The father of a transgender girl has attracted millions of views with his moving plea to Missouri lawmakers to reject a bill that would ban her from playing on girls’ sports teams.
Speaking at a hearing of the bill in the Missouri house of representatives earlier this month, Brandon Boulware told how for years, against the advice of teachers and therapists, he and his wife forced their child to “wear boy clothes, get short haircuts and play on boys’ sports teams”.
Until one day, he said they realized they were “silencing our child’s spirit”.
Their actions, the lawyer and father-of-four said, made his daughter “miserable” and that she had no confidence or friends and did not smile.
House Joint Resolution 53 – which if passed would be written into the Missouri state constitution – states that athletic teams at public schools must be designated based on “biological sex” and would ban transgender girls from being in female public school athletic or sports teams.
A video of his speech, shared online by ACLU, has been watched more than 4.5m times on Twitter and shared tens of thousands of times.
MUST WATCH: Brandon Boulware, the father of a transgender daughter, testifies during a hearing asking Missouri lawmakers to stop discriminating against trans youth. pic.twitter.com/bTuSoyE1nW
— ACLU (@ACLU) March 15, 2021
The moment that changed Boulware’s outlook was when he saw that his daughter playing while wearing a dress. When he denied her request to play with the neighbours, he said no, to which she asked if she put “boy clothes” on he would change his mind.
“It was then that it hit me. My daughter was equating being good with being someone else,” he said. “I was teaching her to deny who she is. As a parent, the one thing we cannot do, the one thing, is silence our child’s spirit. So on that day, my wife and I stopped silencing our child’s spirit.”
From then on they allowed her to grow her hair and wear the clothes that she wanted and she was a “different child”.
Now, he said, he has “a confident, a smiling, a happy daughter” who has friends and enjoys playing sports.
If the new legislation passes, he said she would no longer be able to play on the girls’ volleyball or tennis teams or be on her dance squad.
“I ask you please don’t take that away from my daughter or the countless others like her who are out there. Let them have their childhoods. Let them be who they are. I ask you to vote against this legislation,” he said.
Among those to share the video online was NBA star Dwayne Wade, whose 13-year-old daughter, Zaya, is trans. “Vote AGAINST this legislation!” he wrote on Instagram. “I don’t know Brandon Boulware at all but I do know we have something real in common … Thank you for using your platform and sharing your family’s story!”
