Column: Two TIG Writers' Thoughts on Britta Curl-Salemme, The Athletic

Meredith

Ever since Britta Curl-Salemme was drafted into the PWHL, I’ve had a lot of thoughts about grace, identity, and the politics of second chances. It’s a bit odd to be writing this as anything other than a good old-fashioned rant, since I have zero patience for -isms. It's also odd to be writing this later rather than sooner, but I had a plane to catch and travel plans wait for no one.

Curl-Salemme and I don’t know each other, and that’s unlikely to change. There are a few commonalities, though: we both come from flyover states often mocked and derided by those who don’t call them home. Large swathes of our states are rural; my hometown is surrounded on all sides by sprawling farms and getting out into the country is an easy five-minute drive from just about anywhere. The streets are dotted with church after church and most people’s lives revolve around their work, their families, and their faith. Christians—particularly white heterosexual cisgender Christians—make up the majority of the population, and they know it. 

While I wasn’t raised religious like Curl-Salemme, I grew up in a place where both Catholicism and Protestantism are deeply entrenched in local life. My friends and I understood all too well that we had to be careful, because existing as ourselves could be dangerous in no small part because of people like her.

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The Ice GardenMeredith Foster

My anger at this whole situation is divided. Part of it, of course, lives with Curl-Salemme, because her views are shameful. Part of it lies with Hailey Salvian, who should know better. To see the head of the Professional Hockey Writers Association's Women's Chapter write a fluffy piece like this makes me question my safety and standing in the organization as a queer genderfluid person. I don't know Salvian's gender identity or sexual orientation, but based on her public presentation I don't expect her to understand what life is like for people like me, or for my co-writer Natalia. That said, I do expect Salvian to use her position to uplift, not to push down. After this, I don't trust her to do that.

The rest of my anger is towards the PWHL itself. 

The league has shielded Curl-Salemme since the very second she was drafted. Indeed, the Minnesota Frost would never have made her available to Salvian if they didn’t know this was going to be an attempted image rehabilitation. 

Instead of releasing literally anything about the gender inclusion policy we have been promised since before the inaugural puck dropped, this is what they’re doing. Not working to advocate for the trans community, not ensuring that trans people have their rightful places in sport, but attempting to make a transphobe look good. This is the league wanting to be the most progressive in the world? I think not. They're more interested in protecting a player's image than they are in having the hard conversations. Also, let's be honest: if Curl-Salemme was anything other than a conventionally attractive white woman, she'd have been left to the wolves instead of being coddled by both Salvian and the PWHL.

Britta Curl-Salemme is a grown woman and she's welcome to believe what she wants, just as audiences are welcome to take vocal umbrage with it. Regardless of Salvian’s borderline infantilization, she was a grown woman when she made the social media post below, old enough to know what she was doing when she liked those other posts, old enough to vote, to serve in the military, to buy herself a beer.

She understands the plausible deniability about "both sides" just as I understand the transphobic dogwhistle that is discussing "fairness" in women’s sports.

Let me make something clear: I don’t believe in forever demonizing someone for having problematic views at some point in their life. People are capable of growth and change, but that requires more than Curl-Salemme’s "internal work." Without an apology, without a genuine acknowledgement that trans women are women and trans men are men, and without tangible action, her words are empty. The league’s silence and continued lack of the aforementioned gender inclusion policy shows their tacit support of her emptiness. The PWHL has demonstrated since day one that while they're happy to take queer and trans money, they can't actually be bothered to care about trans people.

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The Ice GardenMeredith Foster

I keep a playlist called Songs That Still Slap, which is a mishmash of one-offs I liked in my teens and early twenties. As I’m sitting here thinking about how to put my thoughts in order, the playlist shifts to Switchfoot’s “Dare You To Move.” The lyrics feel prescient to Curl-Salemme’s situation:

Welcome to the fallout. The tension is here, between who you are and who you could be. 

Her journey, if she ever actually chooses to do the work, is not going to be easy. It might very well bring her into conflict with family members, friends, or spiritual leaders. She might look back in shame. Growth is uncomfortable. As the late great poet Andrea Gibson wrote, “it hurts to become.”

Natalia

To be perfectly honest, I don’t want to talk about this. I’ve already talked about it more than one person should in a lifetime. I don’t particularly like talking about myself either, but I recognize the uniqueness and relevance of my perspective in this instance. If nothing else, it’s at least a change of pace.

I’m a trans woman. I’ve been out for just over three years, plus another year and a half of futile but ultimately necessary gender experimentation. While that year and a half put a name to the sense of lingering discomfort felt in my decade of youth hockey, it also amplified it significantly. Since the day I began presenting feminine, I’ve taken the ice exactly once, in rental skates two sizes too big for my plantar fasciitis-laden feet that left me in constant pain for the next couple days. For the feeling of flying up and down the ice again for the first time in what felt like forever, though, it was worth it. My love of hockey has stayed with me through all that’s changed in my life, but even as it’s stronger than ever now, I can’t say it never wavered.

I often joke that it’s a miracle I made it through undergrad, not because I wasn’t a good student, but because I transitioned partway through a sport management degree. This was around the time that discourse surrounding Pride Nights in hockey was at a fever pitch, and it was eating away at me so much that I didn’t watch a single game for the rest of the season. The stats nerd that was originally drawn to the program completely switched her focus over to anti-discrimination law and policy, culminating in a full-blown thesis on media representation of trans women in sport. I felt like if I were to have any future in hockey, it would need to be through active justification of my presence. It was exhausting, and for someone as conflict-averse as I generally am, it was scary.

This is why I’ve been so grateful for TIG in the short time since I was brought on. Being able to interact with the game I love so closely is exactly what pre-transition Natalia looked forward to, and doing so with no strings attached, much less being able to write something like this, is all that present Natalia could ever ask for. It’s a space I can simply exist in, and the desire for something like that is far from uncommon in trans women, whether it be off the ice or, more pertinently in this case, on it.

Something that’s always rubbed me the wrong way about the aforementioned "fairness" debate is, contrary to what you may expect, a common argument in support of trans women’s participation. Namely, the use of an athlete’s lesser performance following hormone replacement therapy to affirm their place in their respective sport. I’m not disputing the fact that suppression of testosterone has a widespread impact on athletic ability, but putting inferior results on a pedestal like that adds an element of guilt to one’s success and personal achievement that, to me, completely defeats the purpose of sport as a whole.

Winning’s more fun than losing, plain and simple. I would be less inclined to continue with a sport if I was resigned to a loss every single time, but given the outrage manufactured over a single college swimming championship, victory suddenly doesn’t seem too palatable either. So what’s still in it for me? Sure, I can look to better myself through practice, but we can’t have a trans woman getting too good at her craft without controversy now, can we? At this point, there's nothing to strive for. This is no longer a sport. It's hollow, purposeless physical activity, and it’s perhaps the most subtle exclusionary tactic there is.

I don’t just want trans women to play, I want us to compete. Maybe that’s too much to ask for in the current climate, and maybe the hockey world isn’t ready for that yet. Frankly, I don’t care. It’s my wholehearted belief, and as long as I exist in this space, it is my aspiration. In the questionably sincere words of one Britta Curl-Salemme, transgender people deserve to “choose to live whatever life they want.” This is me, an out, proud, and uncompromisingly trans woman, making my choice.

This is my life.