In this op-ed, writer Katelyn Burns discusses the death of Lia Smith and calls for dignity and justice against the hostility that transgender athletes like her face on a daily basis.
By all accounts, Lia Smith was someone we should look up to. An athlete and a leader who sought to change the world for the better for her community. She was active on her Middlebury College campus, speaking out against what she saw as injustice.
I never got the chance to meet her, but isn't that the type of person many of us aspire to be? There was one small issue for Lia that ended up defining her life, though: She was transgender.
To be clear, the issue wasn't Lia's transness, but rather how the world today has decided to treat transgender women like her. Smith was found dead near campus on October 23. Officials have ruled her death a suicide.
As a freshman, Smith was on the Middlebury College women's swimming and diving team. But, according to a report compiled by Ari Drennen, Smith experienced a lot of pressure because of her participation on the team, saying she felt awkward using the women's locker room. And according to the Addison County Independent, Smith also said she had to jump through hoops to participate on the team she was recruited for, struggling to get blood tests to prove her hormones were within limits set by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the organization overseeing Middlebury's sports programs.
At one point, Smith said she “took a break” from the team, per reporting on a student event covered by the Addison Independent. In January, a social media account called He Cheated focused its attention on Smith, deadnaming the swimmer. The attention led to an online harassment campaign against her.
“It's really hard putting on the suit every day if you are obviously an outlier,” Smith said during a panel on trans health care and politics at Middlebury earlier this year.
Just for being a trans athlete, Smith faced harassment and adversity. But in February, the NCAA bowed to Trump administration pressure and banned trans women like Smith from playing on women's sports teams. This sparked even more frenzy about the inclusion of trans people in sports teams, leading to a renewed wave of harassment against athletes like her. Of course, trans people bore the brunt of that harassment, all while understanding that their right to exist authentically was again being legislated away.
I want to be clear here: Banning Smith from playing on a team that she had already quit was likely not the reason that she died by suicide; but it's long past time we have a serious societal conversation about how the politicized lives of trans people threaten the basic structures of life for us.
Lia Smith was an athlete her whole life. I, too, was an athlete in high school and college. There's a certain rhythm of life you get used to and come to depend upon: Wake up, train, study, train some more; take care with your diet, get plenty of sleep; and socialize with your teammates. Smith did not set the original NCAA policy that allowed trans participation in college sports, nor did she decide to turn it into a national outrage that a trans girl might find joy in a women's sport. Study after study has shown the positive physical and mental health impact that goes along with athletic participation.
All of that was taken away from Smith. What was once a reliable, repeatable pillar of her life was ripped away from her, first because she felt like an outlier among her peers, and then because the powers that be took away her right to be on the team. As we look at how the Trump government and conservatives at large have pursued their anti-trans agenda, they've consistently targeted the fundamental social pillars upholding trans lives.
Last Thursday, NPR reported that the Trump administration was preparing to propose a new Department of Health and Human Services rule that would bar health care providers who provide gender-affirming care to youth from receiving Medicare and Medicaid funds. This is another pillar for trans people that is being undermined — our access to reliable and affirming health care.
The Trump administration is also targeting funding for colleges and universities, unless they agree to undermine trans life on campus. Brown University is among several schools that agreed to bar trans people from using private facilities of their transitioned gender. Some red states have even barred schools from using students' names that do not match their birth names.
That's pillar after pillar of basic life, basic respect, crumbling under the weight of Republican bigotry. Smith chafed under all of this and, by all reports, fought back, participating in on-campus protests for trans rights. When the college invited an anti-trans group to speak on campus, Smith protested it. But without a strong foundation, the weight of societal bigotry can become overwhelming.
Smith is not even the first trans person to die by suicide at Middlebury in recent years; in 2023, another trans person died on campus. The college and the wider community should be looking into how they can better support their trans students.
When we are constantly undermining trans life, no one should be surprised when things like this happen. There are some professional transphobes who have deluded themselves into thinking that there is no evidence that trans people do anything more than threaten to take their own lives to manipulate others into getting our way. Those of us on the ground, who have trans friends, who are up all night making sure a trans friend having a mental crisis is able to work their way through it, know the truth.
Transgender people are more than just a political issue, and we're in danger. We need all the help we can get from friends, neighbors, politicians, and school administrators. It's impossible to know exactly why Lia Smith died, but we do know the overall societal atmosphere in which it happened, and it's a hostile one in which trans people are increasingly discriminated against, excluded, and treated without respect or dignity. Let her passing be an inflection point for how you think about trans rights and trans people more generally.
Help us.
