DISCRIMINATION
ON THE
FIELD by Chris Cedroni
Emily Clark
18
Options | August 2018
Emily’s eyes light up when you ask her about softball.“It’s my life,” she will tell you. She loves the camaraderie, the sportsmanship, the physical activity, the overwhelming feeling of friendship. Her Facebook page is filled with photos of her on the field, with teammates celebrating or traveling to away games, documenting her friendships and accomplishments, and her life at its happiest. Emily is a transgender woman. Her journey to become the person she was inside brought her through a full spectrum of emotions and experiences, and while she was on that journey, she was afraid she’d have to give up her passion. “I didn’t think I’d be able to play softball again,” she said. With the full-time process of readjusting to the world, she was sure that softball would have to be left by the wayside.That is, until a friend asked if she’d like to play for a women’s softball team. “There were tears in my eyes when she asked me.” Now Emily plays for the RI Chapter of the United States Specialty Sports Association (USSSA), an association that oversees fastpitch and slowpitch softball across the country. Her love of the sport is transcendent, a familiar passion in a life of many changes. She, and the rest of Lady Magic, her team, train hard and practice hard. In mid-June of this year, her love of the game was challenged. An opposing coach instructed his pitcher to walk
Emily every time she was up at bat. “It’s a decision that a coach could legitimately make,” she explains. “If a powerful hitter is up, you don’t want to give them a home run. But it kept happening and happening.” Emily focused on the game, and didn’t let it bother her. But by the time she got home, it was obvious to her that this wasn’t a coaching decision, it was an act of transphobia. “A friend of mine took some screen captures and sent them to me.The coach, Scott Sunderland, had posted some hateful comments on social media about me.” He used masculine pronouns to refer to Emily, made vulgar comments about her body, dismissed the idea of her being a woman, and stated that his decision was legitimate, falsely claiming that a trans woman would have genetic advantages, though there is no conclusive data that trans athletes are better than their cisgender opponents. Emily was hurt and surprised by his comments. To her, the softball field was a welcoming place, a place where she could excel at what she loved to do. Transphobia, prejudice, and hatefulness had no business there.Yet there they were, designed to hurt. Cyber bullying is only as new as the internet, yet it has become a powerful tool that can affect anyone. Especially someone like