Although others find Elliot “El” Williams’ gender characteristics interesting, it’s not something that now consumes an enormous amount of his time.
“It’s less of a big deal than people make it out to be,” the hockey and rugby player said.
Getting to that point, however, has not been without its bumps and pivotal moments.
There was the drive home to Norwich in 2014, for example, when Williams found himself stealing so many looks at himself in the rear-view mirror that he finally adjusted it so he could keep two hands on the wheel and still admire what he was seeing.
Behind him, in a Hanover hair salon, were roughly 18 inches of his former hairstyle, one that had reached below his shoulders and flowed out the back of his helmet while skating for the Hanover High girls hockey team. The squad had a 5:30 a.m. practice the next day, and when Williams entered its Campion Rink locker room, he was wearing a winter hat. He stood silent and still at its center before whipping off his headgear.
The Marauders, who had been shooting him puzzled looks, cheered, shrieked and congratulated the junior forward, who had been talking for some time about getting a new ‘do. They rushed him for hugs and to ask if they could touch Williams’ hair, now down to about one-fourth of an inch in the back and sides and 2 inches on top.
“People were happy that I was happy,” Williams said during a recent phone interview. “And everyone saw me loving myself, probably for the first day ever.”
Now a 20-year-old freshman at Colorado College, Williams identifies as a nonbinary transgender person. His gender identity falls outside the categories of strictly male or female.
Williams began to make his self-discovery public during his junior year at Hanover High School and emphasizes that it’s nowhere near complete, nor may it ever be.
“That’s why people have midlife crises, right?” he said with a laugh. “They’re still figuring out who they are. I think life is fluid and changing and how boring it would be if your identity didn’t change from age 20 and beyond.
“I’m uncertain, but uncertainty is what this whole process is about.”
Identifying Identity
Williams grew up in Norwich, a middle child with an older and younger brother. His father, Stan, is a telecommunications executive. His mother, Jenny, is a 1985 Dartmouth graduate and a partner in a Norwich hotel development company. She’s also the executive director of the Children’s Fund of the Upper Valley, which benefits area charities.
El Williams said he had a happy childhood, but not in those moments when he was made to don girls’ clothes or perform a feminine role. At 6, he had short hair and wore boys’ clothes and was delighted when a restaurant server identified him and his brothers as being all male. Less enjoyable was wearing a dress and serving as a flower girl at a wedding, during which he angrily threw his cargo onto the aisle as he went.
Williams was cut from the Hanover High girls hockey team as a freshman, partly because he didn’t handle the puck well enough. It remained a deficiency, said Marauders coach John Dodds, who took Williams on the team as a sophomore. However, the coach noticed it gradually became a strength. Williams was one of the hardest workers in the Marauders’ recent history, the coach noted, earning the most-improved award during back-to-back seasons.
“He would be waiting in line for a drill and (he’d) work the puck around in figure 8s and do toe drags,” Dodds said. “He’s a special, special person and had tremendous respect from the players and coaches.”
One of those coaches was former Hanover standout and Amherst College player Josie Fisher, who began working as a Marauders assistant before entering Harvard Medical School, where she’s now a third-year student. The two bonded and Fisher noticed that Williams, despite his upbeat, fun attitude, seemed to carry an emotional weight. Fisher occasionally met with players off the ice in an effort to know them better and build team chemistry, and during the spring of 2015 she invited Williams out for gelato in downtown Hanover.
“I remember high school being a very vulnerable time and being awkward and uncomfortable and wanting someone close to my age to talk to,” Fisher said. “Particularly at Hanover, where there’s a lot of pressure about who you think you should be, versus who you want to be.”
Williams wasn’t sure what he was feeling. Cutting his hair six months earlier had been the right decision and he enjoyed wearing men’s clothes. He feared people would assume he was a transgender male, but that didn’t quite fit, although he liked using male pronouns and hearing others use them in reference to him.
Williams was scared by what might happen once he gave a voice to what he was experiencing, because he hadn’t heard it mentioned by anyone else. More frightening, however, was the prospect of internalizing such inner turmoil.
So he told Fisher what was going on in his head and that he didn’t know what that meant.
Fisher’s response: Thank you for choosing me to share with, and it doesn’t have to mean anything.
Williams next told his best friend, Matti Hartman, a Hanover classmate and teammate whom he had helped handle family and college hockey recruiting stress. Hartman admitted that she couldn’t truly understand what Williams was experiencing, but offered unconditional support.
‘It’s Normal to Me’
Williams next told his family members and their message was unequivocal.
“They said, ‘Whatever you are, we love you,’ ” Williams recalled. “Then I was mostly scared of the pressure of thinking I had to figure it out right away, that I needed a label as soon as I said it. I thought it was binding.”
What Williams came to believe, however, is that it’s OK to identify one way at one point in a person’s life and identify completely differently at another. Not everyone shared that perception, however. During Williams’ senior year, an older relative told him during a family meal that he would have to wear a dress to prom and graduation. When Williams demurred, he was told that his choice was “weird.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way, but it’s normal to me,” Jenny Williams, El’s mother, remembers as her child’s response. The relative apologized the next day.
Williams wrote a blog post about his identity during his senior hockey season. Coach Dodds’ daughter, Chelsea, read the piece and recommended it to her father. He read the post on a bus ride to an away game and called Williams over to tell him the words had weight and that he should be proud for going public.
As prom and graduation neared, Williams tried on a few dresses but felt awkward and uncomfortable. He asked his mother if they could go to J. Crew and buy some male clothes for the various gatherings and celebrations to come. Jenny Williams worried, but the store’s manager didn’t blink when El tried on his choices in a women’s dressing cubicle. Jenny Williams thanked him and was flooded with relief.
“I’ve been asked if I grieve the loss of my little girl and that she won’t wear a wedding gown,” Jenny Williams said. “There was a tiny pang of sadness and regret, but when I took a prom photo of him with his guy friends and saw the joy singing in him, I didn’t care anymore.”
Williams wore a tuxedo to prom and spoke to classmates and the audience during graduation. Voice your convictions, cry in front of your parents or children, tell someone you love them, Williams said.
“When we are vulnerable, we often only consider the negative outcomes,” Williams said. “But maybe you are supported for what you believe in. Maybe the relationship with your parent or child grows stronger. Maybe the person you love loves you, too.”
College Kid
Williams took a gap year after graduation, traveling and helping coach his former team. Sometimes, when the Marauders were short a player, he would suit up and practice, but mostly he offered individual tips and distributed his trademark positive energy.
The countdown to Colorado College was a bigger deal to his mother than to himself, Williams said. Hartman had encouraged her friend, saying gender fluidity was far easier in college, but Jenny Williams still worried.
A reassuring hint came in correspondence between Williams and his assigned dorm roommate, a woman named Sydney. Williams explained his situation and asked how Sydney felt. The response: I’ve talked with my parents and you seem like a kind person and that’s what’s most important to me.
During dormitory check-in, the Williams family immediately noticed that each door not only had signs with the residents’ names, but also which pronouns they preferred to use.
“I saw that and burst into tears,” Jenny Williams said. “Oh, my God. He will be accepted and embraced here.”
El Williams said that not only do his friends sometimes stumble over his pronouns, but so does he. His mother said it happens to her as well.
“People mess it up a lot and that’s OK,” El Williams said. “Sometimes I use the wrong pronouns for myself, because I was used to referring to myself as ‘she’ during the first 19 years of my life. People almost always correct themselves and that’s what’s important to me.”
Williams has found his rugby coach, Vic Tise, to be deeply supportive. A 1977 West Point graduate and military officer who once handled paperwork to separate personnel from the service because they were gay or transgender, Tise guides what previously was called the Colorado College women’s club rugby team. Not long ago, however, its members decided that title was not inclusive and now call themselves the Cutthroat Trout, after a fish that lives in the Rocky Mountain region.
The Trout, who play on a small-college level, recently reached the rugby 7s national round of 16. Williams played 15 a side during the fall and 7s during the spring, but still is learning the game and is not yet a starter. More important, however, is that he’s found a welcome niche and in Tise, someone who cares about his emotional well-being.
“El has a smile that lights up a room and he plays rugby with all his heart and soul,” said Tise, who characterizes Williams as an aggressive competitor willing to initiate and endure collisions. Before matches, the coach gives the referees a heads-up that they may hear the Trout shout things along the lines of “Throw the ball to him.”
Williams, his family and friends know the future may hold unpleasant moments related to his identity. Fisher, however, said Williams’ openness on the topic dissipates hostility and ignorance. Hartman is encouraged by her friend’s growing confidence and strength.
“He has so many people who love him,” Hartman said. “The journey is not done, but I think he’s definitely come a long way.”
“There are so many things that are more important than gender and queerness,” Williams said. “The first thing people want to know about others is, are they a boy or a girl? I’m neither.”
Tris Wykes can be reached at twykes@vnews.com or 603-727-3227.