In response to US Lacrosse’s Pride Month content campaign, 16-year-old transgender lacrosse player Gabriel Kris tagged the national governing body in an Instagram post commenting on the lack of transgender representation in the sport.
“There has to be some others like me,” he wrote. “But if I am the first, so be it. I am ready to make waves in the lax world.”
Kris, who is in the creative writing program at Colgan High School in Virginia, shares his story in this article for US Lacrosse Magazine.
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Hi. My name is Gabriel Kris. I am 16 years old, and I am a transgender lacrosse player.
I was born Mercedes Elizabeth Kris in western Massachusetts, the first daughter after four sons. It was almost a blessing for my mother, who had prayed for a girl.
When I was 2 years old, I was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome (now just called Autism Spectrum Disorder). My two older half-siblings are also autistic.
In my family, gender expression was not something I was taught was OK to explore. My father is a conservative white guy from Detroit, and my mother is a religious woman born and raised in Puerto Rico. The combination of my father’s firm belief in gender roles and the Latin culture of deep-set Christian values created a strict binary of who you could be — boy or girl, according to what’s in your pants.
I had long hair, always wore pretty earrings and dresses and was treated like a princess among my older brothers. Conversations about identity and expression never came up, as according to what my parents believed, those things were permanently assigned to me at birth.
As I grew up and started to pick out my own outfits, I began leaning toward more masculine clothes. Basketball shorts and Pokémon t-shirts. Snapbacks were my best friends. I fell into a weird sort of limbo where I wore the most masculine things available in the girls’ section of Target.
When I was about 9, I felt a sudden urge to cut my hair. All of it. To this day I don’t know exactly what it was that made me want to do it, maybe something inside me that was already telling me who I was. My mom didn’t think anything of it (although she clearly should have) and let me get a sort of pixie cut. That is when my journey started.
Since I was young, I didn’t have any of the defining female features yet, and with my short hair, I was mistaken for a young boy. My mother was very bothered by it. She pushed me to wear more feminine things and always hastily corrected people when they called me a boy. My brother once asked me, “Doesn’t it bother you when people think you’re a boy?” When I struggled to answer, I think that was when a part of me I realized that something was different.
From the start, I knew I had to keep quiet about all parts of my identity, whatever it was. I explored many labels, some of which I have to say I am embarrassed by. But I never felt settled. No matter what label I tried out, it felt close, but just slightly off. The fact was, I never ever even considered that maybe I was just a boy. I tried labels like genderfluid and non-binary, things that weren’t flat out “boy” but still weren’t “girl.” I was too scared to let go of who I was supposed to be.
As I got older, still in Catholic school, I started to develop severe depression. I was struggling so hard with who I was, and there was no one I could really turn to. Not even my own parents. I began to self-harm. I would hide it with bracelets or sweatshirts. It was an outlet for the emotional pain I was feeling. It was all so complex, transferring it to a physical place seemed like the only way to cope.
Toward the end of my second year in Catholic school, seventh grade, I dreaded going to school so much I would find any reason not to go. A headache, a cold, I even would try and make myself throw up. I hated the skirts. I hated that I was too boyish to be friends with the girls but still an outcast from the boys.
My dad eventually got a great new job in Washington, D.C., so we planned to move to Northern Virginia before the end of the year. My anxiety about school got so bad that at one point I just stopped going altogether.
Less than a month after our move, I was hospitalized in Richmond, Va., for self-harm and suicidal ideation. My methods for hurting myself were becoming more dangerous, and I had plans in my head of how to end my life. I stayed in the hospital for a week. The whole time, my parents had no idea exactly what it was that was causing me such pain. Unfortunately, my time there didn’t do much good. I continued self-harm soon after my discharge and began abusing sleeping pills.
However, one good thing did come out of the hospitalization. Once I came home, I decided it was time to figure out who I was and tell my mom. I would rather my parents shun me or kick me out than have them love someone I was not. I would rather be a homeless boy than a dead girl. Finally, I had to consider: Am I a boy? I spent hours just sitting in front of the mirror, practicing calling myself “he,” and introducing myself as a boy. I gave myself a deadline. By that Friday, I had to tell my mom. I had to take the jump.
So that Friday — May 19, 2017 — I came out to my mother as transgender. We laugh about how I did it now. It was very chaotic, to say the least.
My dad had left for work early that morning, and I was getting ready for school. My mom was in the living room drinking coffee and scrolling through Facebook. I took my backpack and my viola case and headed out the door. I was chickening out. But when I reached my driveway, I stopped.
I had to do it.
I dropped my stuff and walked back to the door. I opened it but didn’t go inside, just stuck my head in. I stood there for an eternity. I asked my mom if she loved me about 100 times. The whole week before I asked her that. Do you love me? No matter what?
Finally, I said it.
“I’m transgender.”
Then, I slammed the door and ran. I ran all the way down the street to my bus stop. I am very lucky that my mother reacted in the way she did. It was difficult, and she was in denial for a very long time, but I had expected so much worse. There was no yelling or hitting, and I got to keep living in my home. But at the same time, nothing in my life changed.
The way things were, it was as if I had never even told my mom. Because of this, my mother and I grew very distant. I had told her something huge, and she hadn’t even acknowledged it. No one called me a different name. Mom still called me “mama” instead of “papa,” and she never called me her son.
Not long after my coming out, my sibling (the one who taught me about gender fluidity) came out as male-to-female transgender. She became my only ally in my family for a while.
I kind of cruised through the rest of middle school. Once it was time for high school, I was ready for a new start.
Since my depression started, writing has always been something I did to cope. I auditioned for and got accepted into the creative writing program at Colgan High School. I was so excited. I could leave all the mess from middle school behind and be a fresh new person. No one would remember me as the trans kid, and no one would have to know unless I wanted them to. In fact, the majority of Colgan is LGBT (it’s a performing arts school after all). Now, none of my new friends knew me as my birth name, and they had never known me as female, either.
My parents still acted as if nothing had happened. My teachers would talk to my mom about Gabe and how great he’s doing, and my mom would call Mercedes down for dinner. It was like they were talking to a ghost. I had disconnected so much from being “her” that I had to remind myself that they were talking to me.
Pretty soon my mental health started to suffer again. Depression was like a monster in my head. I had violent suicidal thoughts. I was scared of myself. I told my mom I had to go back to the hospital. I did, this time at Children’s National in D.C. I stayed for another week, but this time I actually did some healing. This time I wanted to get better.
I’ve had to take quite a few breaks writing this part. It has only been about a year-and-a-half since that visit to the psych ward. The feelings are still fresh in my mind. I relive them every time I think about it. There can’t possibly be a fear that is more terrifying to have than one of your own brain. It felt like a parasite had latched on to me. I had forgotten what it was like not to feel so awful. The first night, I cried myself to sleep. Sometimes I would stand at the window in my room and stare blankly at the street below.
I’m not sure what was going on in my mom’s head while I was hospitalized. I’m not sure I want to. I think to see me in so much pain and so scared must have made something click for her: She could lose her child.
Once I was discharged, things finally began to change. My mom called me by my name, called me “papa” when she could remember, and once or twice, I’ve heard the word “son.”
It took my mother a while to admit to herself that I wasn’t going to change. Now, my mom is one of my best friends, even though she still has a lot more learning to do. I have been living as a male for three years, but to be completely honest, it feels like it’s been my whole life. Sometimes I almost feel like my first few years as a girl were a past life.
I never doubt who I am. Sometimes to triple-check, I try to imagine growing up to be a woman. Not only does it sicken me, it almost makes me laugh.
My lacrosse life started when I was 7 years old. During a car ride, my mother asked me, “Hey, do you want to play lacrosse?”
My response: “What’s that?” And so began my love for a sport that I didn’t know existed.
The first season I played was pretty much just a coed clinic. All the kids had boys’ sticks and wore goggles. We learned the basics like ground balls, cradling and throwing. Lacrosse quickly became my passion. I was very competitive and wanted all my teammates to be as serious as I was. Unsurprisingly, however, the other 9- and 10-year-olds weren’t as concerned about winning.
Since this was a youth league, we didn’t play in set positions yet. That included goalie. When I tried goalie, I quickly fell in love with it. But since we were all taking turns, I had to share the position. It made me so angry. A lot of the other girls who tried it only did for the sake of trying it. I did it because it made me feel confident. I was doing a very important job for the team. Luckily, once I got a bit older, I was able to play goal almost full-time.
Once I moved to Virginia, one of my first priorities was to find a lacrosse team. I joined the Prince William County Royals and played for them through middle school. Of course, since I came out as transgender female-to-male soon after the move, playing girls’ lacrosse became a tense subject for me. Off the field, knowing I was still playing girls’ lacrosse made me feel uneasy. Sometimes I wondered if I was invalid for it. I was scared to switch. Boys’ and girls’ lacrosse are so different. It’s like they are two different games. I was a good girls’ lacrosse player, but I didn’t know if I had what it took to be a boys’ player.
In my freshman year of high school, I tried out for my school’s girls’ team. Despite my passion for goaltending, I tried out for defense. Looking back on it, that was a terrible decision. There was another goalie trying out who I knew was better than me. She knew it, too, and she looked down on me. I didn’t make the team, but the Royals were taking freshmen who didn’t make the high school team for one more year.
I was torn for a little bit. I didn’t really want to play with middle schoolers, but a season without playing can get you a lot more out of shape than you think. For my ninth-grade season, I played 7/8 lacrosse.
I tried completely switching to defense, even midfield, but eventually I fell back to goalie. I guess that's what I was meant to do. I think that is when I finally fully committed to the position. I wanted to be the best I could be so I could make the team the next year. My sophomore year, I made the JV girls’ lacrosse team. I was so proud of myself, but only for a short while.
After only a few practices, I started to feel very uncomfortable playing with the girls. I had always felt a slight discomfort, but this was more. Sometimes, the boys’ team would be on the field while we were practicing, and I was ashamed to be seen. I was grateful my helmet covered my face. Once again, my mental health suffered. I was too far out of the closet to keep one foot still in there. And so, for the first time, I came out to a lacrosse team.
In a group message, I casually said that I was transgender and went by Gabe. Before that, everyone called me by my last name. Eventually, my coach found out and I was out to the whole team. But it wasn’t enough. Playing a girls’ sport, I wasn’t being true to myself.
Almost the second I played a scrimmage with that team, I wanted off, even though I worked so hard to make it in the first place. To make it even harder, I had no one to look up to. I have never heard of another transgender lacrosse player. I had no example of where to even start.
The season was cut way short after only two scrimmages because of COVID-19. It was bittersweet. Playing the whole season with the girls would have destroyed me, but at the end of the day, I loved the game, and missing out on it still broke my heart. Because of that, these past few months I have been working harder than I ever have to improve my skills.
I have decided that now is the time for me to join boys’ lacrosse. Luckily, the switch as a goalie isn’t too difficult; It’s the one thing that is almost exactly the same. In fact, I recently tried out for a boys’ travel team and found the shots were easier. I didn't make the team, but just playing for an hour with other guys made me feel the best I’ve ever felt while playing lacrosse, and for most of my life, lacrosse was the only thing that made me feel good at all. That’s why I love it.
Despite the pain I was going through in my daily life, on the field I could throw everything away. Once I put my gear on, I was a different person. I could push all my stress to the back of my mind and focus only on the game.
On the field, I’m not a trans kid or an autistic kid or a depressed kid. I’m a lacrosse player. That ideology is my hope for the future of the sport. No matter who your teammate is off the field, when you're playing, they are a lacrosse player. That’s all that matters. During a game, I don’t care if you “agree” with my identity. I’ll treat you like my teammate. The rest can be dealt with some other time.
If a coach thinks a trans kid should not be allowed to try out for his or her team, I hope that our mutual passion for the game can get past that. Any player or coach should be more concerned with the improvement, sportsmanship and enthusiasm of the team than the identities of the players.
I also want coaches to be more aware of the mental health of their players. Sometimes depression and anxiety kill any motivation to even get out of bed or put on clean clothes. During my worst times, I’ve gone over a week without showering.
Coaches, please learn the signs in your players. In a split second, you can lose them. Thankfully, I had the drive to get better, but not everyone is able to achieve that.
Depression never goes away. Sometimes I have these horrible, dark moments. Sometimes I can’t get out of bed. Other times I don’t sleep at all. Ever so often, suddenly I’ll start to think I have no place in this world.
All I can say is that I keep pushing. I no longer constantly want to die, but that’s not all depression is. I want to live. There are things I have to do, places to go. It’s like walking through quicksand and a blizzard. Maybe also a firestorm somehow. Part of the reason I still had the motivation to keep playing lacrosse, even when playing on a girls’ team made me so uncomfortable, was because I had a supportive coach who was willing to listen if I needed to talk.
I wouldn’t exactly say I’m proud to be trans, and I certainly wouldn’t say I’m happy about it. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. Dysphoria torments you. It follows you every waking moment. Being transgender completely derailed my life.
What I would say, however, is that I am grateful. I’m grateful to myself for realizing who I am and doing something about it. I lived in denial for a bit. I was angry at the world for putting me in such a difficult position. But it was up to me to decide if I would let that ruin me. I chose to pull through and begin to live my life as who I’m supposed to be. Even though my fight is nowhere near over, it's already paying off.
As far as I know, I am the only transgender lacrosse player out there, but that cannot be true. There have to be others like me. If one of you is reading this, I encourage you to use your voice. Tell your story. I want to hear it, and I’m sure other trans kids do too.
If we all come together and show how many kinds of people all share a love for lacrosse, we can make a change. There are no trans players out there setting the stage for the rest of us to follow, so I guess that makes me the one to do it. All I could ever ask for is that my story brings someone the confidence to tell theirs too, even if it’s just a small-town trans kid like me.
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In January 2016, US Lacrosse established an events policy and recommended practices for the inclusion of youth transgender athletes, stating that "a transgender youth athlete should be allowed lacrosse participation in accordance with his or her gender identity, irrespective of the gender listed on the athlete’s birth certificate or other records and regardless of whether the athlete has undergone any medical treatment." Click here to read more.