User:Kobestallings/sandbox

Jake Hofheimer

Jake Hofheimer is a transgender athlete who played baseball on a high school team in Los Angeles. His first season was with the New Roads School baseball team, located in Santa Monica, California. On the team he felt like one of the guys. In 2013 he came out to his parents, Josh and Lisa, as transgender, at the end of his eighth grade year. While it was a different landscape back then, he was not afraid. He originally enrolled in an all-girls school at the beginning of his ninth grade year but was tormented by his peers for being different. He was marked as different, which morphed into daily teasing and taunting. Before transitioning, he was born Emma Hofheimer and grew up in a Hancock Park home in Los Angeles. Growing up, he often adopted the role of a boy named Jake. “I never felt like a girl, I always felt like a guy, I just didn’t know how to express it,”.

Early Life

Jake grew up mainly skiing and snowboarding. He explains that, when pursuing these sports, nobody could tell what gender he was. This was nice for him because of the bullying he would face in school for acting as a boy. Like Jake there are many athletes who are transgender. The bravery he demonstrated in embracing his identity will most likely inspire other athletes to do the same. Many athletes want to transition but are unsure how to do so. They open up later in their lives, but Jake shows that you don’t have to be afraid when you are younger. He transitioned and has been able to live his youth the way he wants to. The door he opened for the LGBTQ+ community is a big step in encouraging others to live freely.

High School

When he turned 17, he was a junior in high school playing second baseman and outfielder for the New Roads high school baseball team. When he first enrolled into the Santa Monica prep school nearly three years ago his name was Emma, a girl whose feelings of being trapped in a hostile body led to depression and a suicide attempt, by trying to hang himself. However, when he arrived at New Roads high school in the middle of his freshman year, with his family support and classmate awareness, he went on and changed his first name and began living life as a young boy, and decided the natural next step would be to play baseball. He chose baseball because he loved the sport. When he approached the New Roads’ baseball coach and athletic director, Matt Steinhaus, he took the time to hear Jake’s story. When he heard it his reaction was to slap him on the back and welcome him on the team. Where he would send him out onto the diamond to compete with his friends. In Jake Hofheimer debut, he stepped up to the plate in the bottom of the fifth inning at a Shalhevet-New Roads game on April the 13th. The Firehawk pitcher Asher Remer pitched the ball across the plate to him, where Jake would swing at the ball and miss for a strikeout. But that is not the point, the point is that he is allowed this opportunity to play with the boys. When he got out his teammates high-fived him as he trotted back to the bench while others hollered good job to him. This was seemingly an unordinary scene in a baseball game, because Jake Hofheimer, is one of the first transgenders ever to be a player on a high school sports team. Nevertheless, the other team didn’t ever take it easy on Jake. Of course the other team knew how to behave, but they reminded each other to treat Jake as they would any other player and to pitch to him as they would pitch to anyone else. Jake was never an all-star, but he loeved being a part of the team. Hanging in the dugout spitting seeds with his buddies, backslapping and cracking jokes. Jake just likes to hangout with the dudes. The best moments on this team were not the giant home runs or diving catches, but the instances of proper recognition, words that now empower Jake.

Giving Back

Many people look up to Jake for his bravery in changing genders and playing baseball. One of his opponents was even impressed. A boy named Micah stated, “I just immediately thought that if I, on behalf of Shalhevet school and the baseball team, could do anything that I could to make him feel as comfortable as possible, I thought that writing a quick e-mail was the least that we could do, Because I think that what he’s doing is so important for not only the LGBTQ community but for the broader community.” Jake understands the grievance of being transgender. He continues to give people hope that are going through the same struggles as him. He continues to give back to the LGBTQ+ community. Jake traded his native Los Angeles city for Camp Aranu’tiq,which is a safe haven for transgender and gender-nonconforming kids tucked in the woods of New Hampshire. Jake explains “The main reason this camp is really important to me is that it showed me that there are other people like me.”  “I didn’t have the language or vocabulary to really explain what I was feeling. I didn’t think there was anyone like me, so I just kept my mouth shut.” He doesn't want people of the LGBTQ+ community to be quiet like he was. His goal for the camp is to reassure other trans folks that being transgender doesn’t have to restrict you from doing what you love. Hofheimer has set aside his baseball glove for a new passion. To help other transgenders. He now does advocacy work. He volunteers with the Jewish LGBTQ organization JQ International, and in March he became the first trans person — and the first teen — to win their Trailblazer Award. He is now already chipping away at his goals. He mentors young campers at Camp Aranu’tiq, the same place that welcomed him in his adolescence, which helped him blossom into the person he is today. He explains “It’s a place where I wasn’t that trans kid anymore. I was just a kid, and that feeling — the best way to describe it is freeing.”