Vermont Transgender Teen Faces Hate After Media Maelstrom
After bullying and transphobic news reports, a trans teen and her family in Vermont are facing tumult an onslaught of hateful messages, threats, and harassment.The 14-year-old teen, who attends Randolph Union High School, plays high school volleyball.
The teen’s mom told VTDigger her daughter had been playing for weeks without incident, but on Sept. 28, Burlington-based CBS affiliate WCAX aired a segment in which it claimed one of the teen’s cisgender teammates, Blake Allen, objected to the trans student using the girls’ locker room.In the segment, which appears to have been removed from WCAX’s website, Allen claimed the trans student made an ‘inappropriate” comment to other players, using transphobic language and referring to the trans teen as a “biological boy” throughout her interview.Right-wing news outlets like Fox News and the New York Post elevated the story.
The resulting backlash, the trans student’s mother said, has been “an absolute nightmare.”“My family is in constant pain from the lies and harassment,’ the mother, whose name is being kept anonymous to protect her identity, told VTDigger.The mother told VTDigger and the Vermont-based independent newspaper Seven Days that the narrative that emerged from the WCAX story was false.
Rather than being the one making inappropriate remarks, her daughter was the one being bullied in the locker room. According to the mother, the 14-year-old was changing in the locker room when three other players started yelling at her to stop looking at them and get out.
