonna have negative thoughts to say about you … I just had to realize I need to be comfortable with who I know I am and be comfortable in my own skin and not let anyone get under it.”
“Victory,” she adds, “meant a lot, especially after all the internet drama. To come out on top and be number one. You can’t say anything besides argue with a wall. I’m still competing … Sports is my everything.”
She was touched that standing up inspired others: “People DM’d me to say: ‘I’m so happy you’re fighting. You’re making a really big impact for our community.’ … I thought I just went out and competed, but to others, it was like a movement. I defied the president, in a way. I was like, oh my god, I did do something.”
Her mom, Neredya Hernandez, says she won’t stop defending her daughter’s rights and hopes other parents will be moved to embrace their trans kids. “My message to other parents is: support your kids and be louder. We’re unaware of how much support we have within this community until you’re actually put in a position like we were. We’re not alone.”
‘We’d have to leave the country’
While anti-trans rhetoric has generally focused on restricting trans girls, the toxic climate has also been distressing for trans boys, some parents said. Several states with bans against trans girls have included restrictions impacting trans boys, too.
One 13-year-old trans boy in the Bay Area, whose name the Guardian is withholding to protect his identity, started playing soccer at age two and now also plays basketball and baseball. “Sports is how I made friends. It’s nice you have people to lean on who have your back,” he says.
Jennifer, his mother, says her son struggled to fit in on girls’ teams before he came out as a boy at age nine, but now is embraced by the boys’ teams and coaches. If he were barred from athletics due to being trans, “we would have to leave the country,” she says. “The message the country is sending deeply and negatively impacts his feeling of belonging in his own country.”
Jennifer, who asked to go by a pseudonym to protect her son’s identity, says the supreme court case “terrifies” her: “The sports issue is so important, because it fundamentally tells us whether people believe trans people exist. Trans girls are girls and belong on girls’ teams. Trans boys are boys and they belong on boys’ teams. Full stop. Once you take the position that trans girls are not girls for the purposes of sports, you have now dehumanized them. It’s a slippery slope to taking away rights after rights after rights.”
Her son says he didn’t understand why some people were so focused on stopping children from playing on teams: “I’m just a kid that wants to play sports with my friends. I’m not special. I just want to be left alone and hopefully be successful in sports. We’re not a threat. We’re not gonna tear down the world … If the Trump administration wouldn’t let me play sports, they would basically be taking away part of me.”
‘I’m used to slurs, but I’ll keep speaking up’
Lily Norcross, a 17-year-old track athlete from California’s central coast, says she has grown accustomed to negative news articles about her participation on the girls’ team, which sometimes lead to death threats and other harassment.
“I know this sounds really sad, but I’ve grown used to people calling me slurs. The news itself doesn’t bother me as much as what it causes. After Trump was inaugurated, people were far more comfortable openly being transphobic and hating minorities,” she says. “For me, it’s important to defend the rights of trans kids … because compared to others, I’m extremely lucky. Practically my entire family is supportive. I live in California, which is very liberal. My school board and most of my teachers support me. Most people aren’t in that situation … I’m speaking up for people in places like Texas, Ohio or Florida who don’t have these opportunities.”
Lily says she also wished Democratic leaders did more to stand up for her rights, noting it felt like their stance was: “Let trans people fight for themselves.” She urges lawmakers to have more empathy: “Put yourself in [our] shoes. Imagine if somebody said your people aren’t allowed to use bathrooms or play sports. How would you feel if you were segregated from everybody else?”
‘I feel hopeless’
Leonard, a 17-year-old swimmer in the Bay Area, says it was hard to be optimistic that his rights would remain protected, even in a state like California.
“I feel hopeless. I don’t like this supreme court and I don’t think they’re going to support trans people’s ability to play sports,” says Leonard, a trans boy who is also a fencer and asked to go by a pseudonym to protect his identity. “I’m scared of the precedent it’s going to set, maybe countrywide. I’m scared of what could happen to me and my friends.”
Leonard wishes people understood how meaningful it can be for trans youth to play on teams where they belong: “It made me really, really, really, really happy to be on the boys team affirming my gender identity, affirming I was as good as any cis boy. I know that I’m a boy, but being on a boys team proves to everyone and myself that I am, in fact, a boy and this is where I’m supposed to be.”
Key Takeaways
- Special Olympics aims to grow its coaching roster from 250,000 to 600,000 globally by 2030, a 140% increase over six years
- The organization lost nearly half of its coaches during the COVID-19 pause in 2020, requiring substantial rebuilding efforts
- A three-year Nike partnership announced in July focuses on coaching certifications, translations, and curriculum development across global markets
- Nike plans to recruit 600 additional Unified sports volunteer coaches in Oregon, Berlin, Johannesburg, and Tokyo with emphasis on young women and girls
- Most Special Olympics coaches are volunteers with high retention rates, as many return after their initial involvement
Rebuilding After Major Pandemic Losses
Special Olympics faced significant challenges following the COVID-19 pandemic, losing approximately 50% of its coaching workforce during the 2020 pause in activities. Since resuming operations, the organization has rebuilt steadily with coaching rosters growing roughly 10% annually.
The current global total stands at 250,000 coaches. However, officials acknowledge that reaching 600,000 by 2030 represents an ambitious target that will require strategic partnership support and sustained recruitment efforts.
Nike Partnership Focuses on Coach Development
In July, Special Olympics announced a three-year partnership with Nike centered on coach identification and training. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
“Special Olympics places a lot of emphasis and importance on the role of the coach,” Special Olympics CEO David Evangelista said. “With Nike, we will be investing in making sure we have state-of-the-art coaching resources.”
The partnership will address coaching certifications and provide translations to support global expansion. Nike will also contribute to curriculum development to help coaches stay current with sport-specific training methods.
Geographic and Demographic Priorities
Nike’s recruitment efforts will target four specific markets: Oregon, Berlin, Johannesburg, and Tokyo. The company aims to recruit 600 additional Unified sports volunteer coaches in these regions.
The partnership includes a specific focus on expanding opportunities for young women and girls to participate in Unified sports programs. This demographic emphasis reflects broader industry efforts to increase female participation in youth athletics.
Building on a Longstanding Relationship
The partnership extends an existing collaboration between Nike and Special Olympics. Special Olympics Oregon has worked with Nike for nearly 20 years, including 16 years hosting the Special Olympics Oregon Youth Games at Nike World Headquarters.
More than 6,000 Nike employees have participated in Youth Games events, working with 7,600 athletes with intellectual disabilities. The volunteer retention rate remains high, with most coaches continuing their involvement after initial participation.
What This Means for Youth Sports Inclusion
The 600,000 coach target represents more than operational growth. It signals the organization’s commitment to expanding athletic opportunities for athletes with intellectual disabilities at a time when youth sports access remains a priority across multiple stakeholder groups.
The volunteer model presents both advantages and challenges. While high retention rates suggest strong program satisfaction, scaling to 600,000 coaches will require consistent outreach, training infrastructure, and partnership support across diverse international markets.
via: SBJ / Nike
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ST. LOUIS — The LGBTQ+ community rallied at St. Louis City Hall Monday to support the rights of trans student athletes.
This comes as the Supreme Court will hear arguments over the issue Tuesday. Two transgender athletes from Idaho and West Virginia are appealing their lower court’s decision on restrictions over transgender athletes’ participation in girls’ and women’s sports.
The cases focus on the role of Title IX’s equal protection clause and how it should be interpreted when it comes to gender and sports, according to Jesse Jones, executive director of Lavender Youth Alliance and principal consultant with Jesse Jones Education and Consulting.
“Legal experts are advising that the ruling in these cases will also have far-reaching implications for trans youth, extending to things like use of bathrooms and pronouns at school,” they said.
Approximately 27 states, including Missouri, have laws or policies restricting transgender youth from participating in sports that align with their gender identity.
During Monday’s event, organization leaders spoke against laws that hinder and ban rights for the LGBTQ+ community and expressed support for the transgender athletes.
“It takes all of us coming together to support one another, and that none of these issues we see on the news are in silos,” Jones said.
“Whether these are laws being passed to attack immigrants, transgender people, Black and Brown folks, all of us need to come together as a community, as humans, to show that we all deserve love, respect and belonging.”
Natalia Safatli
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