Outrage over anti-trans tirade allegedly hurled at 9-year-old during Kelowna track meet

Okanagan elementary school student who was allegedly the focal point of a bigoted attack while she was competing in a district track meet.“This is awful.

This kind of hate is not acceptable or welcome in British Columbia,” Premier David Eby said Tuesday.“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.”The girl, whose name is being withheld, was competing in shotput when she was allegedly verbally accosted by a couple who were at the track meet, purportedly, to support their grandchild.“(The man) proceeded to say that if my daughter was not a boy, then she was definitely trans, and should be disqualified from competing.

In the meantime, his wife was shouting that I was a genital mutilator, a groomer and a pedophile,” the girl’s mom, Heidi Starr outlined in a Facebook post that travelled far and wide in recent days.The couple then demanded a certificate proving the child’s gender, she said.Witnesses to the onslaught near the shotput competition intervened immediately but the comments didn’t escape the girl’s ears, who was both shocked and hurt.“She was quite hurt, couldn’t compete at her best and just crying,” her mom Kari Starr said.  “The girls in line like had some distractions for her.”In the immediate aftermath she relied on some of the things she’d already talked about with her parents.“She also has a video that we had been watching about diversity and standing above all the hate and as soon as she got home she said to Heidi,  ‘I want to show you this video; this is how I feel,'” Kari, said.Days later, following thousands of comments and a flood of support, she’s feeling a bit better.