Trans Athletes and the Future of Sports

The Supreme Court is currently considering two major cases brought by West Virginia and Idaho which address state-level bans on transgender female students playing on girls' school sports teams. Together, these cases could determine whether states can legally exclude trans athletes from school sports nationwide. Politicians and pundits argue about fairness, biology, and the future of women’s sports, but far too often the voices of transgender athletes themselves get lost in the noise. That’s exactly what Anna Baeth, Ellie Roscher, and Chris Mosier are trying to change. Ellie and Chris join Sarato discuss their new and groundbreaking book Fair Game, which breaks down the myths being told through personal interviews with trans athletes and includes an informative look at the research, history, and politics of gender in sports.  They explore the deeper question underneath it all: what do we really mean when we talk about fairness, and why does sports participation matter—not just for elite athletes, but for every kid who simply wants to play on a team, move their body, and belong.

Special Guest: Ellie Roscher

Ellie Roscher is the author of Fair Game, Remarkable Rose, The Embodied Path, 12 Tiny Things, Play Like a Girl and How Coffee Saved My Life. Ellie teaches writing and yoga in Minneapolis. She was a two-sport college athlete, competing in gymnastics and softball, and went on to coach both at the rec, club, and high school level. Ellie holds an MFA in Writing from Sarah Lawrence College and an MA in Theology from Luther Seminary. 

Special Guest: Chris Mosier

Chris Mosier is a trailblazing athlete, coach, and founder of TransAthlete.com, the go-to resource on transgender inclusion in sports. He made history as the first openly trans man on a U.S. Men’s National Team and helped change International Olympic Committee policy for trans athletes. A Nike-sponsored athlete, Chris is a five-time national champion, and relentless advocate for trans rights. When not training and competing, he mentors transgender and nonbinary athletes around the globe, living out his motto of “be who you needed when you were younger.” 

Links from the Show:

• Buy Fair Game here
• Ellie’s Website
• Find Ellie on IG
• Dr. Baeth’s Website
• Ellie’s Website
• Chris’s Website
• Dr. Baeth on IG
• Find Chris on IG

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Transcript

SARA: Hi everyone. Welcome to In the Den with Mama Dragons, a podcast and community to support, educate, and empower parents on the journey of raising happy and healthy LGBTQ+ humans. I’m your host, Sara LaWall. I’m a Mama Dragon myself and an advocate for our queer community. And I’m so glad to be part of this wild and wonderful parenting journey with all of you. Thanks for joining us. We’re so glad you’re here.

Hello, Mama Dragons! Today, we are circling back, revisiting the topic of transgender athletes and sports, because this issue continues to be one of the most talked about and one of the most misunderstood issues in our national conversation around transgender folks right now. Right now, the Supreme Court is considering two major cases that were heard back in January, one brought by West Virginia, and one brought by my home state of Idaho, which addressed the state-level bans on transgender female students playing on girls' sports teams. These cases together could determine whether states can legally exclude trans athletes from school sports nationwide. And if you've been watching the news and hearing about it, this debate has been loud. This debate is emotional. And it's often filled with a lot of misinformation and arguments about fairness in biology and the future of sports. But far too often, the voices of the athletes themselves, of our transgender athletes, and the real experience of kids and families just get lost in the noise. So, that's exactly what today's guests are working to change. I'm so excited to chat with one of the authors of this powerful new book, Fair Game: Trans Athletes and the Future of Sports. Ellie Roscher is one of the authors, co-author of this book with Dr. Anna Baith, who is sick and couldn't join us today. So Ellie is going to hold the floor for both of them. And joining Ellie is returning guest and friend of the Mama Dragons community, Olympic-level athlete, trailblazing advocate Chris Mosier, who wrote the book’s forward. You might remember Chris's interview with us from last June, that was episode 124, where we talked about the powerful documentary on trans youth athletes in sports and discuss the challenges. I really encourage you to go back and check it out if you haven't heard it, especially after today's conversation. This beautiful book breaks down a lot of the myths being told about trans athletes and combines beautiful personal interviews with research and science and history and politics about sports in general, really trying to dive into that deeper question underneath all of this conversation, what do we really mean when we're talking about fairness, and fairness in sports? Fair Game offers this fuller picture of why participation matters, not just for elite athletes with Olympic dreams, but for every kid who just wants to play on a team and move their body and belong. Ellie and Chris, that was a long intro, but welcome to In the Den. I am so excited to talk to both of you and have this conversation.

ELLIE: Thank you. Thanks so much for having us. Can I start with one thing really quick before we dive into the questions?

SARA: Of course!

ELLIE: The cover of Fair Game is super misleading. Chris is on our writing team; the book wouldn't exist without him. One of the important stories that we tell about the story of this book is that it took us over a year to get research approval to interview children and it's one of the things that sets this book apart. The youngest trans athlete we interviewed for this project was 8, and the oldest was 59.

SARA: Wow.

ELLIE: And that diversity in story alone is pivotal for the richness in this book. And it should have taken us a year to get research approval, because it's so tender. Transgender children are so vulnerable. And so, part of that agreement is that a transgender athlete would be interviewing the transgender youth to help them feel safer. And there were a lot of other things that were put in place to protect the safety of these trans kids. And so, it was so delightful that Chris got to interview these kids, not only because that is one of his superpowers. But the kids thought it was so cool to meet the famous Chris Mosier, and he's so good at helping them feel safe and share their stories so bravely. And so that and in a ton of other ways, the book would not exist without Chris. He was completely on our writing team, and we have feelings about how misleading the cover is!

SARA: Thank you for sharing that. Thank you so much for sharing that. I'm not surprised. I mean, I was beyond excited to meet Chris for the first time.

ELLIE: Me too.

SARA: So I can only imagine what those young athletes must have felt. How great, Chris, that you got to be an interviewer and really receive and honor some of those beautiful stories. Thank you both. The stories are incredible, and I do want to get to them, but I want to start, Ellie, with something in the introduction that really sets the stage for sharing how trans athletes have been around for a really long time. Chris and I talked a little bit about this last time in Chris's story, had been around for a really long time, barely registering in the public consciousness. And now the conversation has just exploded with all the misinformation that goes with it. Share with us a little bit about how that became an important foundation and launch pad for this book.

ELLIE: One of the things that – Anna Baith is a sports sociologist, so as a sociologist, she became fascinated with the speed and the disproportionality of these bans, that transgender athletes have always been with us. But all of a sudden, it became this “Gigantic Problem”. And so we talk about it as a solution in search of a problem. Right? And so we're just seeing a slew of bans come out really, really fast, and the agenda was using speed to their advantage to elicit a moral panic in society. The foundation was set for that moral panic because there is a sense of scarcity in women's sports. Women have worked so hard for the equality that they have in the sports space. So when the lie was told that transgender women were a problem, it “took,” right? And so whenever a lie is being told, we have to wonder who's benefiting from it. And it's very clear with this slew of bans that the lies that are being used to perpetuate the bans and get them passed is working for the GOP policy makers, right? And it's working for a couple of spokespeople, anti-trans spokespeople as well, to kind of get their moment of fame. And we, as a society, have to be extremely clear-eyed about who's benefiting and who's being harmed. And so the book, in terms of offering real information and then real embodied stories, is trying to shift that conversation so that we're talking about what's really happening and also the fact that it's coming in the package of a book is on purpose, because we're trying to slow things down, right? That speed is something that I'm fascinated with that is working to perpetuate the lies. And the amount of bans should make us very curious, because there have always been trans athletes. And it's a very small group of people. One of the parts of the lies that's being perpetuated is that there's this huge group of people who are coming to ruin sports. That's absolutely not happening. And by using that distraction, we're not doing the real work of making our sports spaces actually safer and more beautiful and more inclusive for everybody, right?

SARA: Yeah. And I was also really struck about how you talk about how when trans athletes are being talked about, both sides, even, but not being talked with. And the stories are missing. And they're being silenced. And give us some of that data.

ELLIE: Dr. Baith ran a media poll, right, where she can get alerts and pull all of the media pieces about transgender athletes. Less than 8% that talk about trans athletes mention a trans athlete by name. And less than 2% quote them. So, that's abhorrent. And it's bad journalism. And so, as a nonfiction writer, I have big feels about that. How dare you talk about someone without talking to them? So, the very first move of Fair Game – it does other things too – but the very first move is allowing trans athletes to tell us what it's like to be them, to tell their embodied stories of what it's like as a trans person to navigate this cisgendered sports system, this binary sports system, where they're made to feel like the problem, when they are not the problem. In fact, I believe they're definitely part of the solution. So, in reading this book, you will hear from several trans athletes, so that when you do read these media pieces – which, by the way, they don't even want you to read, they just want you to click on the headline, right?

SARA: Right.

ELLIE: The headline is telling its own lie that we can notice. “Okay, is this media piece that's talking about trans athletes, did they do the journalistic work of interviewing a trans athlete, of naming a trans athlete?” So we're talking about real people, then it's impossible to perpetuate these lies, these specters, where we're created a monster that doesn't exist, and that lie is doing a huge amount of harm. So it has become, it feels extremely unsafe for trans athletes to come out as trans and to feel safe, not only in sporting systems, but because we live in a sporting society, society at large. It's a huge, huge problem. And we believe that the sports space is actually a really interesting playground to do some healing work there, because embodiment is part of the solution. One of the things I always say is that disembodied people are easier to control. And the system is trying to control us in really, really scary ways. So having more people who are drawn to sport to play together, to stay in their bodies, to keep that exuberance, then we have the wisdom of our bodies. We're harder to control. We have more fire to come together in solidarity, like teammates, and work to make the system more beautiful, more healthy.

SARA: Yes, that's wonderful. Thank you for that. Chris, you've been in this space for a really long time, an outspoken trans athlete yourself, and then also an advocate for trans athletes in sports. I love that you got to receive and interview and hear a lot of these stories. What struck you, or did anything surprise you, since you've just kind of been in this world for a really long time, about this moment and this time and these stories in particular?

CHRIS: Yeah, I think it's interesting, this moment, right, this moment is different than the moment when I interviewed a lot of those kids a couple of years ago. And so, it's an interesting snapshot to think about. When I came out in 2010, when I made Team USA in 2015, to Idaho's first in the country sports ban in 2020. All of these are different moments in time where the landscape for transgender athletes and trans people was incredibly different at all of these various points. So I wasn't really surprised by anything that I heard from the young people, because I've been working with families and young people for over a decade and I was pretty up-to-date on what their experience might be like. But I was kind of surprised by the healing that I felt myself in talking with these young people. Both, I guess, both the healing and the heartbreak at the same time. But the healing piece is, I didn't have anybody to look to when I was a young person to say, “Oh, I can be transgender and be myself and play sports? That's amazing.” I just didn't even know that transgender was a word. I didn't know that I could be me here today. And so I didn't have those possibilities, which is the whole reason my motto is, “Be who you needed when you were younger.” I want to be that role model or that person for little Chris. And so to be able to have these conversations with the young people, and just think about what their experience is like, of knowing exactly who they are, and having familial support, having supportive parents and caregivers, having supportive coaches, and classmates and siblings, it was so healing to me to see that there are young people in the world that actually are able to have that experience, even if I wasn't able to and in hope that in small part, my visibility is allowing them to have that that as an option. The heartbreaking piece is just hearing kids say like, “I was a recreational swimmer. And now, after I came back from COVID, I'm not allowed to swim anymore, right? And that's where my friends were.” Knowing as a young person how much sport meant to me, and how it was my place of belonging, my source of confidence and embodiment and just so many pieces about myself as an adult that I love about myself came from playing youth sports. And thinking that these young people won't ever have that opportunity to experience that in the same way in the school system with a similar experience as their peers is just heartbreaking. But the hopeful piece is the rest of the story in the book, where you see the ways in which adults and family members and coaches, find a way to make sure that these young people and these and adult trans athletes as well are included, that they do have an opportunity to connect with their peers in some way. So there's a lot of hope in the book, too.

SARA: Yeah, there is definitely a lot of hope in the book, and real, and just beauty in getting to read some of those beautiful stories alongside the research. And I love the construction of the book. I love the way the book sort of breaks it down into some of these sort of big myths that are out there, and all of the little tendrils of them with stories and research. And I want to dive into some of those myths, if we can, with both of you. You know, the word that comes up all the time in this conversation – and I think comes up even in progressive circles for folks who don't have a lot of clarity and information around sports and don't know trans folks or trans athletes – is this debate about fairness. And so many smaller assumptions and myths underneath this idea of fairness. One of those being that lots of people start to pontificate about whether trans athletes have an inherent advantage. And so I want to talk about this idea of inherent advantage in sports, with trans folks first, but then you really kind of busted out wide and talk about a lot of inherent advantages. So, Ellie, let's start with you. Bust that myth a little bit first for us.

ELLIE: Sure. So, when folks ask the question, “Is it fair?” And you kind of push on it a little bit. A lot of folks are, because of the perpetuation of the lies and the headlines and the language that is used on purpose, a lot of folks will picture a “biological male.” Right? A man competing against women. And they say, this is unfair. There's so much to unpack there in and of itself, right? That there's an assumption that the male body is superior to the female body in all instances, at all ages, in all sports. We know that that's not true. And that it's a lie that a trans girl is a boy, right? That a trans woman is a man. We need to debunk that part of the myth that is so important. And then you get into what constitutes sex, and what constitutes athletic performance, right, and competitive performance. And so we've really boiled this whole thing down to testosterone, which is something that we don't know that much about. Right? And we don't know that much about it because science has privileged studying cis male bodies. So we just don't have that much good information about women's bodies, about trans bodies, and about athletes, and how testosterone affects that. So one of the things Dr. Baith loves to point out is that, so the level of testosterone in your body – for one thing, you can't equate testosterone with athletic advantage, like, that correlation is not direct. Right? You can't say testosterone levels is what makes somebody's sex. Our sex is way more interesting and varied than that. Levels of testosterone overlap between cis men and cis women, if we're just talking cis alone. And levels of testosterone isn't the thing to look for when we're thinking about competitive advantage because we also have to think about things like testosterone receptors, like how your body is using testosterone. Your levels of testosterone change throughout the day, they change throughout your life. So it depends on how old you are and what day of the week it is, and what time of the day it is, and what sport you're playing. There's so many different types of strength. There's so many different types of power, right? So, I was a gymnast, and I believe I had a competitive advantage because I was short. When you look at what my body was being asked to do, it was compact. My center of gravity was closer to the ends of my limbs, right? And my center of gravity was closer to the floor. So we just love to bust it open in all sorts of ways. And again, if we're only focusing on testosterone, which is something we don't know enough about yet – it's fascinating and we need to learn more – letting bodies be super complex, letting the sex of our bodies be super complex, letting how who is being policed in terms of who counts as a girl or a woman, how we're gonna police that, how we're gonna test that, right, and then what that has to do with fairness. So, to me, this is all a distraction. And it's a lie that's doing a lot of harm for so many reasons. One of the reasons it’s doing harm, is because a much more interesting conversation to have about fairness would be to have about money. Okay, when we look at who wins, the people who win are the people who have the means to get excellent training in excellent facilities. And I will count myself a part of that. Gymnastics was a very expensive sport. And I know that I got to compete in gymnastics through college because my parents had the means to send me to a great club with great coaching. And I had two parents who loved me. And my life was very stable. And I didn't have to hold down a 20-hour-a-week job after high school. I got to go train, right? So if we really, really cared about fairness, we would make youth sports free. Let all kids play. And then see what happens. See which kids thrive at which sports, right? But we don't want to have a conversation about capitalism, about money. And then we would have to have a conversation about race too, right? It's much safer to have this conversation where they're about trans athletes that it's not reflecting reality. So, the thought experiment I invite folks into is to pick their favorite athlete and list out all of the competitive advantages that you can think of. So if I think about my sport, and Simone Biles, you look at her body, and you're like, “She is just amazing. And I'm going to list all of the things that make her competitive at her sport. Her body thrives in that sport for a reason, right? She also had the means to go to an excellent gym and get excellent training and put hours and hours and hours into making her dream come true.” I'm going to argue that after reading Fair Game, you might be able to see, I'm going to argue that her being cis is also an advantage because she's navigating a cis sports system. And she doesn't have that rub of, like, there's something about me that feels different and that feels dangerous and I'm under a microscope, right? Like, she gets that ease of movement from being a cis athlete. I want to have a conversation about making sports fair. I just want to talk about what's really happening, and what factors go into actual physical advantage, actual competitive advantage. That's more interesting to me.

SARA: Well, I was really surprised myself. I mean, I shouldn't have been surprised, but as I was reading this story that you tell about Michael Phelps.

ELLIE: Totally!

SARA: And all of those physical, physical, advantages that Michael Phelps, a cis man, has. So I wonder if you would share a little bit about that, because that's such, we can picture – I think many of us can picture Michael Phelps in our minds.

ELLIE: Oh, you look at his body, you're like, “Your body was constructed to swim.” Right? His wingspan, how his body processes lactic acid, right? His body recovers from hard workouts differently than other people's. So yes, he needed to have access to a pool, and he needed to have access to coaching. With those things, though, his body also, like, thrives in this sport. He's doing the right thing. He would not have been a great gymnast, right? He was made to swim. And we love that. We love that it's unfair. We love watching him just lap people. But we love it because he's a cis man. So if a trans athlete is perceived as being disobedient, we police them. And so we pick and choose who gets to have this unfair body and who doesn't. Right? And again, then going into the particulars of gender, like, gender-affirming therapy, right? Treatment, and what the actual advantage is. It's much more complicated than we think that it is.

SARA: It's an interesting conversation to think about someone like Michael Phelps or Simone Biles, and what physiological inherent genetic advantages they might have.

ELLIE: Yes.

SARA: But how we're really unable to imagine that those could also be true for trans athletes.

ELLIE: Yeah, that's right.

SARA: The transness is sort of the block. We stop there.

ELLIE: That’s exactly right.

SARA: And we don't go further. Chris, in your work, and in the stories in this book in particular, and I think just continuing this conversation around advantage and fairness, what are some of the big challenges that you heard, or that you notice as you're doing all of this advocacy work? What are the biggest roadblocks for trans athletes?

CHRIS: Yeah, I mean, I think when we're thinking about advantages, I want to just re-emphasize what Ellie said about money. Thinking about how the access to training and facilities and even things like good nutrition, great equipment is so important. Like, just from my own personal experience of being a sponsored athlete and having a bike that costs $15,000 is very different than having a bike that costs $500, right? And there are options where, at races, I may be racing against people who have bikes that are significantly less, more reasonably, priced than mine. And that is an advantage that I have in that situation. And so the money piece is so important. And I'd also even say family connection, right? So, when athletes, as we just watched the Olympic and Paralympic Games, so many of the stories of those athletes are they had a professional soccer player mom, and they have an Olympian dad, right? Well, yes, no kidding. That is an advantage for those athletes. And so those are the things that we really need to be thinking about. One of the things that I hear the most when I'm doing my advocacy work is the way that people play with language to perpetuate the lie that Ellie was just talking about. And specifically, I'm talking about when people will say, “I don't want a man playing with my daughter.” Or, “I don't want a man in the locker room with my daughter.” And when they're saying the word man, right? They're conjuring up this image of a cisgender man, fully grown adult, being in the locker room with your freshman daughter at volleyball practice. And that is intentional. It is intentional to try to make people not see the lived and real experience and the humanity of transgender women, first and foremost. But also to play on our fears of everything that's happening in the world right now with our president, with the Epstein Files, with the Me Too movement, with Dr. Larry Nassar. Having a grown man in a position with your young daughter, that's just not the reality of having a trans athlete on your team. Right? We're talking about peers, we're talking about young people, we're talking about trans girls on girls' teams. When you have a trans girl on a girls team, there are still zero boys on that team. And that's what people need to remember, that the lived experience of humanity of the trans folks is really important. And the ages that we're talking about are really important because people will try to make you think that there's going to be a professional athlete or Olympian, grown, cisgender man who's going to “pretend” to be a girl to play on your kid's high school team. And that's not the way sports works.

SARA: Right. Thank you. That's really clear. And thank you just for weaving in all of the contemporary politics. It's so interesting to think about all of the threads and all of the different connections, even in this one, what feels like this one very small issue.

CHRIS: Yeah, and I know your Mama Dragons know this. This is not a solo issue. This is actually a distraction, right?

SARA: Yeah.

CHRIS: Anytime, and you can look at it for the last 2 years, and I would even say back to 2020. You can look at any major thing that's going on, and they – you want to distract from the Epstein files, talk about trans athletes. Right? You want to distract from the fact that gas prices are high, blame a trans athlete. You want to not talk about a war that we just started in another country. Let's blame trans athletes for something new, right? It's the perfect media distraction for folks right now. And I know that your Mama Dragons see through this, but it's really, really important to continue to draw those connections and to say like trans athletes aren't making your groceries cost more. Trans athletes aren't the reason that you can't get a job. It's the distraction to keep us preoccupied and fighting against each other over something that truly is not as consequential as climate change, or being in another war that's costing billions of dollars, right? Like, it's something that people can be upset about and feel like they can argue and maybe win an argument, right? The truth of the matter is that trans athletes are humans. And our humanity should not be up for debate. And that's the position that we find ourselves in every day, whether it's on social media, or in the news, or on podcasts, or YouTube, is that people want to debate our humanity for clicks and views, and we are the people who are suffering because of it. And I would even say, like, all people are actually suffering because of this conversation. Cis women are also at a detriment here because of this conversation. And young cisgender boys are suffering because of this conversation and argument about trans athletes, right?

ELLIE: They're hearing loud and clear, right? They're hearing loud and clear that the worst thing that you can be is a woman, and the second worst thing is to lose to a woman, it is very confusing.

SARA: I want to dig into that a little bit because, Chris, the way that you just spoke particularly, and Ellie, I know you've spoken about this too, that one of the themes that arises in the book through the stories and the research is that sports have always been a place where we, as a society have talked about and negotiated our ideas about gender, rightly and wrongly. And so I'm curious how you understand this debate about trans athletes and what it reveals about how we think about gender more broadly. You were already kind of getting there.

CHRIS: Yeah, so I'll kick us off by saying sports did not create the gender binary. We just live within it, unfortunately. And the gender binary in sports was largely created to protect cisgender men's egos. So the issue was, in the early 1900s in figure skating, as an example, we talk about it in our book – it's also covered in Katie Barnes' book Fair Play – so there was a competition where a cisgender woman won in the open ice skating, which I believe was actually a world championship, or a very important event. And the cis men were like, “Nope, you can't, you can't play.” Right? They got beat by a woman. They were like, “Nope. No women allowed. Okay, that's it.” There are multiple situations in history where gender divides happened in sports because a cisgender woman won against men. And so, there's something about the fragility of the male ego in sports that created our two systems of sport. But I will also say it's really important that women have opportunities in sports. Girls and women's sports is an incredibly special institution, not just because it provides a space and a place for women to excel in sports without having to worry about cisgender men and the patriarchy coming in – although the patriarchy still exists, and is overseeing the whole function – but it's also a space that has been generally inclusive and accepting of all types of people, because of the way that the cisgender men's category boxes so many people out. And so sports, girls and women's sports for me, as a young person, was a place where I found friends and acceptance. It's also a space where I was able to explore my gender and understand more about myself under sort of the accepting, welcoming environment of my cisgender women teammates. And so that place already exists. Ellie, I think that your story about the flying chimichangas is a great tie-in here to talk about gender in sports and what this reveals.

SARA: Oh, yeah, tell us.

ELLIE: So as a female athlete and also as a coach, I feel really, really strongly that sports, at its best, can be a corrective for girls and women in a society that tells you to play small, to be docile. And that's one of the things that gets me fired up as a cis woman when I am told that I need protection from trans women. I want to divest from that very loudly, because I'm not fragile. I don't need protection. And I definitely don't need protection from the cis men who are actually the ones doing the harm. Right? So just to get very clear about that. And then this is a really beautiful, tiny story about what I'm talking about. So, I have two children who were assigned male at birth. The oldest is in the 5th grade. And this fall, he played on a rec soccer team. And the league is mixed gender. And in the whole league, he is on the only team that had both boys and girls on it. They're all 5th graders from the same school who play together at recess every day since kindergarten. So they're good. And my son's team, the only mixed-gender team, was undefeated . . .

SARA: Nice.

ELLIE: . . . in the season. And you could watch these girls. So they're taking on all-boys teams, game after game after game. And they're winning game after game after game. I'm watching from the sidelines, actually crying. Seeing the girls' body language get braver and braver and braver with every win. And I'm watching my boy, not check the gender of the person he's passing to. He just passes to the athlete who is open because that's the right thing to do. And what's happening here with these 5th graders, prepuberty is it's already doing an intervention in these girls' bodies. They've already been told to get smaller. Right? To play smaller, to be less competitive, to be a little sweeter, more docile. And then you see them in this mixed-gender space being like, “Oh, I'm hanging! Oh, I'm an athlete! Oh, I'm beating you!” And get that fire, get that sass that is not male. It's human, right? And then you just have a bunch of 5th grade bodies playing this amazing game of soccer together. And because of what society does to all of their brains, the girls are changing everybody's minds with what they're doing. And you could just tell my son was, like, even kind of more proud that they were beating all these boys' teams, was like, “Go sit down because my girls can play.” You know? And it was just really, really beautiful to watch. So, yes, we have to keep building these spaces where all bodies can play, be exuberant, be confident, kind of undo the lies that society's trying to put on them about who they are. And women's sports is having a moment. The same fifth grade boy had to do a report for Women's History Month, and he said, “Mama, they didn't let me do a family member, so I couldn't do you so I picked Alicia Gray.”

SARA: Awe…

ELLIE: You know, because he loves Unrivaled. And he loves the WNBA. And right now, women's, like, women's basketball is kicking it. And they're so fun to watch. As a basketball player, he's learning so much by watching the women play and the culture they create around the sport. So, it's really, really beautiful and I think that sport can be part of the solution. We just have to be super, super clear on what the lies are and who's being harmed when we start thinking we have to protect the female category. Right? So, through history, how do we make certain women show us that they're women? Which bodies get picked out as disobedient? And then what do we decide is the marker of woman, right? So we've had nude, like, genital checks. We've had chromosome passports. Now we're on to testosterone. And hopefully this isn't an overshare, but, like, seeing that Florida was trying to pass a menstruation tracking, to police the female department. As a gymnast, I didn't menstruate, right? So I wouldn't pass that test. And it's really interesting to see who is perceived as obediently female, and who's being perceived as disobediently female. Which bodies get pulled to check, and why?

SARA: Oh, I love that word. I love that phrase. It’s really clear. An obedient female versus disobedient female because that is coming up in all of these conversations around the policing of any body. And one of those containers, one of those societal patriarchal containers that you highlight in the book that is relevant to this conversation, is around the physicality, sometimes the violent physicality in sports. And how that we – there's a separation in our culture between what is appropriate for boys, obedient boys, and what is appropriate for girls and girls' sports. And how that feeds into the myth around the danger of trans athletes. Can you talk about that a little bit?

ELLIE: Okay, yeah, I'll get us started. So one of the sections of the book is debunking the myth the question that gets asked, is it safe? And we have to be so careful when we talk about this, because the lies are doing so much harm. So, we separate that into two different conversations about safety. And I think you're pulling on the first, which is, is it physically safe for a cis woman and a trans woman to compete against each other? So we have to start just by continuing to be like, our bodies are complex, and sports are complex, so we have to have really intelligent policy. So anytime there's a universal ban, we have to get really, really skeptical and curious. Right? It depends on the sport. It depends on the age. It depends on the level of engagement, that matters in safety. There's only so many sports that are contact sports, and so then that's what we're talking about here. And again, language is being used on purpose to create this specter of the trans woman who is more powerful than the cis woman. And thus it's unsafe for those two people to collide. But if we were to study men's sports, you would see people of different sizes, different shapes, different weights, different, colliding all of the time while we're slow clapping them on. Why is it okay for two men, not even worrying if it's safe, actually cheering them on to collide harder? But anytime you have two women colliding, we need to protect them. I think that cis and trans women could come together around this and get pissed and say, “I am a critical athlete," – again, I'm divesting – “I don't need your protection, because I think you're using that as a distraction, and I'm not a pawn in your game.” Right? So, letting the athletes opt into these collision sports, take their training seriously, right? And there's no relevant data that says it is unsafe for a cis woman and trans woman to collide with each other. It's this perception that two women colliding is disobedient. And men get to distract by saying, “Let us protect these poor girls from this collision.” Uh-uh. Nope, show us the sport, want to collide. Let's go.

CHRIS: Yeah. I want to say that this safety argument has been used in so many different cases in state law, state legislatures across the country. This idea of protecting women and girls, but it's actually even gone into the federal level. And so we saw the president sign the executive order on sports, saying that it's “unsafe” for trans athletes to compete. But what we actually also saw is the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee which is our U.S. national branch of governing any sport that is an Olympic-level sport, right? So, anything from USA Basketball to USA Soccer, USA Swimming, all fall under the USOPC policies. And as a result of the executive order on sport, the USOPC demanded that every national governing body create a policy to ban transgender women and girls from playing sports at the elite levels of play. And unfortunately, that has had trickle-down effects into our youth sports as well, because a lot of these national governing bodies also govern our youth sports. But the reason I bring this up right now is that the USOPC's update of its policy, they actually banned trans athletes under their safety policy not under gender eligibility, not under anything else. They stuck it under the safety policy, which is both deeply offensive, and also inherently wrong, right? Because there's no evidence, again, that shows that trans athletes cause any more injuries or less safe conditions for any other athlete than anybody else. And it is just, again, pulling on the fears, highlighting and exposing, and then poking the button that we know works, which is this idea that it is unsafe for trans athletes to exist. And the issue here is that there's a very specific playbook that's being played right now that wants to paint trans athletes as a danger on the court or the field, so that they can say that we are a threat everywhere else. And so this idea of painting trans people as dangerous as a threat in sports, has been able to then be pulled out to say, “You don't deserve healthcare. You shouldn't be talked about in schools. It's unsafe for a parent to even affirm you making a social transition.” You know, all of those things are just the next dominoes to fall after sports, which is why this conversation is so important.

SARA: Yeah, thanks for pointing that out, because we're definitely seeing it.

ELLIE: Yeah.

SARA: I am seeing it, I know, and a lot of states like mine. I mean, it is just, it's everywhere. It feels like the conversation has spread, has mushroomed into this really out-of-control wildly misinformed conversation, and I appreciate you linking those two things together for us. I'm curious, Ellie, for you, as a storyteller in particular, how do you understand this idea of visibility in storytelling and changing how we think about inclusion in sports and transgender athletes, and transgender people? Because I think, Chris, you've just brought it in to be like this is just one piece of the whole pie of attack against the trans community.

ELLIE: Yeah, I mean, it goes back to that first stat that I shared about how the media doesn't interview trans athletes when they write pieces about trans athletes, right? So, it was so important for me to kind of create, machete out a space where trans athletes can come in and, if they feel safe to do so, claim their story and share it. And for it to be in a book where folks get to take in these beautiful stories, kind of on their own, and change their minds in the privacy of their own homes, if it's time to change their minds. So I'm in love with story, I'm in love with the idea of narrative repair. And that is identifying that society is giving us stories that are boring and small and often harmful. And often, our actual body stories can talk back to those societal stories and break society back open. So there are stories that “other” people, and then there are stories that build bridges toward belonging. And our hope in Fair Game was that in allowing trans athletes to share their stories, that this could create a bridge back toward belonging. The system is desperate, and I'll speak for myself, to separate cis women from trans women so we don't come back together in solidarity and fight like hell to burn the thing down. Right? And that's been the move throughout history of dividing folks by things like race, by things like gender, by things like sexuality, so we don't come together to build a more beautiful place. And so I have to see how those stories are being offered to me to distance myself from trans women. Notice it. And then tell a more beautiful story about how we are actually connected and can come together to create something new to belong to, right? To not belong to this gross binary that “others” certain bodies that don't seem to fit. And I think my dignity is wrapped up in that, right? So, as a storyteller, inviting trans athletes to tell me the longest version of the story that they are willing to tell. I got to sit and get really quiet and listen super hard about what was similar and what was different about our embodied experiences as athletes. That gave me so much insight as into my cis identity invited me to come out as cis. And as my cis identity that was too dormant became more active, then all of a sudden the steps that I could take to become an ally became very clear, because I saw the way forward shoulder to shoulder. Right? And so, we hear from so many people, “What does the science say? I want to know the science, I want to know the science.” And as a storyteller, I'm like, why are you prioritizing that? I'm so curious about why you think the science is objective, when it's biased people running studies, often to confirm their own bias, right? Like, why isn't these rich, beautiful, embodied stories of trans athletes at the table, when policy's being written, which bodies aren't there, right? And what stories are missing? And how are we all losing out because of that? So I think of my own sports experience, the proximity to people that society doesn't want me to bump up against and how I'm a better version of myself because of that bumping up, right, because of that exuberant play, that collective liberation. We're all losing if we're going to ban trans athletes from that. We're all losing. And I do think it’s our individual stories that can be a step back toward that solidarity. So, asking folks like, “If you start to clench around the locker room thing, what was your personal locker room story? If you think it's okay to ban some kids from playing, tell me more about what your experience of play was and why you think it's okay for some folks to not have access to that,” right? So by doing our own body stories, coming to the table embodied and listening to other people's, I think that could be the bridge back to a sports world where belonging is the win.

SARA: I love that you're painting a larger picture of how we can build those connections more deeply in order to create that world that never has existed quite the way that we would like it to. And that coming together and understanding each other and hearing each other's stories is one way we can get there. That's really beautiful. So, along those same lines, Chris, and Ellie feel free to jump in, too, if you want to answer this question, because I'm sure you both have some ideas. If we could start from scratch today and redesign sports to be spaces of inclusion and belonging in the way that we've been talking about them today, what would that look like?

CHRIS: Yeah, I think it certainly depends on the level of sport, right? But let's talk about the most people playing sports. And I will say, I think this is a hiccup that, in this conversation, this is part of the reason why the trans athletes in sports conversation has become so controversial and so debated, is that we often hinge all of our answers around Olympic and Paralympic athletes. And I would even say people aren't really thinking about athletes with disabilities. People are thinking about the Olympic Games, right? And so, if we are thinking about that .001% of the world's population that would ever even be in the pipeline to go to the Olympics, we're leaving out the rest of the world that plays sports, 99+% of our athletes are youth and recreational athletes in the world. So let's talk about that, right? We need to redesign sports in a way that allows everybody to participate and get the benefits of sport. And really, like, considering the level of play when we're talking about youth sports. There should be no barriers to being able to play sports. There are certainly, now we've seen the professionalization of youth sports that I think is a really major issue that ties directly into these challenges that we're seeing today, because our adults, I would say my peers who have kids, are so invested in their young person's athletic experience as if it was the Olympics. But it's 8-year-old school t-ball, like baseball. It's like, I hate to tell them, like, it's not that serious, right? As an adult, I cannot remember my highest scoring basketball game from my high school career. I can tell you two stats from my entire time in sports younger than college. And what I really remember is the experience with my teammates. I remember the bus rides. I remember stopping at McDonald's after a game at 10 o'clock at night and thinking it was so fun that we were out and that we got to eat late and just be with my friends. I remember the personal interactions. I remember the gossip. I remember the songs we used to sing. I don't remember the actual playing of the sports. So we need to zoom out for our young people and put a little less pressure on them and think about what sports is really meant to be about. It is part of the fabric of American society, which is why, again, this topic has struck so deeply for people. But it's also inherently part of our educational system. And so we really need to question like, are we willing to say that some kids don't deserve this piece of education simply because of who they are. So, my vision for athletics, and I think this is hard for me to say as an elite athlete, as somebody who is very competitive, as somebody who is in World Championship races. My answer for Team USA is going to be different than my answer for everybody else. But 99% of people are in sports for community, for fun, even if they're competitive, even if they really, really, really, really want to win, the goals of sports are different. I don't know. Ellie, as a parent, I'm curious about your perspective on this, too, and as an elite gymnast.

ELLIE: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, my parents ask me like, “Did you need us to intervene?” Because I was just this little girl that loved it and wanted more and more and more and more and more, I don't have memories of playing as a kid. I was training. I was competing. But again, that was very interesting in a patriarchal society that's going to tell me to not be competitive. I understood at a very young age that what I was up to was a little bit subversive, and I liked that. No, I parent my children differently than I was parented as an athlete. Like I'm embracing them as embodied people who love to play, and trying to really keep that in perspective in terms of them wanting also to be well-rounded people, right? So playing multiple sports, not at the same time, not all year round, right? And then really, really talking about what what the actual win is. So I tell this great story about my son, who lost a basketball game by 20 points. And he came over so pumped up because they held the other team to way under their normal average. And the other team was so mad that they didn't beat them by more than 20 points. And he could tell me what he did with his body that he was super proud of, right? And it's like, we had this great ride home talking about all the wins in the context of this loss. And I promise you there was a different car on the way home of the team that won, that was yelling about how poorly it went. These poor kids, right? So really being clear on what the win is. I highlight, I profile an adult recreational league that works really, really hard on making it be competitive, not competitive. So you can come as a competitive embodied person, but keep it in perspective and not have it end up being kind of this toxic environment where no one's having fun. And the person who envisioned this is empowering other leaders, other captains in this of like, “What's the win? What are we up to?” And getting super clear that the value is play, is exuberance, is embodiment. And going back to the fact that that's the win, that's the win, that's the win. And then, yeah, let's have a separate conversation about elite sports, for sure. But it is all getting clumped together and we're all losing.

SARA: And that’s a really beautiful way of reframing the piece of the anti-trans conversation that seems to be undergirded by winning at all costs. That's sort of part of that narrative. And therefore if that is the goal, therefore all of these exclusions need to be in place.

ELLIE: And trans athlete after trans athlete after trans athlete in Fair Game, you never hear this  focus on winning. You know, winning the small win. This is all about the infinite win.

SARA: And what I read in the stories was a story after story about the winning is being the best athlete I can be, beating myself every time, like, getting better and better at my version of how I am showing up in the sport.

ELLIE: Well, and I'm even thinking about one of our runners whose time drops significantly over the course of her transition, and how the win was finishing a half marathon in her authentic, aligned body. You know, secondary to the time, she couldn't tell me the story without crying. Right? But yes, so being on a journey with your own body and figuring out what it can do at each moment and being super respectful of the people that are around you, absolutely.

CHRIS: And this whole conversation about winning, also, is part of the reason why the anti-trans conversation has taken off so, so much in the rest of the world, because there's such a focus on winning and losing in sports, right? Most of our sports are set up that there's a winner of some capacity. Could this conversation have happened with board games, too? Maybe? I don't know. But sports is so much about winning and winning at all costs in a lot of cases, right? Even at our youth sports, we're prioritizing winning. When we're having debates about people's humanity, this idea of a debate is that there is a winner and there is a loser. And we've gone so far into the debating about whether or not it's fair, or it's safe, or if it should happen at all for trans athletes to be participating with their cisgender peers, that people are unable to listen. They're unable to ask better questions. They're unable to share and connect to people because the goal of a debate is to win. And so this is part of the reason why I don't go on talk shows, and I don't go on radio shows that want to have a debate about trans athletes because I won't debate my humanity first and foremost. But I know that the whole purpose of that conversation is that it's not a back-and-forth conversation, it is to win. And you don't get very far in allowing your own mind to be changed, or to learning new perspectives if the intention of that conversation is to win. And I think that's a part of the reason why we are so stuck as a society and as a world right now, is that we've set up this win-it-all-cost narrative around sports and around the conversation of trans people being included that leaves everybody as a loser because there's no way for us to actually move forward and to bridge against our differences when that's the goal, is to win the conversation.

ELLIE: Yeah and I think in addition to winning, being right. How dare us prioritize being right. We always, very soberly, bring up the suicide rates of trans kids in this book, like if you're not willing to start there, like what is it clinging inside your body that it's more important for you to be right than to care about children dying? There's really something to explore there and how our society is functioning to prioritize what's perceived as objective truth when it's not, what's perceived as being right, what's perceived as certainty. I get more interested in mystery. I think it's good news that our bodies are super complex, right? I want to have a really mushy conversation about how things could get more varied and more interesting. We're seeing this very binary two-option system anytime it shows up is limiting right? Um, down to our political parties. And this polarizing right and wrong, left and right. It's not working. So what is dissolving some of that and breaking it open and moving toward expansion instead of that constriction? And that's where I think that trans joy is part of the solution, like the prophetic leading forward into a future that's more colorful and exuberant and creative, more embodied, more free. And folks who are feeling zipped up by rightness and that small win, you have to see that as a cage, and that there's some self-interest involved in softening that and breaking that open.

SARA: Thank you for that. I'm curious what advice you might have, particularly for parents, coaches, even, both to support trans athletes, but I'm also thinking if there's a particular conversation to be had for parents and young athletes in states where there are bans and navigating that particular tricky space as a trans athlete and their parent?

CHRIS: Ellie, go ahead and give the parent perspective first, and coach.

ELLIE: So part of it is making sure whoever your kid is, like it's not just if you have a trans kid, right? Like, this is the work of all parents right now, is to be curious, to be open, to lead toward complexity, to lead toward dynamicism. So, I have a nibling who is trying on a new identity, right, and a new name, and new pronouns, and how I talk to my kids, who identify as cis right now, how I talk to them about that, like the energy of my body, and the openness really signals and matters. When they were really little, they had stuffed animals that they would decide if it's a he or a she or a they. And I was just like, this is so delightful that we're moving and opening. So, yeah, for parents to talk to your kids no matter where they are about the fact that diversity, it makes us thrive, right? And that our identities and our labels, and our language is alive, and it can shift, and it can mold, and we're agile, and we have to let other people tell us who they are? And when they're brave enough to do that, we have to believe them. And when people tell us they're in pain, we have to believe them. And when people tell us they're being abused, we have to believe them. They're all intertwined of turning toward folks no matter how old they are, and listening hard, and believing them when they tell us a truth and then advocating for them to have space to live in that truth. Right? So that's part of what I think of in the parenting system. We highlight a few really beautiful stories, so I would invite folks when they're reading Fair Game if you're cis, to look for the cis role models in the book. There's a couple. I'm thinking about Jamie's roommates, who, when he got back from his official name change, threw him a surprise, “It's a boy!” party. And gave him a bracelet with his name on it, and also gave him a check for how expensive it was to legally change his name. I'm thinking about M's parents, but also the parents of M's teammates, who, when there's a little bit of heckling, sent emails to the principal and the athletic director of the other school. Calling them in. We're in this together. Let's create a better opportunity, like, situation next time, and it shifted. Right? So the adults stepped forward. I'm thinking about Robin’s teacher, who, when Robin couldn't play a sport, started an unofficial running club as a loophole so that Robin could move with her peers outside of the official system. We're going to have to create the new thing within the old thing. And if we can prioritize a belonging, safety, embodiment, play, there's ways to do that while we're fighting like hell to change the system. I think it's going to be a both/and. And we saw that with our youth, right? That there really where they lived, state by state, deeply affected their situation and their experience. And so fighting at the federal level, at the state level, but then also at the school level, at the neighborhood level, at the household level, right? Like, at the body level, there's always work to do to create more beautiful space.

SARA: I love the suggestion of how we might create more subversive or just different spaces to allow trans folks, trans kids and trans folks to do sports that are detached from the system in our neighborhoods, in our churches, in our book clubs, even our mom groups, and parent groups. Chris, however, though, one of the things I'm thinking about, I'm remembering a story in the book, I think, about a young person kind of forced to compete in the category, in the team, with their sex assigned at birth, because they're in a state with a ban and them choosing to do that. That there is a choice that is available for trans athletes who really dearly want to compete. And that's a really difficult choice to make. And I wonder if you might speak to the youth who are wrestling in that space.

CHRIS: Yeah, it's so incredibly difficult to have to decide, “Okay, do I want to be my authentic self, or do I want to play sports with my friends?” For a young person, that's a decision that no kid should have to make, and no adult either. We should be able to be our authentic selves and play the sports that we love like everybody else. And so it is incredibly heartbreaking that people are in that position. And also, we have the example in the book, and we have the example from the Changing The Game documentary, right, where Mac Beggs wrestled with girls, because that was his only option. And I can see that, too. I can see that as an athlete, like, I love my sports so much that I was terrified that I would lose that opportunity to continue to play the sports that I love if I transition. Had they not said that I could continue to play, I don't know what I would have done. I had already delayed transition for a year and a half. And that's the situation that these young people are in, is having to make that impossible choice of: “Ccontinue to play with my friends and be misgendered and have to pretend like I'm somebody else, or not pretend, just be me, but also be so out of place on this team or walk away from the sports that I love and playing with my friends, because I am who I am.” And I think for young people who feel okay, and feel supported by their teams to continue to show up and be a part of that team, even if it doesn't match their identity, that's a huge, huge choice to make and one that I could see because specifically women's sports, girls sports are so special for young people. It’s just a different dynamic. For adults, you watch the WNBA, and the camaraderie, and the community, and the teamwork, and the play is so different than the MNBA, right? The men's NBA. Yeah it's just so different, and so there is something really special, and particularly for sports that don't have a boys' counterpart, right? Like our field hockey, as an example, or softball. Like, softball is a different sport than baseball. That is a different experience. So, for young people who are so attached to their sports, or attached to their friend groups who want to continue to play, it's a big deal, and I just encourage them to remember you are who you are, and you know yourself better than anybody else. Just because you are on a team that doesn't match your identity and that's your only option, doesn't make you less trans or less non-binary. It doesn't make you less of a person or less human if people aren't respecting your pronouns or your names. That's a them problem. That's not a you problem as a kid or as an athlete, or as a trans person in this world. It really is a problem with the way that other people have been trained to show up, or not show up for us, and how they interact with us. And I will also say that in every situation, in every state, no matter if there are bans, there are horrible lawmakers, there are terrible people on your school board, in every state, in every town, in every place in this world, there are people who love and support trans people who will show up for trans youth, who will show up for transgender people as adults, and who will show up for families who love and support their trans kids. And those are the people that we have to find to be our teammates in this work.

SARA: Yes, beautiful. I feel like that's the perfect place to end this conversation with that inspirational moment of go find your people. There are people out there for you, ready to support you, who will support you. Surround yourself with that support. Thank you both for taking the time to have this conversation today. And thank you for this beautiful book. We will put a link to the book in our Mama Dragons bookshop and in our show notes so folks can access it. Not only is it a great read, it's a great gift. If there are people in your life, in our Mama Dragons community, there are many in our families and in our lives that don't quite understand, some are working to get there. This is a beautiful book that can really kind of help break open some of these stories and myths that we're being inundated with in our society, so thank you.

CHRIS: We also have a discussion guide for folks if they want to have book clubs or if you just want to look at some questions that you could use as a framework to ask your family members who you've gifted the book to start these conversations. So we'll definitely make sure that Mama Dragons has that as a resource. We are just so excited for folks to read this, fall in love with the athletes, and learn a little bit more about sports and maybe about themselves as they do it.

ELLIE: Thank you.

SARA: Awesome, Excellent. Thank you both so much. Thank you so much for joining us here In the Den. We want to tell you about free, public QPR classes coming in April. QPR is question, persuade, refer and it is a powerful suicide prevention training designed to equip you with the skills and confidence to recognize warning signs and respond when someone you love may be in crisis. The training is online, secure, and just two hours long. It’s a small time commitment that can make a life-saving difference. You can register for this training on our website at mamadragons.org. 

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