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A transgender girl struggles to find her voice as lawmakers attack her right to exist
Chloe Clark, 15, knows the country is debating her right to play sports, to get medical care — debating her right to exist. But the transgender girl is just trying to get through her day, as a pandemic moves her whole life online.
Please read her story:
Link to tweet
A transgender girl struggles to find her voice as lawmakers attack her right to exist
By Samantha Schmidt
MARCH 16, 2021
ST. LOUIS — Chloe Clark lay in her bed, wrapped in a blanket, as she logged in to the virtual personal finance class on her laptop. ... The 15-year-old watched as each of her high school classmates joined the class, their names popping onto the Microsoft Teams screen one by one while the teacher took attendance. As always, the students’ cameras were all turned off, and once again, Chloe was reduced to the name on her screen — and the sound of her voice. ... The teenage girl remained muted.
“All right, so we’re going to do some presentations today,” said the teacher, wearing a mask and sitting in a half-empty classroom in St. Louis, as most of her students listened from their homes across town. “Does anyone want to go first?”
It was the moment of class Chloe always dreaded, when she — and all her classmates — would have to listen to the part of herself that bothered her most, the part that still didn’t match how the transgender girl felt inside.
A year earlier, Chloe had sat in school with some of these same classmates, feeling more confident in herself than ever before. Her appearance had slowly begun to align with her identity in the months since she came out to her friends and family as transgender at age 13. ... She had spoken out on her own behalf, even as conservative legislators in Missouri waged a fight to criminalize treatments for trans kids like her.
{snip}
Edited by Lynda Robinson. Copy edited by Anastasia Marks. Photo editing by Mark Miller. Designed by Victoria Adams Fogg.
By Samantha Schmidt
MARCH 16, 2021
ST. LOUIS — Chloe Clark lay in her bed, wrapped in a blanket, as she logged in to the virtual personal finance class on her laptop. ... The 15-year-old watched as each of her high school classmates joined the class, their names popping onto the Microsoft Teams screen one by one while the teacher took attendance. As always, the students’ cameras were all turned off, and once again, Chloe was reduced to the name on her screen — and the sound of her voice. ... The teenage girl remained muted.
“All right, so we’re going to do some presentations today,” said the teacher, wearing a mask and sitting in a half-empty classroom in St. Louis, as most of her students listened from their homes across town. “Does anyone want to go first?”
It was the moment of class Chloe always dreaded, when she — and all her classmates — would have to listen to the part of herself that bothered her most, the part that still didn’t match how the transgender girl felt inside.
A year earlier, Chloe had sat in school with some of these same classmates, feeling more confident in herself than ever before. Her appearance had slowly begun to align with her identity in the months since she came out to her friends and family as transgender at age 13. ... She had spoken out on her own behalf, even as conservative legislators in Missouri waged a fight to criminalize treatments for trans kids like her.
{snip}
Edited by Lynda Robinson. Copy edited by Anastasia Marks. Photo editing by Mark Miller. Designed by Victoria Adams Fogg.
4 replies
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