When Rebekah Bruesehoff plays field hockey, the rest of her day washes away.
Bruesehoff’s fierce activism is fueled by the same focus she brings to the field hockey pitch. She’s originally known as the young pink-haired girl in the viral photo where she held a sign that read: “I’m the scary transgender person the media warned you about,” is now a 17-year-old activist and author. Above all, she is an athlete.
In SELF Magazine’s series on trans athletes titled “Let Them Play,” Bruesehoff told SELF in August that she hopes to impact the world so that trans student athletes’ participation in sports is not a matter of if, when or how.
“We don’t have to make it a big deal, we don’t have to question someone’s identity when it’s not even ours and not our business,” she said in the video. Bruesehoff’s activism is a direct result of the onslaught of pushback aimed to prevent trans athletes’ participation in sports by law.
Many talking points against trans girls and women in sports often reference an unfair advantage over cis athletes due to physiological characteristics. But a 2020 statement by the ACLU expressed this to be a false claim. According to Dr. Joshua D. Safer, executive director of the Mount Sinai Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery, genetic make-up and internal and external reproductive anatomy are not holistic indicators of athletic performance, especially if a trans woman meets NCAA standards. Plus, advocates claim fairness in sports does not exist—even outside of the gender debate.
“There is no inherent reason why her physiological characteristics related to athletic performance should be treated differently from the physiological characteristics of a non-transgender woman,” he said in the ACLU statement.
Amidst the 518 anti-trans bills introduced this year alone, one targeting trans athletes in Utah—House Bill 0172—passed last month. Now, it awaits signage from the state’s Republican Gov. Spencer Cox.
In light of efforts by the legislation to bar trans women athletes from participating in sports, we’re spotlighting 9 trans women athletes who excelled in their chosen sports.
British racing driver, Roberta Cowell (1918 – 2011), in the cockpit of a Kitchmac M10B Formula 5000 racing car during testing at Silverstone Circuit in Northamptonshire, July 1972. Born Robert Cowell, she entered motor racing in 1936, served in the RAF during World War II, and later became the first known British trans woman to undergo sex reassignment surgery. (Photo by P. Floyd/Daily Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images) (P. Floyd/Getty Images)Roberta Cowell (born 1918-2011)
A British competitive racecar driver and spitfire pilot in the Royal Air Force in 1942, Cowell’s plane crashed while flying over Germany, and she was captured by German troops. During her five months of incarceration in the Stalag Luft I prisoner-of-war camp, she experienced her gender revelation, and by 1951 became the first known person in Britain to undergo gender-reassignment surgery.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – JUNE 24: Fallon Fox speaks at the 2022 Pride Rally at Battery Park on June 24, 2022 in New York City. (Photo by Rob Kim/Getty Images) (Rob Kim/Getty Images)Fallon Fox (born 1975)
Fallon Fox is a retired professional Mixed Martial Arts Fighter specializing in the art of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Wrestling, and Muay Thai. Fox made history in 2013 as the first openly transgender athlete to compete in MMA.
Despite the success, she told The Guardian in 2015 that the journey was never all rainbows and sunshine. “The scope of anger and vitriol that I received initially […] that was disheartening, tragic,” she said. “It was mind-blowing.”
-TOKYO,JAPAN August 2, 2021: New Zealand’s Laurel Hubbard, the first transgender Olympian, can’t make the lift on his final try in the women’s 87kg weightlifting final at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. (Wally Skalij /Los Angeles Times via Getty Images) (Wally Skalij/Los Angeles Times via Getty Imag)Laurel Hubbard (born 1978)
The first openly trans athlete to compete in an individual event at the 2021 Olympic Games in Tokyo, Hubbard is a New Zealand weightlifter who transitioned in her 30s. Despite failing to advance to the final, she thanked the International Olympic Committee “for living up to the Olympic values and showing that sport is for all and that weightlifting can be done by all types of people.”
Canadian cyclist Rachel McKinnon listens to the Canadian national anthem as she celebrates her gold medal on the podium for the F35-39 Sprint discipline of the UCI Masters Track Cycling World Championships, in Manchester on October 19, 2019. – Transgender cyclist Rachel McKinnon has defended her right to compete in women’s sport despite accepting trans athletes may retain a physical advantage over their rivals. (Photo by OLI SCARFF / AFP) (Photo by OLI SCARFF/AFP via Getty Images) (OLI SCARFF/AFP via Getty Images)Veronica Ivy (born 1982)
Formerly known as Rachel McKinnon, Ivy is a Canadian cyclist who is the first trans cycling champion, having won the UCI Women’s Master Track World Championship in the women’s 35-44 age group. She broke record for the 200m sprint for women in 2018, and broke record again the following year. She is now a trans activist.
LONDON, ENGLAND – APRIL 29: Jaiyah Saelua is seen as she is interviewed during the Next Goal Wins movie launch at Wembley Stadium on April 29, 2014 in London, England. (Photo by Tom Dulat – The FA/The FA via Getty Images) (Tom Dulat – The FA/The FA via Getty Images)Jaiyah Saelua (born 1988)
An American-Samoan footballer, Saelua is a faʻafafine, a third gender present in Polynesian society. She is the first openly nonbinary and trans woman to compete in a FIFA World Cup qualifier.
She recently starred in Next Goal Wins, the Taika Waititi-directed retelling of Saelua and her team’s historic 2014 FIFA World Cup journey, she told Them last year: “I would consider this the peak of the mountain that has been my journey over the past more than 10 years.”
United States’ Chelsea Wolfe trains at the 2020 Summer Olympics, Wednesday, July 28, 2021, in Tokyo, Japan. (AP Photo/Kyusung Gong) (Kyusung Gong/AP)Chelsea Wolfe (born 1993)
After qualifying from placing fifth at the World Championships, Wolfe went to Tokyo as an alternate on the U.S. Women’s Olympic Bicycle Motocross (BMX) freestyle team. Although she never got to step in, she trained in the Olympic park and represented the U.S. as the first out trans person on Team USA.
KINGSVILLE, TX – MAY 25: CeCe Telfer of Franklin Pierce wins the 400 meter hurdles during the Division II Men’s and Women’s Outdoor Track & Field Championships held at Javelina Stadium on May 25, 2019 in Kingsville, Texas. (Photo by Rudy Gonzalez/NCAA Photos via Getty Images) (Rudy Gonzalez/NCAA Photos/NCAA Photos via Getty Images)CeCé Telfer (born around 1995)
Telfer is a Jamaican American track and field powerhouse, having become the first trans woman to win an NCAA title after taking first place in the 400-meter hurdles event in 2019.
Her story reverberated across the world when she was banned from competing in the 2020 Olympics after the World Athletics banned competitors—including her—who have gone through “male puberty.” She spoke out last year in her Like A Girl interview on the injustices she faced.
Pennsylvania’s Lia Thomas, right, gets a hug from Yale’s Iszak Henig after Thomas won the 100-yard freestyle final and Henig finished second at the Ivy League women’s swimming and diving championships at Harvard, Saturday, Feb. 19, 2022, in Cambridge, Mass. Henig, who is transitioning to male but hasn’t begun hormone treatments yet, is swimming for the Yale women’s team, and Thomas, who is transitioning to female, is swimming for the Penn women’s team. (AP Photo/Mary Schwalm) (Mary Schwalm/AP)Lia Thomas (born 1999)
Thomas is the first trans athlete to win an NCAA Division I individual national title in swimming in 2022. Coming off her win, she told Juju Chang of ABC that “trans people don’t transition for athletics; we transition to be happy and authentic and our true selves.”
Having transitioned in 2019, she competes in the women’s 500-yard freestyle and 200-yard freestyle events. As of January, she filed a case against the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) against World Aquatics after they voted to restrict participation of trans athletes in elite women’s competitions.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – APRIL 26: Andraya Yearwood attends the “Changing The Game” screening during the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival at Village East Cinema on April 26, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images for Tribeca Film Festival) (Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images for Tribeca Film Fe)Andraya Yearwood (2002)
Connecticut-based runner, Yearwood began competing on a high school girls’ team in 2017, eventually taking first place in the girls’ 100m and 200m dashes. She became embroiled in a media storm in 2018 after winning numerous state championship titles.
Yearwood was one of two athletes called out in a lawsuit filed by the conservative organization Alliance Defending Freedom that claimed Connecticut’s trans-inclusive school sports policy to be unfair and therefore demanded they both be banned from playing girls sports in the state, though it was dismissed by a federal judge in April of 2021.
