out<\/em>-out, out-on-the-street out, willing-to-talk-about-it out athletes at that level at the time. This is not only about putting a leather-slash-rubber round thing into an iron hoop. It\u2019s connected to things that I hope will impact people\u2019s life chances.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nIn all the celebrations around the Order of Sport, Peers\u2019s \u201clife partner, co-parent and co-conspirator\u201d Lindsay Eales was proud to hear about the impact Peers had made\u2014and continues to make\u2014on the people around them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAlmost everybody commented on how Danielle has really witnessed people and made them feel more themselves,\u201d says Eales. \u201cIt\u2019s their heart and their spirit that really drives their work across sport, academic, artistic and activist activities. They have this incredible way of combining a kind of unflinching political engagement with meeting people where they are, and working together to find ways forward.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Growing up in an athletic family in Edmonton, Peers fell in love with basketball\u2014\u201cstand-up basketball,\u201d they specify; no wheelchairs involved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But in their last college basketball game, playing for the MacEwan Griffins, a stranger involved in the wheelchair basketball community\u2014having seen Peers \u201climp up and down the court,\u201d playing through the muscle imbalances that had affected them all their life\u2014invited them to give wheelchair basketball a try.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI thought, being an all-Canadian stand-up basketball player, I\u2019d come out there and be any good [at wheelchair basketball], which I was not,\u201d Peers recalls. \u201cI always liken it to someone who is really good at ball hockey thinking they can just strap on skates and be good at [ice] hockey. So, I got my butt handed to me by a bunch of athletes, but also really fell in love with the sport. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt was the first time in my life I had played sport when I wasn\u2019t in pain from it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With a new way to fall in love with basketball, Peers was all in\u2014and the wheelchair basketball community was ready to embrace a talented player. Peers has fond memories of athletes from opposing teams coaching them, even in the middle of a game, or helping fix their broken wheelchair on the sidelines so they could keep playing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI realized that this was a sport where the athletes knew they had to support the flourishing of all their members in order to support the flourishing of the game,\u201d says Peers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was through wheelchair basketball, too, that Peers would ultimately get their diagnosis of muscular dystrophy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAs a non-disabled athlete, I could never have played at the international level,\u201d they say. \u201cBut at my second national [tournament], a classifier saw me\u2014I have a very characteristic walk\u2014and came up to me and asked what my disability was. I said \u2018I don\u2019t have one!\u2019 And then she laughed and asked if I\u2019d seen a neurologist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAnd you can just imagine me in the doctor\u2019s office, getting this \u2018really difficult news\u2019 of a diagnosis, and me just smiling ear to ear, thinking, \u2018Hey, I get to play on the national team now!\u2019”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since that day, Peers\u2019s evolving understanding of their disability and gender has taken them on a path they had never expected through the highest levels of sport and beyond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fellow Canadian Paralympian Stephanie Dixon says Peers\u2019s insights into disability and queer identity have been transformative\u2014for the broad culture of Canadian sport, and for Dixon themself. The two were both on Canada\u2019s 2004 Paralympian team, with Peers playing wheelchair basketball and Dixon winning one gold, six silver, and one bronze in swimming events. Now, Peers is a mentor to Dixon, who has also gone into academia in their post-Paralympic career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn all the areas\u2014whether it\u2019s the arts or academia or deconstructing gender or inspiration porn and Paralympians\u2014Danielle is giving words to things and feelings that we\u2019ve been struggling with,\u201d says Dixon. \u201cThey are showing us ways of understanding ourselves in a much more deep and rich and nuanced way that blows these narrowing discourses wide open.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cPeers knew that they wouldn\u2019t be able to hide their queerness on the court\u2014they had to bring their whole self to the game.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
But in the mid-2000s, when Peers was playing and coaching, they knew it wasn\u2019t safe to be out as a queer or non-binary athlete\u2014universities had rules on the books about not hiring gay coaches, and gender nonconforming athletes were often mocked or harassed by coaches and fellow players. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Still, there were other queer athletes whom Peers got to know over the years\u2014players who were \u201cout in the bedroom\u201d or \u201cout in the living room\u201d with their queer loved ones and communities, but mostly kept that part of their lives separate from their athletic career. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When Peers\u2019s fellow queer athletes quietly made themselves known and invited Peers into friendly, supportive spaces, it was a vital message that \u201cthere are athletes like you here, and you are welcome,\u201d they say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI was lucky to have people like that, and people who were already out in the sport,\u201d says Peers. \u201cI think we tend to imagine trail-blazers as the folks who are out and proud and waving flags. We don\u2019t think about the kinds of things that queer folks who don\u2019t have that security do to support each other in these environments that had long been unsafe.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But for themself, Peers knew that they wouldn\u2019t be able to hide their queerness on the court\u2014they had to bring their whole self to the game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think I could have lived, or played, while hiding that much of myself,\u201d says Peers. \u201cThere was always a bit of tension there, and I was told not to be out, because I wouldn\u2019t get sponsors. But at that point it didn\u2019t feel like a choice. I had a significant relationship that I was in, and erasing them felt off the table for me. So I wasn\u2019t going to perform in a way that was as quiet and hidden and heteronormative as had been expected of me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Peers says Canada has a long history of mixed-gender wheelchair basketball leagues\u2014 including one they co-founded, the Edmonton Inferno\u2014and over their international sporting career, they played in both women\u2019s and men\u2019s high-level leagues. As part of the Alberta Northern Lights team\u2014which until their joining was an entirely men\u2019s team\u2014they helped the Northern Light become the first Canadian team to win the 2005 National Wheelchair Basketball Association title.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhen I played on the men\u2019s team down in the States, who won the Division II championship, I was playing against these athletes who\u2019d ask, \u2018Who\u2019s that young boy you have playing?\u2019 And later on, when they found out that might not be my gender, they were being quite aggressive about it,\u201d says Peers. \u201cBut, in some ways, that really played to my advantage; the fact that they underestimated me made it easier to beat them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“It was not smooth sailing. There was certainly a lot of resistance. But for the most part, athletes on the team were supportive of me doing what I did, because it helped them win.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Though Peers says the culture around queer athletes is changing \u201cto some degree\u201d from when they played, there is much more work to be done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI think the vast majority of gay- or queer-identified athletes don\u2019t make it in sport,\u201d says Peers. \u201cThe locker rooms, those early entries into sport, are so unsafe that they don\u2019t make it through. I think folks who either come to it later, or who can pass for some period of time, can sometimes last for much longer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere are certainly more out athletes now, but a lot of athletes don\u2019t make it that far\u2014for most folks, it\u2019s still a very inaccessible thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAnd with increased anti-trans laws happening both internationally and locally in sports clubs, this is not something that is progressing. This is something that we have to fight to even maintain, and to push to have more affirming relationships with.\u201d”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, as Peers watches these slow changes and reflects back on their experiences in wheelchair sport\u2014the good and the bad, the affirming and the hostile\u2014it motivates them to keep working to make it possible for all athletes to find their place on the court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019re dealing with safety,” says Peers. \u201cThis is my dream: when we think about what we know about trans and queer youth, and incidences of self-harm, we know that having one supportive and affirming adult is massively important to their well-being and flourishing. Just one. And in my generation of people, you hear a lot of people talk about it being their drama teacher, or their English teacher. I\u2019ve never once heard \u2018coach.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI would love to imagine a world in which sport and recreation could be that place, and people are saying, \u2018My coach is that person.\u2019 But we\u2019ve got a ways to go before that is a more common story.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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