"I'm thrilled to have another opportunity to compete and continue using this platform to represent and inspire others," Reeves told The Advocate."
""I already felt out of the picture," he recalled. "I wasn't part of the family, and maybe it was because of the way they treated their biological kids compared to me.""
""You're my kid and I love you," Reeves remembered him saying, but soon the rejection returned. "He told me, 'You're embarrassing me, you're not trans, shut up,'""
""I lived in and out of that car, couch to couch," he said. "I dropped out of high school with nothing but the shirt on my back.""
Transgender athletes face escalating political attacks and sports bans across the country. Clayton Jay Reeves, a 25-year-old out transgender man from Iowa, advanced to the semifinals of season 17 of NBC's American Ninja Warrior and received a callback for season 18. He uses national visibility to represent and inspire others. Born in Romania and adopted into a large Midwestern family, he experienced instability at home, a mother with alcoholism, and a father who communicated through anger. Coming out in high school led to rejection and homelessness; he lived in and out of a car and dropped out of high school. He began filming his transition on YouTube in 2018 and found stability through the camera.
Read at Advocate.com
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]