ANNVILLE, Pa. – Lebanon Valley women's swimmer Erin Kingham, a junior physical therapy major, strives for success both academically and athletically. This summer, Kingham will have the opportunity to make an impact in the athletic world while interning with TransAthlete.com.
 
While taking part in the 2016 NCAA Inclusion Forum, Kingham was inspired by multiple speakers and sessions she attended. One in particular was most impactful.
 
"At the conference, I was able to go to a session on gender and athletics, where I heard Chris Mosier speak," Kingham said. "After the session, I had asked him some questions and he gave me his card. Chris Mosier is the first Transgender Male to make a national team and is the founder of TransAthlete.com. After meeting him, I followed his social media pages and visited both TransAthlete.com and YouCanPlayProject.org, which he also works for."
 
Not long after she began following Mosier on social media, Kingham learn about the internship with TransAthlete.com.
 
"Finding out about the internship was all good timing. One day in November, I opened up Twitter and saw a tweet from Chris about the position," Kingham said. "After that, I messaged him for more information and sent in an application. During my interview with him, I mentioned how I had spoken with him at the forum and the topic sparked a conversation about both the past forum and the one coming up this April. This helped me to feel more confident during the interview and when we were done, Chris asked me to be an intern."
 
Following her interview, Kingham accepted the intern position with TransAthlete.com. An athlete herself, she is passionate about her upcoming opportunity and understands the overall importance of the website.
 
"For me, being a swimmer is partially about swimming my best for my times but also about supporting my teammates so they can do their best," Kingham said. "As athletes, we want the best team possible and when something gets in the way of that, it can hurt the team a lot. At LVC we may not realize it, but around the country in different states, there are many students who have the potential to be great members of a sports team, but because of their gender identity are denied the opportunity to participate at the high school level. TransAthlete.com acts as a resource for writing athletic policies that are gender inclusive. It also provides an easy way to access the current athletic policies regarding transgender students across the country. "
 
While considering how students across the nation may be effected by the current athletic policies regarding transgender students, she has also been reflecting on how student-athletes at LVC may be effected.
 
"If there is anything that LVC values, it is most definitely intercultural diversity and inclusive excellence. Both of which I find to be most easily gained through experience," Kingham said. "As a student-athlete at LVC, I know we are given a lot of opportunities to explore these through different trainings, such as Step UP! and other campus events. As much as those things may try to explain the importance of diversity and inclusivity, nothing is a better teacher than actually going and researching policies yourself. To look up athletic policies and find out that if we lived somewhere else, your friends wouldn't be able to freely be who they are or try out for a team can be hard information to swallow. However, I think that those emotional experiences are the real benefit, because it gives you more drive to make the world a better place."
 
During her time interning with TransAthlete.com, Kingham is hopeful that she will be able to make a positive impact on the way that athletic policy regarding transgender students is written moving forward.