Riley Simpson has been playing softball since they were nine years old. They fell in love with the sport after watching their older sister play.
In June, their softball team won the Edmonton city championship and Riley was hoping to play on higher-level teams as they grew and got better.
In Alberta, where Riley is from, most competitive softball teams are girls’ teams. This has never been a problem for Riley, who recently turned 15 years old and is non-binary, thanks to inclusive sporting policies, a co-ed mentality in softball and pre-puberty androgyny.
But the provincial government has enacted a controversial new law excluding athletes assigned male at birth from women’s sports teams — known as Bill 29, or the Fairness and Safety in Sport Act — which goes into effect on Sept. 1.
Athletes not assigned female at birth will have to leave any girls’ sports team belonging to any school, collegiate or provincial amateur competition level or play in boys’ or co-ed divisions.
Some say that unfairly targets young athletes in recreational leagues.
The legislation is already having repercussions on some young athletes in the province: on June 24, Riley played what could effectively be their last competitive softball game ever.
Alberta government releases details on a bill about transgender athletes
“We won the city championship that day, so that’s a good memory. But I also remember sitting on the pitching plate after the game, feeling so sad,” Riley wrote, replying to emailed questions from CBC News.
Riley’s mother, Eldyka Simpson, was at the game in Edmonton and, over the phone, recounted how most of her child’s teammates weren’t up to date on the reality of the new law until the team was drinking a ginger ale toast and one of the coaches announced it would be Riley’s last game, and that she was proud they were a part of the team.
“Then people started to cry,” Simpson said.
The team went to Dairy Queen for Blizzards afterward, but Riley stayed back and sat on the pitching mound “and just cried and cried, and cried,” Simpson said.
It had been a difficult season for the teenager, who earlier in the year was turned away from a higher-level under-15 team, then qualified for an even-higher calibre U17B team — but was later voted off in what Simpson can only explain as transphobic sentiment coming from a small number of parents.
Simpson says one of them told her “boys don’t belong” on a girls’ softball team because they could have an advantage over the female players.
Simpson, who is also an umpire and has three other children, was frustrated. She says there were girls on the team stronger than Riley, who would have been probably the third or fourth pitcher. She turned to Softball Alberta — the association overseeing Riley’s team — asking it to enforce its inclusion policy.
The policy, which has been in place since 2018, says the provincial association adopts the practices outlined by the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport, including that players “should be able to participate in the gender with which they identify … nor should there be any requirement for hormonal therapy or surgery.”
In an email correspondence with the association, Simpson says it didn’t appear to have any mechanisms for enforcing the policy and suggested the new law would render it moot anyway.
Softball Alberta confirmed to CBC News that Riley was registered in one of its U15 girls’ teams this year, but only forwarded information regarding the bill when asked about not having enforced the policy.
Simpson said she was disappointed by the lack of support and, to her, it showed that gender had seemingly not been a problem in the sport before the United Conservative Party government introduced its bill.
“Do we need to have rules at college level? Sure. Do we need to have rules at Olympic level? Sure. Do we need to have rules at scholarship level? Sure,” she said. “But we’re talking about kids playing community sport here.”
In an emailed statement, Andrew Boitchenko, Alberta’s minister of tourism and sport, said the province was working to create and expand co-ed divisions “so that transgender athletes can meaningfully participate in the sports of their choice.”
But Riley and their mom doubt there are currently enough players to fill a co-ed division right away. Instead, Riley said they are considering playing in an adult league with co-ed options next year.
“I really don’t want that. It makes me angry that the government is literally forcing kids to stop playing the sport they love,” Riley said.
Sara Kim, the co-ordinator of community care at Skipping Stone, an organization helping and advocating for trans people in Alberta, has been outspoken against the law and says the fact it includes recreational sports is an overreach.
A hockey player herself, Kim says she won’t be able to play in the two teams she’s currently a part of come September.
“It’s humiliating,” said Kim, who plays on an inclusive team with old friends, but won’t be able to continue because the team plays for Hockey Alberta, an amateur sports organization subject to the legislation. “We’re just normal people who want to enjoy our lives.”
When it comes to its effect on young people, Kim says the law is dragging children into a political debate they didn’t ask to be a part of since it has no age barrier for who it applies to.
Simpson, Riley’s mother, says sports are inherently unfair — whether some kids are naturally stronger, more skilled, more passionate, have the right coaches, live in rural or urban communities and whether they have the capacity and the money to do training camps.
She says she believes the government is introducing a problem where there had not been any and feels caught in the crossfire
“It’s a very big problem for a very small number of kids, but I am that family. My kid is that kid,” she said. According to her, the law “makes a mockery of the strong girls that we’re raising.”
