RIDING FOR TRANS COLORADO A pledge ride to protect

HOW IT WORKS: Pledge any amount per minute now. After my wakesurf ride, I’ll share the video and my official ride time, and ask you to donate your pledged amount × the number of minutes I stayed on the wave...

There are moments in history when action is required. This is one of them.

This November, Colorado voters will decide whether to approve ballot measures that would prohibit transgender students from participating on school sports teams that align with their gender identity and restrict access to gender-affirming healthcare for transgender minors. I am asking you to vote NO on these measures and to support Rocky Mountain Equality’s Hands Off Colorado campaign, which is working to educate voters, combat misinformation, and protect transgender young people and their families.

I am a queer depth psychologist and licensed therapist. Since 2011, my work has centered on LGBTQ+ people, and over the past several years I have worked primarily with transgender young people and their families.  Listening to and holding space for my transgender clients has been easy; what has been difficult is helping them survive years of fear, disinformation, and political messaging telling them—and people who have never met or worked within the medical and psychological systems—that there is something wrong with them.

Over the last several years, many transgender young people have become the target of an increasingly hostile public conversation. Instead of simply being kids and young adults, they have watched strangers debate whether they should be allowed to participate in sports, whether their families should be able to make medical decisions with their doctors, or even whether they should be able to exist openly as themselves. Too often, people are persuaded by alarmistmessaging rather than by the experiences of transgender people themselves and the families, physicians, psychologists, and mental health professionals who know them firsthand.

Many of us know what it feels like to be the target of a bully. Some of us remember being singled out, whispered about, or left out. I know that feeling personally.  Even just a few years ago, as an adult, I found myself quietly excluded from a wakesurfing community because someone was spreading lies about me. That experience helped me empathize something much more difficult that is facing our children: What if the bullies, in 2026, trying to exclude you from childhood sports weren’t just classmates or acquaintances? What if they had the power to influence laws? 

Wakesurfing didn’t simply become a hobby for me. It became one of the ways I survived.These last few years have held heartbreak, betrayal, uncertainty, and enormous emotional weight. There were days when the world felt impossibly heavy. Then I would get behind the boat, and there was only breath and the rhythm of the water.  I could pour all of the pain I was carrying out of my body and into the water.

Every transgender young person deserves that kind of refuge.  Maybe it isn’t wakesurfing.  Maybe it’s soccer, basketball, or swimming.  Maybe it’s dance, music, art, or theater.  Every child deserves a place where they can breathe more deeply, discover what they love, and remember who they are. Every child deserves to participate with their friends. Sports are an outlet for the heart, and the heart has no gender.

When we protect children’s opportunities to belong, we aren’t just protecting sports. We’re protecting childhood itself.

Here’s how my fundraiser works:

Before my ride, choose any amount you’d like to pledge for every minute I stay up on my wakesurf board consecutively. It could be $1 per minute, $5 per minute, $10 per minute, or any amount that feels meaningful to you. You can also make a one-time donation of any size.

Most recreational wakesurf rides last only a few minutes. Staying up for an extended ride requires endurance, concentration, balance, and persistence. My goal is simple: stay on the wave as long as I possibly can.  Afterwards, I’ll post my official ride time and video, and you can make your donation based on the number of minutes I surfed.

Every dollar raised through this campaign will go directly to Rocky Mountain Equality’s Hands Off Colorado campaign. Your donation helps educate voters, organize volunteers, combat misinformation, build coalitions across Colorado, and protect LGBTQ+ communities through this election and beyond.

If you live in Colorado, I hope you’ll vote NO on these ballot measures. Whether or not you are able to donate, your vote—and your conversations with friends, family, and neighbors—can help protect transgender young people across our state.

When you pledge to my ride, you’re helping fund conversations grounded in medical knowledge, compassion, and the lived experiences of transgender people and their families. Every minute on the wave becomes another reminder that love can be louder than fear, and that ordinary people can choose to protect one another.