She was the only girl playing on her boys hockey league team.
After 10 years of playing hockey, Kaitlyn Byers is used to trash talk on the ice. But she didnât expect that to cross over to rape threats.
Byers, 18, spent last season playing for the Spruce Grove Highlanders in Edmonton. She was the only girl on the team and though her teammates and coach were completely supportive, she says boys on other teams targeted her for harassment.
On Nov. 1, Byers was playing against another team within the Edmonton Minor Hockey League. It started with the opposing players being particularly physical, but then one player started telling her âI want to fuck you.â Then it turned into âIâm going to fuck you.â
Eventually, Byers said he pinned her to the ice and kept repeating âI will fuck you whether you like it or not.â
âI get called filthy names all the time and I can take it,â Byers told BuzzFeed Canada. âBut this was beyond trash talk.â
She immediately skated to the bench and told her coach what happened, who then went to the referee. But, Byers said, the referee said there was nothing he could do. Her coach actually ended up getting suspended for two games after getting upset with the referee.
Her parents were also upset, and started contacting the league and Hockey Alberta â the governing body for amateur hockey in the province.
But once again, said Byers, no one was willing to help them.
âWe were told there was no sexual harassment in place,â said Byers. âThey pretty much said there was nothing they could do or that they were willing to do.â
The incident left her shaken, but she refused to be scared off the ice. Her teammates and coach stuck by her side, walking her to the changeroom at games.
In January, they played the same team again. But this time things turned physical.
âThey were really rough that whole game,â said Byers.
Then at one point Byers said a player on the other team cornered her, dug his stick into her ribs, and slammed her head into the ice.
âAs I went down he said, âThatâs what you get bitch.ââ
âAll I knew is that I couldnât breathe,â she said. âEverything was starting to fade out.â
As she was carried off the ice, chaos erupted around her. She could hear her dad pounding on the glass, the other coach laughing, and people shouting that she shouldnât play boysâ hockey if couldnât âtake the pain.â
By the time an ambulance arrived, her whole torso was spasming. She ended up in hospital with a concussion and cracked ribs.
âIf you had targeted a guy like this he would have been just as injured.â
Fed up, she and her parents went back to the league. They wanted to see someone suspended, at minimum, so they pushed for an incident report and for a sexual harassment policy.
âI wanted to recreate this look from her Blond Ambition Tour because itâs maybe her most recognizable one, and at that time it was incredibly provocative. I loved the way she mixed extremely feminine lingerie with masculine elements like suiting, playing with traditional symbols of gender.â
âWhen I was little, we would play Spice Girls in school, and I always wanted to be Ginger â but my friends would always tell me I had to be Scary because I was black. It was upsetting for me as a 6-year-old, but as I got older I started to think, Why would I want to be anyone other than Scary? Scary is clearly the best Spice Girl!â
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âLike Grace Jones, Iâm an artist; I work in fashion, music, acting, drama, and writing, all to take my feelings and translate them into something that will change the social stigma around black, queer, fat bodies. To wear this little clothing in the skin Iâm in, I feel, is a strong statement.â
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