Last week a 16-year-old school basketball player in Utah was targeted by threats and online abuse, and had to be given police protection. A member of the state’s board of education had posted a photo on Instagram casting doubt on her gender, and these days, on the smoking tyre‑fire of the internet, that’s all you really need to destroy somebody.
“She cuts her hair short because that’s how she feels comfortable,” the girl’s parents told local news. “She wears clothes that are a little baggy. She goes to the gym all the time so she’s got muscles. It just broke our hearts that we needed to have this conversation with our daughter. Worst-case scenario, she could have ended her own life.”
