A Canadian mom wants to press charges against a man who verbally attacked her 9-year-old daughter at a track-and-field event, angrily questioning the girl’s gender and calling her mothers “genital-mutilators” in an incident has drawn national attention and the condemnation of the premier of British Columbia.
Heidi Starr of Kelowna, about 80 miles north of Canada’s border with Washington, told USA TODAY on Tuesday that she was attending the school district-sponsored event along with her ex-wife and their daughter, whose name she didn’t want shared.
All the 4th-grade girls at Thursday’s event were taking turns at shotput when a grandfather in the crowd interrupted, standing in front of them and confronting one of the organizers, loudly saying: “This is a girl’s event. Why are you letting boys throw?”
“He pointed at my daughter and another girl with short hair and said, ‘Why are you letting boys throw?’” Starr said.
That’s when Starr pounced to defend her child, telling the man that her daughter is a girl.
“And he said, ‘Oh yeah, a girl,’ and he put finger quotes up in the air and said ‘a girl,’ and he looked at them and he said, ‘If they’re not boys, they’re trans,’” Starr said.
That’s when the man’s wife joined in, attacking Starr and her ex-wife, she said.
“His wife started screaming that my ex-wife and I were genital mutilators, pedophiles and groomers, and he demanded certificates confirming that my daughter was born female,” she said.
Starr continued to defend her daughter as other parents repeatedly shouted at the man to shut up and leave.
“He adamantly refused,” she said, adding that organizers eventually moved the shotput event but that the man followed everyone and stared them down until it was over.
Organizers then walked him, his wife and their granddaughter to their car to make sure he was gone before Starr and her family felt safe to leave, she said.
In the moment, Starr said she and the other parents were in shock and didn’t think to call the police.
Later upon reflection, Starr said she realized she did want police involvement and for charges to be filed against the man. She reported the attack to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and has been told a constable has been assigned to the case.
Meanwhile she wrote a Facebook post encouraging any other witnesses to call the constable and share the details of what happened.
Although the event was sponsored by the school district, Starr said it was run by volunteers and there was no security. In the aftermath of the attack, she said the district has been “incredible” and banned the man from all district events and his granddaughter’s school for life.
Central Okanagan District Superintendent Kevin Kardaal did not immediately respond to a request for comment but has publicly condemned the attack and confirmed the man’s ban.
British Columbia Prime Minister David Eby also condemned the attack in a Tweet, saying, “This is awful.”
“This kind of hate is not acceptable or welcome in British Columbia,” he said. “Let’s keep calling out transphobia when we see it. Hate hurts everyone. And let’s stand with this girl and everyone who is targeted just for being themselves.”
Since the attack, Starr said the community and strangers from all over Canada have reached out to her and her family with nothing but love and support, reminding her that the good always outweighs the bad.
In addition to charges against the man, Starr said that she and her daughter are hoping to spread two messages.
Starr said the man felt “emboldedned because of the overwhelming influx of anti-trans and anti-queer propaganda and rhetoric that’s being thrown at us in social media.”
“It’s just an ongoing onslaught of people not critically thinking and getting their algorithms set in a way where they’re constantly just getting their hate and vitriol validated,” she said, urging people to call out hate and transphobia wherever they see it.
Starr’s daughter also wanted readers to know one thing: Had the man not launched his attack, she would have won that shotput event.
Starr said her daughter is coping remarkably well with the situation.
“It shook her to the core, and it shook our whole family to the core,” she said, adding that her daughter was well-versed in sexual orientation and identity issues but not with hate.
“I told her, ‘There’s people out there who have broken hearts and because of that they cause hurt and they cause chaos and sometimes people who are completely undeserving are recipients of that hurt and that chaos and it has nothing to do with you,’” she said. “It has to do with the broken person.”
Starr said that both she and her daughter have been bolstered by the widespread support they’ve received.
“I really feel like it is turning the situation into one where my daughter is feeling empowered, where it really could have been an impactful and traumatizing event,” she said. “And her birthday is coming up at the end of the this week, and she said, ‘You know I think maybe the reason everything happened is that the story had to go viral. So maybe my birthday gift is that I get to make a change.”
