Last Sunday in June. (2024)

Reflecting on a Wednesday in April.

Hi, Happy Pride!

Rather than face the humidity and hundreds of thousands in Manhattan, I’m keying this dispatch from a café in Park Slope. There’s nice airflow here. George Michael just sang to me from the loudspeaker. And importantly, there’s a yoga studio upstairs. My radical pride act of the day was taking off my shirt during vinyasa. (Scars out!)

This is a lot less than a well-crafted essay and much more of a wellness check. I’m still here trying to stay creative and joyful despite a heaviness that weighs on my chest. It was metaphorical until it wasn’t. At the end of this past week, I acquiesced to antibiotics and spent an entire day horizontal.

The last paragraph I published here was a post-script noting that I was on my way to speak at a local school committee’s hearing. It was the first public meeting of this specific cohort of low-authority, high-drama elected officials—District 2’s Community Education Council (CEC)—after voting to demand that NYC’s Department of Education reconsider allowing trans girls to play in the school system’s athletic league. (I recognize that the last sentence is a mouthful. Huh?)

That was mid-April. We’re now at the end of June. Try as I might, I’m finding it impossible to write coherent, easy-to-parse paragraphs to explain what is happening here, why you should care, and how it felt to sit in that school cafetorium. I’m sitting on a draft that runs long on the idiosyncratic nature of how NYC manages the country’s largest public school system. I won’t bore you with it.

Said simply, in the style of “I just read the headline”: In an 8-3 vote, Manhattan parents request public schools reintroduce discriminating policy against trans student-athletes.

At this point, we’re all a bit numb to this kind of news popping up around the country. What made my jaw drop, and others, was the setting. NYC?!

And here’s a quick summary of why you should care: this right-wing "just asking questions” rhetoric about trans people starts in the sports arena, but it never stays there. The right has figured out that sports is an effective way to get people to stop, scratch their heads, and start questioning the legitimacy of trans people. These arguments, e.g. D2 CEC Resolution #248, are using narratives around protecting (vulnerable) girls and Title IX funding as a shield while they undermine trans existence.¹

How am I so sure it’s not just about softball and swimming? Because the ringleader of the CEC’s recent efforts goes out of her way to publicly and aggressively misgender trans people. A better writer, with more emotional distance, should (hopefully will) write the saga of parent-turned-politician Maud Maron and her slide to the right. I keep waiting for the New York Mag treatment. Instead, she was recently buoyed by a she’s-a-victim New York Post cover.

In the months since that April meeting, the story, of course, kept evolving. Every month, increasing numbers of parents and allies showed up in white to keep the pressure on the CEC. A memo to rescind the first memo was introduced and failed. Maron was finally ousted from her position by the Chancellor. Still, the decision was complicated by the simultaneous removal of another parent leader from a different district for a whole other situation related to the Israel-Hamas War.

UGH. And here we are again… I’m trying to report the plot instead of sharing my feelings.

Deep breath.

I haven’t been right, and I haven’t been able to write, since standing up to speak in front of Maud Maron and her sympathizers. I prepared for the hearing by ironing my best linen shirt and practicing a short speech about spending my childhood on the soccer field. I was nervous; it's been years since I’ve spoken publicly on queer issues, but confident that I could still flex my activist muscles.

Of course, I am intellectually aware that there are people, many people, who think I shouldn’t exist. I grew up in the South! With a gay dad! I *know* bigotry exists. And yet, I survive my days by assuring myself that I don’t actually know any of these people personally (anymore). I live in Brooklyn now! And this is where it becomes embarrassing; I have also regularly told myself I could maybe/possibly/probably convince someone to change their mind about trans people if we did meet.

So, I showed up that night in April in my tailored shirt and freshly polished shoes. I was ready with remarks peppered with self-effacing jokes and statistics. I honestly thought I could win someone over. In hindsight, I was so naive. The air was thick with animosity. The conflict between members of the CEC and activists in the audience was vocal, heated, and shockingly disruptive. I sat in my chair for a good three hours, witnessing adults behave in ways that made my skin crawl.

When I did get up to speak, I immediately fired off an unplanned joke. I remember getting a good laugh from the room. And then I basically blacked out. My typical command and confidence in front of an audience disappeared when I faced a line of people who could not even look me in the eye. They scrolled their phones while we sang for our rights to exist.

Tough audience. NYC D2 CEC hearing, April 2024. Photo: Kisha Bari

I haven’t been able to write because I’m ashamed to admit that since transitioning, I’ve relied on my cis-passing (white) male privilege to keep me feeling safe. That night, in a school room in FiDi, my little glass Brooklyn bubble shattered. And I’m still picking up the pieces.

xx Kyle

PS None of this incredible activist response would have happened without Paola Mendoza & Chase Strangio’s tireless efforts. Thank you.

---

To end Pride month on a more rah, rah, flag waving high note… here’s an older piece keeping pride in the family. And a cute pic from Brooklyn Pride earlier this month.

1. Are you still wanting more info about trans kids playing sports? Read Schuyler Bailar’s book He/She/They, which interweaves his story of being the first publicly documented NCAA D1 trans man to compete in a sport with a primer on trans issues.