Christine Hawes

Inside the Bubble: Progressive Views from Iowa City

When a Cedar Rapids businessman allegedly asked two transgender boys to separate themselves from other boys, and implied they were “a social experiment,” he likely didn’t realize he was probably violating Cedar Rapids and Iowa civil rights laws.

Worse yet, the owner of Super Skate didn’t realize the emotional wounds he risked reopening for not just a couple of young boys, but their families. He was clueless about what a personal victory it was for both boys to even be skating during “boys’ skate.”

He must not have realized the hard work the Buehler and Krueger families had already invested in helping their transgender children re-engage in life like their non-transgender friends.

The man Jeremiah Buehler identifies as Gary Hester couldn’t have known that his son Risston, one of the boys Hester allegedly called off of his skating rink, had only stopped crying himself to sleep every night within the past year.

Likewise with Noah, Risston’s younger friend, who played with Risston as a child but had grown up to attend a different middle school in Cedar Rapids. Both boys say they lived for years terrified that what they were feeling was wrong.

He didn’t know that Risston used to look at his mom when he was a toddler and say, “Why can’t I be a boy?”

Gary Hester probably didn’t expect Iowa City resident Cassie Mae Ellis to organize a rally of support for the family of her friend Nicole, Noah’s mom. Or that Ellis’s rally would attract more than 50 from throughout eastern Iowa, and national news coverage.

“Our LGBTQ children, and especially transgender children, the way they are treated and the community’s response to them as pre-teens and adolescents as positive …. It’s so essential to reduce adverse events in life,” says Ellis, who is also my colleague on the Iowa City Pride board. “It’s also important to show the community we will not tolerate discrimination of any kind.”

The parents of both kids have all spent years wondering why their little girls were so drawn to boys’ things. Noticing how the look in their kids’ eyes changed once each could be himself, wearing a boys’ haircut and boys’ clothes, instead of what girls were supposed to wear.

Christina and Jeremiah Buehler had once worried Risston was suicidal. It took years of watching their child become increasingly isolated, then months of counseling, before Risston would even admit to his parents that he really felt like a boy instead of a girl.

Now, weeks after that Saturday afternoon at Super Skate, it’s apparent the owners of Super Skate still do not realize the human element of this whole situation. They haven’t spoken to the families. Or to the dozen or so reporters that have tried to contact them.

Like those other reporters, I too swung by Super Skate one Saturday afternoon seeking to gather the business owner’s side of the story.

Not only did I not get a quote; I was left standing alone in the cold lobby of Super Skate when the woman who refused to answer my question walked away and left me at an empty window.

As I stood there, my empathy flared even deeper with the boys.

“This indifference hurts, and I’m just another obnoxious reporter,” I thought to myself. “They … are little boys. Having their entire existence questioned. In front of their friends and other children. I can’t even imagine.”

It can’t be said enough: the struggle of Noah and Risston, and other transgender people, is the struggle of us all, and especially gays, lesbians and bisexuals. Jeremiah Buehler and and Jason Krueger remind us of this, through their own personal experience: they both assumed their children’s boyish ways meant they were lesbians.

They didn’t understand what it means to be transgender, until their children’s realities forced them to learn.

Both families have now decided to “step up to the plate.” Jeremiah filed a formal complaint with the Cedar Rapids Civil Rights Commission – the results of which the public will hear about only if Super Skate is found to have violated civil rights statutes and contests that finding, say spokespeople for the commission.

The families have also decided to go public with their stories, after initially trying to stay out of the limelight. They’ve already been contacted by other families with children who are either gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or nonbinary.

They want to share what they’ve experienced, and what they’ve learned, with even more families:

“The biggest thing I’ve gotten out of all this is, it’s not a choice or a decision. It just ‘is.’ It’s the way it is,” says Jason Krueger.

“My big thing is, I don’t want this to happen to anyone else. I don’t want any other family to go through what we have gone through,” Nicole adds.

“There’s another big lesson we’re all having to talk about, and that is, these kids are going to deal with this kind of stuff all their lives. It’s not going to go away. We want them to be ready,” Jeremiah Buehler says.

“I’ve heard people say, they don’t believe the kids are old enough or mature enough to know whether they are transgender,” says Christina Buehler. “My response is, ‘Just stop. It’s not a discussion.’ Risston is more himself than he’s ever been. In fact, he’s the best version of himself that he’s ever been.”

We’ve all heard that old adage, “Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. So be kind.”

Gary Hester might have done well to keep that in mind before he “called out” two young boys just as they’re figuring out who they really are.



Christine Hawes is a professional writer and consultant based in Iowa City who writes about progressive topics and events from the perspective of local people. She can be reached at cehawes1@gmail.com or 319-777-9839.

