Cj Johnson didn’t want to quit field hockey, a sport they played for 12 years. But after they showed up 15 minutes late to practice in April and their coach chewed them out, using their deadname—a name they intentionally no longer go by after coming out as nonbinary—and urging their teammates to as well, they felt like they had no choice.
“It made me feel worthless,” says Johnson, a rising junior at Earlham College. (Earlham deferred comment to the coach, who is no longer at the school; through a lawyer, the coach denied Johnson’s allegations.)
What makes matters worse for Johnson, they say, is their belief that the NCAA has wavered in its support of people like them in the face of anti-trans sports bans sweeping the nation.