The fallout is widening for Utah State Board of Education member Natalie Cline after a social media post that questioned a student-athlete’s gender.
But while state leaders debate whether Cline should remain in office, at the center of the controversy is a 16-year-old girl intent on finishing out her high school basketball season. Her parents have also had to read through dozens of hateful comments after Cline threw their daughter into the spotlight.
“It broke my heart. I was super emotional, I cried a lot,” the girl’s mother, Rachel van der Beek said.
The since-deleted Facebook post implied that van der Beek’s daughter was not a girl and did not belong on the team. Her daughter is a cisgender girl, meaning she was assigned female at birth and identifies as a girl. Cline’s accusation that the girl might not be female was not based on any evidence, but rather on assumptions Cline was making based on the 16-year-old’s physical appearance.
KUER is not sharing the name of the student or the school she attends.
The principal and the girl’s basketball coach called Rachel and her husband, Al van der Beek, the morning of Feb. 7 to let them know about what Cline posted the night before and the reaction to it. The parents waited to tell her what happened until she got home from school. They showed her the post, and then the loving and supportive messages that had been sent.
Al said he felt a “visceral reaction” and went into “protective mode” after seeing the post.
“It’s just despicable.”
At first, he was upset and confused, but that morphed into sadness for the commenters who were “bullying somebody that we know is so beautiful and loving. And they don’t even know who she is and didn’t care about that at all.”
The girl he knows is talented, creative, musical, athletic, loves deeply and he thinks she’s just “so cool.”
“At the end of the day, she’s our little girl. She’s just a little girl.”
Rachel said her daughter loves science, is curious, has her own sense of style and that others are drawn to her because of her personality.
The van der Beeks said their daughter has become more emotional as time has gone on and she’s still processing what happened. She went to school the next day but later asked to be checked out and come home.
This isn’t the first time the van der Beek’s daughter has been harassed for how she looks while on the girls’ basketball team. Rachel said it started a couple of years ago. Sometimes at games, students from the other school would make derogatory comments like “get the boy off the team.” Their daughter said those situations made her feel horrible and like she shouldn’t look the way she does.
This time it was an adult, who is an elected official, bullying a child, which to Al van der Beek makes the situation even worse.
“Nobody has the right to put a picture of anyone's child on the internet with the intent of shaming and bullying,” he said. “This is what we need to fight.”
That’s why the van der Beeks want Cline to step down from the state board. If she doesn’t resign, they think the Legislature should take action to impeach her.
“If she's using this podium in a way that is going to be hurtful and harmful to children, then maybe it's time for her to step down,” Rachel said.
The parents reached out to Cline, who then apologized to them. The van der Beeks weren’t convinced of her sincerity, however, and have declined to speak with her in person.
Al is confident his daughter will be able to get through this situation because she’s strong and has a supportive family behind her. He said the school, the Granite School District, and his daughter’s basketball coach and their community have all been very supportive.
But he worries about another kid being harassed online who does not have that kind of support.
“The worst case scenario is, you know, kids are taking their lives over this.”
On Feb. 9, at 4:30 p.m., the Granite School District's Board of Education will hold a special meeting concerning the actions of Utah State Board of Education member Natalie Cline. The meeting is open to the public and will be live streamed online.
