January 21, 2026 • 58 mins
Educator, coach, scholar and author of the book Fair Game: Trans Athletes and the Future of Sports Dr. Anna Baeth joins us to break down some of the myths surrounding trans athletes, why sport matters and what we can strive for to make things better in the future.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Anny and Samantha. I'm welcome to Stuff
I'll Never Told you, prodiction of by Heart Radio, and
today we are beyond excited to be joined by educator, coach,
scholar and author of the book Fair Game, Doctor Anna Bath,
(00:27):
or Bath as you introduced yourself before we started. Welcome
to the show. We're so happy to have you.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Thank you. I'm very excited to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Yes, we already kind of had a We should have
been recording much earlier because we were just chatting before
we started. We have a lot to cover, so can
you give our audience a broader introduction. You've done a
lot of yourself.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Sure. Yeah. So I'm doctor Anna Bathe I use shere
her pronouns. I am a scholar, I'm a researcher. I
was a two sport college athlete and after graduating from college,
went on to be a collegiate coach and eventually to
(01:17):
get a PhD. And while I was doing my PhD,
I was studying women in leadership positions in sport. And
as I was finishing my graduate degree and I was
looking for a job, I was offered a position with
an LGBTQ rights organization. So this was about I guess
(01:39):
this was six years ago. So I started working in
this space, and I really didn't know a whole lot
about the topic of trans athletes in particular. But all
of a sudden, I was in a position where I
was in charge of research for this organization and I
(02:00):
was getting a lot of questions, a lot of questions
about trans athletes, and at first I didn't really have
an answer, and so I spent five years doing a
lot of my own research. I was being told a
lot of different narratives, I was being pulled in a
(02:22):
lot of different directions, and I thought, no, I need
to figure out what I think about this. I need
to do my own research and figure out what I
think and what I believe to be true. And so
that has culminated in this book.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Yes, and Samantha and I have both read it, and
it is wonderful and is so needed, and it's so succinct,
and it just really articulated a lot of things me
personally that I've been needing to be articulated in a
clear way that I've felt it. So it's just such
(03:00):
a timely, timely read and very very important. So can
you tell us about the book and the process of
writing it, and what it was like to have it
come out right now, I.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Would love to Well, it's important to say this was
not done alone. I have my co author Ellie Rocher.
Chris Moser, who wrote the FOURD to the book, has
been an amazing advocate for trans athlete rights for it
seems like forever. Really, I met Ellie many years ago
(03:40):
and she was aware of my work and we had
been talking about it. And as I was thinking about
trans athletes and getting all of these questions about what
was going on, I started to really try to put
more information out there and say, hey, you know, here's
what we're talking about in terms of numbers, here's what
we know. Oh, here's what we don't know. And I
(04:04):
found that it just wasn't landing. People weren't people were
I mean broadly just disregarding the data and the science.
And Ellie and I talked a lot about it and agreed,
you know, part of the problem here is we're doing
a lot of talking about trans athletes without talking to
(04:25):
trans athletes. And so the impetus for the book was
really to say, hey, we want to introduce twenty transathletes
to the world. You know, most often when people talk
to me about this topic. You know, whenever I say
I work in sport, women's sport, if I say I
work in gender and sport, the question invariably is, what
(04:46):
do you think about trans women in sport? My first
response is, well, have you ever met a transathlete? And
I realized that most people also had an opinion about transathletes,
but it never met a transathlete. And so when we
wrote the book, it was really like, hey, we want
to introduce these twenty trans athletes. And of course we
wrote it three years ago, and now we're in a
(05:08):
pretty different political moment around this topic. And it turns
out that the twenty athletes we interviewed now, of them,
only one legally can compete in the United States, and
so the conversation has really shifted. The book was stories data,
(05:29):
and now it's somewhat more political, more politicized. I would say,
I don't know if that answers the question, but that's
how we did it.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
No, No, it does. It does answer the question, and
I think going to that point of being politicized, this
is such a political lightning rod issue and as you
point out in the book, trans athletes make up one
percent of sports participants, but it, according to conservative politicians,
(06:09):
they must make up so much more, like such a
bigger issue than that. There are hundreds of bills banning
trans athletes that have been introduced. As you said, now,
that's such a disheartening number. Only one can legally compete.
Of the people you interviewed, why do you think this
is such a hot button issue in our politics?
Speaker 2 (06:32):
I wish I had a clear answer to that. You know,
I do find it really curious because for a long
time people would ask me about this, and I was like,
why are we even talking about this? I mean, like,
we are talking about a handful of athletes. So if
we're going to talk about sport in general, and we're
(06:52):
going to talk about gender and sport, we're going to
talk about women in sport, we have many or fish
to fry. Right. Why it's such a topic is because
people have made it into a topic, and particularly because
conservative politicians have made it into a topic. Right. I mean,
(07:12):
when we look at the media in twenty twenty one,
there were more conservative politicians quoted in the media talking
about trans athletes than there were trans athletes quoted talking
about sport or their experience. That is mind blowing to me. Right,
Why there's such a focus, You know, I can speculate
(07:35):
that it's to get elected, that it's to get votes.
There's money behind it. I mean Riley Gaines is an
classic example of that. She has made a lot of
money off of talking about this topic. But I think
ultimately this is a lot about distraction. It's a lot
(07:56):
about talking about sport without talking about the real issues
in sport. And I think it's about controlling bodies. Yeah,
I mean it's not lost on us, right that this
is happening on the heels of overturning Roe v. Wade. Right,
(08:20):
we're talking about who has control over whose bodies and
in what ways.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
You do a great job.
Speaker 4 (08:27):
I mean in the book that you are all right
about the fact that the usage of trans women versus
transmit which is a little different context, and how this
all links to violence and policing not only trans bodies,
but cis women's bodies as well. And that is the
biggest part, because you also go in to talk about
the people who gain the most here are the conservative
(08:47):
politicians who are talking about using this asset of platform,
and you kind of already mentioned, but can you talk
more about that? Because I think this is where we
talk about. This is the intersectionality of it all, Like
no one really wants to talk about the bigger picture
and think that when they say we're protecting young girls
or women in general, is not actually about that.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
I think if we want to talk about protecting girls
and women in sport, then we need to talk about
what's actually impacting girls and women in sport. And of
course these issues are ones that impact a lot of people,
even though it's not in sport. I find it shocking
when people talk about trans athletes and the harms that
(09:33):
they don't talk about the rampant abuse that happens in sport.
I also find it curious when we talk about trans
athletes that there is such a focus on CIS women,
mostly because I think about you know, a lot of
what we talk about in the book is about imagining
(09:53):
a different future of sport, right, Like, let's think about
what sport could be. And when we think about that, obviously,
you know, we're not just talking about trans athletes they
make up a very small portion of the population.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
But we're talking about.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
Creating healthy sports systems and systems where people can participate
and be themselves but also be safe. I think about
that a lot when I think about men's sport too. Right,
there's only been one study so far on the impact
of these conversations around trans women on CIS boys, but
(10:33):
it really makes me wonder, what are we saying to
young boys when we say, whatever you are, do not
be a trans woman. What does it say when you're
saying to a boy, whatever you are, don't be a woman,
don't be feminine? That I think gets to the crux
(10:55):
of it. A lot of this is about a reasoner
of masculinity in very particular ways.
Speaker 4 (11:03):
Oh yeah, I literally when you talked about the linkage
about the damage on CIS boys. It started because we've
had a big conversation over here in the last few
months and talking about the loneliness epidemic of men and
male loneliness and how it's kind of gotten to this
greater force of like, it's not necessarily true that there's
more loneliness than men. It's just that the violence that
(11:25):
happens and the impact overall is that when men are lonely,
it impacts women because we are the ones who are
getting taken out on in general, and this level of
conversation that actually, when we talk about anti trans violence
and rhetoric, we we're pushing on that toxic mexiculinity onto
(11:45):
young CIS boys, and oh my god, that hits something
like y'all writing that is like this is this bigger
relate like language of the overall simple statement patriarchy hurts
everyone and overall like how this really does damage the
society as a whole, but it really is just as
bad for SITH boys as it is for any other
(12:06):
gender or any other part of any other marginalized community
in itself. Can you kind of expound on that, because
that was a deep statement that I feel like we're
not talking enough about.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
Yeah, you know, it's interesting when we look at states,
and this was primarily the case before the last two years,
but when we look at states within the US that
had policies in sport and in their education systems that
were inclusive of trans athletes and trans kids, those were
(12:40):
places where cisgender girls also were thriving. So basically, studies
show if you have protective policies for trans athletes, then
all athletes are going to thrive. Cis gender girls, in particular,
in those states would report being happier participating in sport,
(13:03):
They stayed in sport longer, they had a healthier relationship
with our bodies, and expressed more confidence. And so this
is about policy, but it's really about how do we
create cultures where people can learn thrive be in their
bodies in ways that are healthy. Right, And so I
(13:27):
wish we had more data on how boys perform in
those spaces too, But it makes complete sense if you
have policies, if you're educating coaches, sport organization leaders, even
athletes and parents to be inclusive, you're going to create
(13:47):
healthier spaces for all athletes, including SIS boys. And I
would say CIS boys in some ways are the people
who need it the most, especially right now.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Yeah, I was struck by you mentioned kind of the
toxicity of the locker room talk, and I was like, oh, yeah,
still so pervasive. Something else that you tackle in this book,
(14:27):
because you tackle a lot of mists around this whole,
all of this discussion around trans athletes, and one of
the ones that I have often thought doesn't make sense
but people present as fact is kind of the scientific
one because I've always personally thought like, well, people just
naturally are different, Like I don't understand this, but they're
(14:51):
always is always presented as sis, women are weaker, men
are superior, and this fact and here the science and
in the book you talk about that and you point
out that a lot of the data is either faulty
or just not there. Yes, so can you discuss please?
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Yeah? Okay, So I'm a sais woman, right, clearly have
a vested interest in sport. So the idea when people
say to me, well, like, all men are bigger, faster,
stronger than all women, I mean, first of all, it
kind of irks me, like, let's just put that out there.
But also it's not true, right, There are plenty of
(15:35):
examples of sports where women perform as well, if not
better than men. We're learning more and more about those sports.
Ultra running is a great example, and we talk about
that in the book But what we really know about
athleticism and physiology is there isn't great data, especially when
(15:58):
we're talking solely about bodies, right, But beyond that, I mean, okay,
first of all, it's way more complicated than that, right, sport,
What are we talking about when we talk about sport?
There are so many different kinds of sports that value
so many different parts of what it means to be
an athlete. So to broadly state that all men are
(16:22):
better than all women in all sports is ludicrous. Still,
when we look at the science too, and when we
look at the data, what we really know is physiology. Okay,
there are some variables that can have an impact in
certain sports, but what really broadly makes a great athlete
(16:44):
science is the data is very clear. It's who has money,
who has access, and who has the resources and support
early on in their lives to become an elite athlete.
That's Theottom line. And so when we look at who's
winning in sport, if we look at you know, who
wins Olympic medals, it is athletes who have had access,
(17:09):
and some do have genetic variations that make them better
at sport, Michael Phelps's case in point. But overall, the
people who have always won in sport are still winning.
It's the people who have the resources to be able
to be good at sport and to put time and
energy into it. So when we talk about, you know,
(17:32):
the science, when we talk about the physiology, sure, I'm
happy to talk testosterone. I'm happy to talk about you
know what impacts athletic ability, But if we really want
to talk about it, then let's talk about who has
the money to do it?
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Yes, because it's it's there are so many systemic things.
And as you point out, because this argument is usually used,
it's why trans women should not compete, because then that
is unfair to cist women, whereas the other argument about
trans men, it's almost never made. But as you illustrate
(18:09):
throughout the book through these interviews, to be a trans athlete,
especially younger, you have all of these obstacles to go through.
You have all of these systemic things that are preventing you.
So of course it makes sense that you know, we
unfortunately don't see a lot of them in more spotlight.
(18:34):
But I don't know, that's just another thing that I
it makes sense to me that it would be more
about resources than it would be about I don't know,
testosterone or whatever it is.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Yeah, and I think it really raises the question of
Like the question that I think it raises is is
our sports system working? And you know, people don't necessarily
want to think about that, But the bottom line is
in this country, you know, the United States is one
(19:08):
of the few countries in the world that doesn't have
federal oversight of sport. We don't have a federal governing
body for sport like most countries, especially those in the
global North, and within our education system, what we've seen
broadly is physical education is being redacted across the country.
(19:29):
So the only way kids get access to their bodies
typically is through sport. And because sport isn't regulated, it's
sort of like the wild wild West. I mean, it's
really we are operating in a pay to play system.
So the only kids who get access to their bodies,
(19:50):
which I think access to your body, to be empowered
in your body as a human right, are the ones
who can afford it or who have families who can
afford it. That is a really big and sticky point,
and it raises some really big questions. But I think
a lot of the conversations we're having about trans athletes again,
(20:11):
you know, the irony is just so so deep that
we want to talk about trans athletes, but we don't
want to talk about pay to play. So that's, you know,
for me again, when we get when I mentioned the
distraction technique earlier, it makes me wonder, is this a
distraction from the realities of people not knowing how to
(20:34):
or wanting to address all the issues that we have
in sport broadly, right, You do.
Speaker 4 (20:39):
A really good point into like in the conversation specifically,
I think it was Sue. I'm trying to remember the
story that I'm getting all confused where she talks about
who ended up beating men when she was able to
race against it as a like ginger neutral type of
I think it was ultra running.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
I'm trying to remember all those stories.
Speaker 4 (20:59):
And after that the league kind of had a problem,
was like, you know what, maybe we should we should
ginger these we should ginger these types of.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
Sports so we have you know, fair play and all this.
Speaker 4 (21:09):
And then the quote said the timing of the sex
segregation seems driven by a desire to protect men and
not women, And I was like, yes, because we've talked
about the beginning of Olympics and as well as the
Boston Marathon, and I know y'all brought that in its
examples of like not allowing women to participate in saying
this to protect them and they're too gentile and they
(21:31):
can't do this sports because they're not built for it.
But in actuality it feels more like, oh, but we
want to make sure that men have dignity enough to
beat them and so they don't want this.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
Type of competition.
Speaker 4 (21:42):
And I thought like that was a big statement in
itself as well, like kind of protecting men's pride over
actual sportsmanship.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
And I just really like the hit.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
Yeah, And I think it's I think it's complicated, right,
because as in some ways this book has brought me
more empathy for men than I ever expected, because I
do feel empathetic. I mean, I look at my nephews.
They're young, they're six eight, and I look at them
(22:19):
competing against girls just playing, and the fear that I
see if they are beaten by a girl in sport
in any way, it breaks my heart. And then of
course girls end up playing smaller or end up leaving sport.
(22:41):
But yeah, I mean protecting men again. This really it's like,
can't we think of something better? Can't we think of
some other way to teach boys about how they can
be the best versions of themselves with out having it
be a comparison to a girl or a woman or
(23:05):
to other boys. I mean that's a radical thought, and
for me, it's an exciting one and I think a
lot of what we talk about in the book too,
and a lot of our stance on this is Don't
get me wrong, I'm critical a sport, but I love sport.
Sport has changed my life. I love it, I love
being a coach, I love being an athlete, and I
(23:27):
want everybody to have access to a sporting system and
to their bodies that that's healthy and not based in comparison,
but the amount of money and energy and time that
we put into sport in this country, and even into
this conversation about trans athletes, what if we put that
into creating a better system of sport where boys weren't
(23:51):
afraid to lose to little girls? What would that do
for our country? What would that do for our worlds well?
Speaker 1 (23:59):
And one thing that really struck me reading this is
that a lot of the people you interviewed were very, very,
very competitive, but plenty of them I don't say weren't,
but they just more wanted the experience of knowing what
(24:19):
my body can do, how far can I push myself?
And it was never about like going to the Olympics,
or never about like anything like that. It was just
I enjoy the sport. I enjoy feeling empowered in my
body and knowing what it can do. And I just
love that because I think so many times we get
lost in sort of this conversation of just professional athletes.
(24:42):
It's all about winning, but for some people you interviewed,
it was much more about like, I get to be
a part of a team now and I get to
see what my body can do now, and how powerful
that was. So can you talk about why that is
so important in the role of sports for trans gender folks?
Why can that be so powerful and important?
Speaker 2 (25:03):
People participate in sport for a lot of different reasons, right,
And I think broadly the point that we are making
is simply trans athletes participate in sport for all the
same reasons that SIS athletes do, and most often it's
not because they're aiming to win an Olympic gold medal.
(25:24):
I mean, maybe they are, and that's great too, but
I think the impetus here and I think it's really
important to say too so when we talk to kids,
all of the studies for a very long time who
have where they've interviewed or surveyed children about why they
participate in sport, why they choose the sports that they
(25:47):
participate in why they stay in sport. The answer almost
always is because my friends are. Of course, that makes
complete sense to me. Right. So to then say, okay, well, actually,
all we're going to talk about is elite competition gets
(26:09):
away from the fact that, to your point, most people
participate in sport because it's fun, because they have fun
doing it, because it's enjoyable, because they get to be
with their friends, right. And that's true for most adults too.
And I think when we look at trans athletes in particular,
I mean most of them, I would.
Speaker 5 (26:30):
Say, why would you put yourself in that situation if
you don't love it, if you're not enjoying it, if
you're not having fun in that space, particularly now, right.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
So yeah, and then of course you know there are
all of these benefits to sport. Then we talk a
little bit about that in the book too. But the
bottom line is sport can be really good for people,
and it can be really bad for people, and we
have to name that, and we have to say and
(27:05):
I think the broader point of the book is to say,
let's make sport healthier, more fun, make it easier for
kids to hang out with their friends in the.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
Sport let's give them time to play, right.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
I mean, it's it's not complicated. It's not complicated, right.
Speaker 4 (27:36):
One of the things I loved about your storytelling about
having the transit community to come out and tell their
stories are both the mixture of like the good experiences
and the bad experiences. But not only would the good experiences.
It was not just about the individuality, but you even
talk about the coach's reactions. The team makes reactions the
good and the bad. And I love that because oftentimes
(27:56):
in these stories we hear the pity porn of it all,
and I like that there's so much like we want
to see the trauma. But you make sure to balance
both of those narratives so that we can have a
point of view of what it looks like to have
great team advocacy and people who are supported, versus what
it looks like when they don't.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
But you have that balance.
Speaker 4 (28:16):
Why do you think, especially in this type of conversation,
it's important to have individuals telling those types of stories
and having those balances in this type of advocacy work
because essentially this is advocacy work because we know at
this point we're having to fight for a right for
an individual who just won't want to be healthy and
have fun.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
Well, I think first of all the benefits of sport physiologically,
you know, we know a lot about that. Of course,
it can help with confidence, with empowerment, there's all of that.
But I think you know earlier you mentioned a lot
(28:59):
of conversations recently about social isolation, and I think it's
important to underscore that sport can be often is a
great space of community building, even if it's an individual sport. Right,
You don't do sport alone ever, and so for us too,
(29:24):
a lot of this is talking about how we counter
social isolation and how sport can be that, which again
raises a question for me of why in the world
would we take away somebody's access to community because we
want them to feel isolated, right? And why would they
(29:49):
Why would folks want us to feel isolated? A lot
of what we talk about too in the book and
well a little bit is people who don't have access
to their bodies or communities are much easier to control, right,
And so sport can be a counter to that. We
(30:09):
hope it is a counter to that. We want people
to be in their bodies, we want them to be
feeling what's happening in the world around us, because if
we're feeling it, then we're paying attention, right and most
often our bodies tell us pretty quickly what's going on
and what to trust and not to trust. So teaching
(30:29):
people that teaching kids that I think matters, but it's
also teaching people how to be in community together. You know,
I grew up playing sport, and I should say both
of my parents are from Montana, and so I think
that they always sort of imbuede in us a very
(30:50):
clear sensibility of how you should operate in the world,
which is you have to live in community. So when
I started sport as a kid, my parents always told me, Hey,
this is a space where you're going to meet people
who are not like you. This is going to be
a space where they're going to people be, people who
(31:11):
think differently than you, who operate in the world differently
than you, And this is a chance to get to
know them, to figure out how to work together. Even
if you don't like somebody, right, you're going to have
to work with them to be the best versions of
yourself and to help them be the best version of themselves.
And so again, I mean I think when we it's
(31:34):
not just about community. It's not just about the coaches
for supporting the athletes. Of course it is, but it's
also about how we learn to relate to each other
and have hard conversations.
Speaker 4 (31:43):
Like you gotta be the first person I've met that
come from Montana.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
It's beautiful. It's beautiful.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
I'm trying to remember. I'm like, have all of the
people that have met haven't met anybody from Montana? That's amazing.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
Yeah, I think that.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
I was.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
I mean, this is one of many thoughts I had
when I was after I finished the book. But it's
so true that, you know, being in sport does you
have to learn how to navigate with people, how to
work with people you might not agree with. But I
think you also have to learn how to lose. You
have to learn how to lose gracefully. And a lot
(32:27):
of these when I see a lot of like anti
trans athlete rhetoric, I feel like some of it is
coming from a place of you never learned to do that,
so you actually didn't learn what the sport should have
taught you.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
You know. Part of what I love about sport is
that often when you are competing with somebody or against somebody.
They are going to see the best versions of you
and the worst versions of you, and you're going to
see the best version of them and the odorst versions
of them. So there is sort of this inherent trust
(33:06):
in some ways that comes with participating in sport, and
I think that's also something that I really wish we
had more of. I love the idea of being truly
vulnerable in sport, and sport frankly, I think is one
of the spaces where most men feel like they can
(33:28):
be vulnerable. Yeah, just interesting.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
I think we did talk about that in our Male
Only this epidemic because it's one of the few things
they would do, like as in a friend group or
even if it's just watching sports. So yeah, that is interesting. Well,
I know this is a big question. We've talked about
it before on our show. But before we move into
(33:55):
the future of what we could maybe build better, this
didn't come out of nowhere, you do discuss the history
of gender segregation in sports and how it sort of
led us to where we are right now. And you
know some of the organizations you mentioned how they are
(34:17):
trying to change, But can you talk a little bit
about the history for a second.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
Yeah, I guess I should say first, I don't think
we can talk we can have this conversation without also
talking about race. When we look at the history of sport,
it's pretty clear, right, like people have been excluded, separate
but equal was a refrain, to be clear, that did
(34:45):
not work out well, both when it came to race
and when it came to sex or the separation of
men and women. When we look at the history of
binarid sport, a lot of people talk about how Title
(35:05):
nine was written so that women could have a separate
space of sport and could be protected in sport. That's
actually not why Title nine was written, and that's not
really how binaried sport began. So Title nine, this educational amendment,
was passed and enacted in the early nineteen seventies, and
(35:27):
the impetus behind it was we want to give the
underrepresented sex more resources in education systems. So actually a
big part of this was about allowing women to get
into law schools and medical schools. But the history is
more complicated than that. Regardless, sport was sort of a
(35:50):
byproduct of that. Right, people weren't necessarily considering sport at all,
but it turned out most federal education systems or education
systems that receive any federal funding, which is almost all
schools in this country, then needed to comply with Title
nine and not applied to sport. So all of a sudden, girls'
(36:13):
sports programs were getting money where girls were given access
to sport in ways that they had never had been
and there ultimately was a lot of tension between men's
sport and women's sport. Actually, the NC Double A and
(36:36):
really the people who were spearheading men's American Football and
the NC Double A are the ones who push for
binary sport. Because a lot of women started participating in
sport and they started to gain a lot of traction
really quickly. There were a huge number of spectators, a
lot of money going into women's sport pretty early on,
(37:01):
and ultimately there were people who said, we don't like this,
we don't feel like there's enough money to go around,
so we're going to contain women over in this corner
of sport so that men could maintain their rights to television, radio,
(37:22):
and other forms of income related to sport. So again,
I mean there's a lot there, But I think when
we talk about when we talk about trans women, a
(37:43):
lot of times people will say to me, it's unfair
because they're taking away opportunities from CIS women. And I
think we need to talk about that fear because I
hear it all the time. You hear it from certain
politicians and anti trans women advocates. I think that fear
(38:06):
is valid to say, I'm afraid that somebody is going
to come in and men or men might come in
and take over women's sport, And that fear is valid
because men have done that in women's sport. They still
try to, but trans women aren't men, right, So again,
(38:29):
I think it's this. It's a curious transference of our
fear of scarcity and our fear of what causes scarcity
in certain systems that's being transferred over to trans folks.
(38:50):
Women's sport is scarce, right, There is a scarcity mindset
whenever we talk about this, and it's because women's sport
is scarce. It's underfunded across the board. We don't get access,
we don't get sponsorships in the ways that men's sports do.
We never have. Still to this day, almost all institutions
(39:13):
are out of compliance with Title nine. But that scarcity
didn't come from trans athletes. So what if instead of
talking about trans athletes, we talk about how to make
sport less scarce for women and for men and for
trans athletes. We's start there.
Speaker 4 (39:34):
Yeah, you do talk about the scarcity model in this conversation,
and again this goes overall to all things intersectional, when
we talk about glass ceiling, for work, job, career, all
of that, it holds. But the one thing that has
worked as the boogeyman, the underlying idea is that if
(39:55):
we can hold limits for those who are marginalized, then
those who have already won or are already on top,
can remain on top. Which again is that conversation, and
you talk about it, and you're very open in your book
about how you came to this point of understanding, of
letting go of your own fears and because of the
scarcely amount realizing where the problem was, has begotten where
(40:19):
the problem lies. It's kind of that same level of
conversation about billionaires when we talk about people not having
jobs and such, or are like.
Speaker 3 (40:25):
M, it's not those who you're stealing jobs from? You
can we talk about that.
Speaker 4 (40:30):
We're not gonna talk about that, but I'm just saying
that that's kind of that top point.
Speaker 3 (40:33):
But how does that like, how did you come to
that point of understanding?
Speaker 4 (40:37):
This is where it is, This is the fear, This
is the basis of why we are scapegoating trans people
in general in this moment, and why this is only
the beginning for a larger conversation.
Speaker 2 (40:53):
Well, I think for me it was a journey. You know,
Ellie and I talk a lot about her journey in
this too, And Ellie was right off the bat like,
this is not right, that's it, like, let's figure it out.
And for me it was much more complicated. And I
(41:14):
think part of that is because a lot of my
own identity and my career was tied up in women's
sport in a very particular way. But for me, you know,
I what I was being told, essentially, I think, is
what a lot of people have been told. If we
allow trans athletes to enter women's sport, that's a slippery
(41:40):
slope and what does that mean for competition and women's
sport broadly? I did a lot of research, As I said,
I mean it took me years of looking at the
research and having a lot of conversations with trans athletes
and sis athletes to get to the point where I
(42:00):
could say, yeah, no, that's this just isn't right. It's
just not right. But I raise that too because I think,
you know, early in my career, when I was hired
by this LGBTQ rights organization, it was sort of positioned
to me like you're either four trans athletes or you're
(42:21):
against them, like there are two camps, and I just
I think that's also a false narrative that we need
to address. Right. First of all, there are a lot
of people who are in the middle. But beyond that,
I think it's also the fact that we're human beings
who can learn, and who can be curious, and who's
(42:42):
you know, thinking can evolve. And for me that did happen.
I was pretty intimidated by this topic overall, and as
I learned more, I mean, now my convictions are very clear,
but I think it took a lot. And something I
talk talk about in the book too, is it actually
(43:04):
took something pretty extreme, which was my dad died sort
of out of the blue, and as soon as that happened,
you know, they say that grief concentrates them now on love,
and for me, that was definitely the case. I realized
in this moment of grief. If I really focus on
(43:28):
what I love, I could set my fears aside and
I could see everything much much more clearly. Now. My hope,
of course, is not that everybody has to have something
that extreme, But the point is, if we can put
our fears to the side, what do we really think
about this? And why am I privileging my fear over
(43:52):
somebody else's.
Speaker 1 (43:54):
Yeah, it's kind of a daunting thing. But you did
discuss how we could build a better system that may
be of sports that is more inclusive, and what that
(44:18):
could look like. Could you talk about that.
Speaker 2 (44:22):
Yeah, of course we've talked a lot, and it's been
a little bit sad, it maybe a little depressing, But
the bottom line is, you know, I think this is
a wonderful moment for sport because in some ways it's
allowing us to really interrogate what's going on in sport,
(44:43):
what's working and what's not working, and when we can
get curious and imaginative about sport. I think there's a
lot of possibility and a lot of what we talked
about two is the idea that what if we didn't
fear trans athletes, but what if we look to trans
athletes and said, hey, what could the future of sport
look like? Right for the people who are most marginalized
(45:08):
in sport, arguably, to ask them what could a future
of sport look like? What they suggest is brilliant and beautiful.
One example I want to give, and this is a
little bit dark again, but I think it really highlights
for me one of the ways that we could reconsider
(45:31):
trans athletes involvement in sport. So I have a friend
trans woman who was a very high level rower in
international rowing. She left her home country. She went to
Canada and was rowing in elite Canadian boats on the
(45:55):
women's side, and I asked her about some of her experiences.
She told me a story of one of her coaches.
So she was competing in Canada. Team Canada hired a
new assistant coach for the women's team. This young man
(46:15):
came over from some other country and the first time
he walked into their space, she said, something doesn't feel
right about this guy. And her teammates all said, no,
that's just kind of men coaches, that's sort of like
how they are around women athletes. Turns out, of course,
(46:38):
two years later, allegations came out about him abusing athletes.
And you know, my friend just said, yeah, I've been
pointing this out the whole time. And the reason I
can point it out is because growing up and participating
in men's sport, I had never seen that, right, and
(47:02):
so immediately I knew this isn't this isn't right, this
isn't normal. And to hear all of the women say, yeah,
it's a little bit weird, but fine, it's normal, right.
I mean, that indicates so much to me about first
of all, how men are treated in our sporting systems,
(47:23):
how women are treated in our sporting systems, but also
what would it look like if we had people who
could help us navigate creating healthier sport on both sides, right.
I mean that's one sort of silly example, but I
(47:44):
think or one serious example. But some other examples, of course,
are like, it's not complicated, make sport free, get every
kid in sport. If you want to talk about fairness
in sport, the first stup you can take is to
give everybody free access to sport. Right. We give a
(48:06):
lot of other examples, of course, but I think the
bottom line for us is we want this to be
an invitation. While everybody's talking about sport, while people are
talking about trans athletes and sport, even people who maybe
don't have a vested interest in sport. Let's talk about
how we can utilize this moment to figure out how
to make sport a better social system for all people.
(48:29):
The end, right, the end.
Speaker 3 (48:31):
I love it.
Speaker 4 (48:32):
I'm over here in the amen choir going mm hmm,
that's right, Amen, Amen. But it is this conversation of
when it comes to intersectionality, when the most marginalized community
gets equity, then everyone are on equal playing fields, and
that benefits everyone. And it's just quite just this level
(48:52):
of simplicity that it's not talked about enough. But at
the same time, that is the most difficult thing for
a lot of people to understand and to even visualize.
Speaker 3 (49:02):
Honestly, even those who hope for it.
Speaker 2 (49:04):
I can't.
Speaker 4 (49:04):
I couldn't imagine what that actually looks like, which makes
me sad.
Speaker 2 (49:09):
Well, you know, I did want to ask you both.
I meant to ask you before we started, but I've
listened to your podcast and I'm curious what your personal
relationships are to sport. If you're willing to talk about it, Annie,
go ahead.
Speaker 1 (49:29):
I was very competitive kid. I grew up playing a
lot of different sports. A lot of it was for fun.
When I was asked to actually compete, like at a
I got really good at gymnastics and I got asked
to go to a competition, and I quit because I
had like a fear of proving, I guess, proving the
(49:53):
stereotype like oh, she's not actually good. And then when
I got older and I became uncomfortable with my body,
I quit. I pretty much quit, but I loved it,
Like I thought it was so fun and competitive and
just I loved it until all these We.
Speaker 2 (50:13):
Did have a creepy, creepy coach too.
Speaker 1 (50:15):
By the way, all these other things kind of encroached
that I was told, like you can't be too good,
or no boy will want to date you, which good riddance.
Speaker 2 (50:26):
I think that could.
Speaker 1 (50:27):
Care less than get. But at the time I was like,
oh no, so I did do what you said earlier
of kind of making myself smaller, And then eventually retreated
all together. And when I got older, I got much
more into like things I could do by myself, which
I guess is kind of sad, But I got into
(50:47):
like knife throwing and stuff.
Speaker 2 (50:50):
She do too.
Speaker 3 (50:52):
And Arrowstually, I don't know why I said like that.
I know what that is.
Speaker 1 (50:58):
Yeah, yeah, but I look back and it does make
me really sad because I think I would have really
enjoyed it. I had a lot of friends on the
soccer team. I think I would have had a great
time if I stayed. But I was just I was
so self conscious and so worried about how other people
would perceive me, particularly men and boys.
Speaker 2 (51:18):
So I quit.
Speaker 4 (51:19):
Yeah, for me, I grew up in a very rural town,
and so the accessibility part there wasn't a lot of
different sports. It was football, you know, It's one of
those like you got football, you got baseball, you got
basketball and running. And I'm also very grew up with
a lot of trauma. We love trauma around here, right,
And so that made me and that if I'm not
(51:40):
the best, then I shouldn't do it at all, Like
it's kind of that level. And so I didn't even
want to try if I didn't think that I could
be the best. Like at this level of anxiety of
performance anxiety as well as I had to prove myself
as existing, so proving myself in sports was even harder.
I as an adult. I really got too though, finally
(52:01):
started doing things like running, and I really did enjoy
doing like half marathons and such until my body was like,
you're too old for this. Stop it. It was really
nice and the commodity of like runners seeing each other,
like giving each other a nod type of thing, and
then doing the races was really fun. And I think
more of like I did cheer, so you know, but
(52:22):
you know how that becomes very feminized, especially in a
rural town, in that it's not sport, it's not competitive,
and I'm like, I don't know, we compete. I don't
know what you mean, but but stuff like that. So
it was very small opportunities because as I grew up,
I was like, man that existed, I would have loved
to try that because it seemed like I had a
lot of anger issues and I would have loved to
try some would like you know, those sports that help
(52:44):
you get out. That meditated a little bit. So it
was a It's an interesting story in that level of again,
what is accessible?
Speaker 3 (52:51):
Who has the money?
Speaker 4 (52:52):
And also I grew up in a fairly not poor family,
but we definitely didn't have extra money, and I was
the youngest child so by the time it got to me,
the funds were a little more dry. So being able
to afford even recreational sportes, you know, trying to get
the uniforms and any of those stuff was actually a
lot of money. Traveling cost a lot of money for
even children's recreational stuff. So I was definitely less prone
(53:16):
to be in sports. I was a nerd that left
to read books instead.
Speaker 3 (53:22):
Me too, That's the way I in that category. Yeah,
you still.
Speaker 1 (53:27):
Though, you still exercise, and I did. I used to
run a lot too.
Speaker 4 (53:31):
I forgot more than me. She went like marathons during
the week just for the heck of it.
Speaker 1 (53:39):
Yeah, And then I said I wasn't a runner, and
the guy who was selling me shoes was like, did
you just tell me you run half marathon every weekend.
I was like yeah, He's like, you're a runner. Oh
got it, got it.
Speaker 3 (53:54):
She still does the Pchtree road race. That's huge down here.
Speaker 2 (53:57):
Yeah, I thank you both for for saying that. I
was really curious as I've been, you know, listening to
the podcast. You know, I think a lot like, okay,
so my objective in life trans athletes. You know, I'm
talking a lot about them right now. But the bottom
line is, I really want people to feel more confident
(54:23):
in their bodies. I think we live in a society
and a world that constantly, constantly tells us to not
trust our bodies, to not be in our bodies, to
not like our bodies, to not appreciate our bodies. And
(54:46):
I just, I truly believe that a more embodied world,
with more embodied people would be not just more free,
but more welcoming for everyone. And I think a lot
of what you just talked about and your own experiences
(55:09):
and sport, that's precisely what we need to solve all
of that. It should not be the case that somebody
says to you you're not a runner, right, I mean,
whether you're saying it to yourself, somebody got that story
in your head, right, Let's do better for everybody.
Speaker 4 (55:34):
Yes, I think we need you around just to give
us the pep talk, let inspire pep talk.
Speaker 3 (55:39):
In the end, we might just need you to come back,
you know.
Speaker 6 (55:43):
I'm also like it's one of the few places where
I get to be like really silly, Like it used
to be the case that it was one of the
few spaces where I felt like I could be truly
competitive and not judged for it.
Speaker 2 (55:58):
And now I'm like, it's one of the few spaces
as an adult where I feel like I get to
be like silly and I get to like mess up,
and I guess if somebody judges me, I'm like.
Speaker 3 (56:11):
Whatever, you're not doing it. I'm doing it.
Speaker 2 (56:14):
Yeah yeah, But like god, I just want that for everybody.
I want us to all have a space where we
can go and just like be, just be with ourselves.
Speaker 1 (56:25):
Well, thank you, thank you, thank you so much for
being here. You have been a delight. We would love
to have you back. Where can the good listeners find you?
Speaker 2 (56:38):
Social media of course, doctor Bay PhD on Instagram, LinkedIn.
Of course I don't use x I'll have a website,
And of course, you know, highly encourage folks to buy
the book. Most often we say too, even if you
(56:59):
don't read the book, hopefully there's somebody in your life
who you can give the book too. So maybe it's
you know, uncle Joe. Next year Thanksgiving. When you mentioned
that you are a women's sports fan and this topic
comes up, it's a great talking point. But of course,
(57:19):
also please feel free to follow Ellie, Ellie Rocher and
Chris Mosher and for folks who are really looking for
activations and ways to get more involved, Chris always offers
great device, great talking points and great action steps people
can take on his instagram, the Chris Mosher.
Speaker 4 (57:41):
And the name of the book is Fair Game, trans
Athlete and the Future of Sports by Ellie Rocher and
doctor Anna Bit. And I'm going to put that out
there again because you know, I don't know if we've
said the title too many times. We need to say
it more. And it's a fantastic book. It's an amazing read,
and I think it's very important for today in context
is what well every day, but especially with everything going down,
(58:04):
and especially to note what is happening in this time
before everything is being silenced in a race.
Speaker 1 (58:11):
Yes, if you would like to contact us, you can
or email is Hello at stuff wenever told you dot com.
We're also on Blue Skye Mom Stuff podcasts or on
Instagram and TikTok at stuff I've never told you. We
have a YouTube channel. We have some merchandise at copp Bureau,
and we have a book you can get where if
you get your books. Thanks as always to here as
superducer Christina Executive Prusin Maya and our contributor Joey. Thank
(58:33):
you and thanks to you for listening stuff I've Never
told you Instruction by Heart Radio. For more podcast from
my Heart Radio, you can check out the I Heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows,
Hey, this is Anny and Samantha. I'm welcome to Stuff
I'll Never Told you, prodiction of by Heart Radio, and
today we are beyond excited to be joined by educator, coach,
scholar and author of the book Fair Game, Doctor Anna Bath,
(00:27):
or Bath as you introduced yourself before we started. Welcome
to the show. We're so happy to have you.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Thank you. I'm very excited to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Yes, we already kind of had a We should have
been recording much earlier because we were just chatting before
we started. We have a lot to cover, so can
you give our audience a broader introduction. You've done a
lot of yourself.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Sure. Yeah. So I'm doctor Anna Bathe I use shere
her pronouns. I am a scholar, I'm a researcher. I
was a two sport college athlete and after graduating from college,
went on to be a collegiate coach and eventually to
(01:17):
get a PhD. And while I was doing my PhD,
I was studying women in leadership positions in sport. And
as I was finishing my graduate degree and I was
looking for a job, I was offered a position with
an LGBTQ rights organization. So this was about I guess
(01:39):
this was six years ago. So I started working in
this space, and I really didn't know a whole lot
about the topic of trans athletes in particular. But all
of a sudden, I was in a position where I
was in charge of research for this organization and I
(02:00):
was getting a lot of questions, a lot of questions
about trans athletes, and at first I didn't really have
an answer, and so I spent five years doing a
lot of my own research. I was being told a
lot of different narratives, I was being pulled in a
(02:22):
lot of different directions, and I thought, no, I need
to figure out what I think about this. I need
to do my own research and figure out what I
think and what I believe to be true. And so
that has culminated in this book.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Yes, and Samantha and I have both read it, and
it is wonderful and is so needed, and it's so succinct,
and it just really articulated a lot of things me
personally that I've been needing to be articulated in a
clear way that I've felt it. So it's just such
(03:00):
a timely, timely read and very very important. So can
you tell us about the book and the process of
writing it, and what it was like to have it
come out right now, I.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Would love to Well, it's important to say this was
not done alone. I have my co author Ellie Rocher.
Chris Moser, who wrote the FOURD to the book, has
been an amazing advocate for trans athlete rights for it
seems like forever. Really, I met Ellie many years ago
(03:40):
and she was aware of my work and we had
been talking about it. And as I was thinking about
trans athletes and getting all of these questions about what
was going on, I started to really try to put
more information out there and say, hey, you know, here's
what we're talking about in terms of numbers, here's what
we know. Oh, here's what we don't know. And I
(04:04):
found that it just wasn't landing. People weren't people were
I mean broadly just disregarding the data and the science.
And Ellie and I talked a lot about it and agreed,
you know, part of the problem here is we're doing
a lot of talking about trans athletes without talking to
(04:25):
trans athletes. And so the impetus for the book was
really to say, hey, we want to introduce twenty transathletes
to the world. You know, most often when people talk
to me about this topic. You know, whenever I say
I work in sport, women's sport, if I say I
work in gender and sport, the question invariably is, what
(04:46):
do you think about trans women in sport? My first
response is, well, have you ever met a transathlete? And
I realized that most people also had an opinion about transathletes,
but it never met a transathlete. And so when we
wrote the book, it was really like, hey, we want
to introduce these twenty trans athletes. And of course we
wrote it three years ago, and now we're in a
(05:08):
pretty different political moment around this topic. And it turns
out that the twenty athletes we interviewed now, of them,
only one legally can compete in the United States, and
so the conversation has really shifted. The book was stories data,
(05:29):
and now it's somewhat more political, more politicized. I would say,
I don't know if that answers the question, but that's
how we did it.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
No, No, it does. It does answer the question, and
I think going to that point of being politicized, this
is such a political lightning rod issue and as you
point out in the book, trans athletes make up one
percent of sports participants, but it, according to conservative politicians,
(06:09):
they must make up so much more, like such a
bigger issue than that. There are hundreds of bills banning
trans athletes that have been introduced. As you said, now,
that's such a disheartening number. Only one can legally compete.
Of the people you interviewed, why do you think this
is such a hot button issue in our politics?
Speaker 2 (06:32):
I wish I had a clear answer to that. You know,
I do find it really curious because for a long
time people would ask me about this, and I was like,
why are we even talking about this? I mean, like,
we are talking about a handful of athletes. So if
we're going to talk about sport in general, and we're
(06:52):
going to talk about gender and sport, we're going to
talk about women in sport, we have many or fish
to fry. Right. Why it's such a topic is because
people have made it into a topic, and particularly because
conservative politicians have made it into a topic. Right. I mean,
(07:12):
when we look at the media in twenty twenty one,
there were more conservative politicians quoted in the media talking
about trans athletes than there were trans athletes quoted talking
about sport or their experience. That is mind blowing to me. Right,
Why there's such a focus, You know, I can speculate
(07:35):
that it's to get elected, that it's to get votes.
There's money behind it. I mean Riley Gaines is an
classic example of that. She has made a lot of
money off of talking about this topic. But I think
ultimately this is a lot about distraction. It's a lot
(07:56):
about talking about sport without talking about the real issues
in sport. And I think it's about controlling bodies. Yeah,
I mean it's not lost on us, right that this
is happening on the heels of overturning Roe v. Wade. Right,
(08:20):
we're talking about who has control over whose bodies and
in what ways.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
You do a great job.
Speaker 4 (08:27):
I mean in the book that you are all right
about the fact that the usage of trans women versus
transmit which is a little different context, and how this
all links to violence and policing not only trans bodies,
but cis women's bodies as well. And that is the
biggest part, because you also go in to talk about
the people who gain the most here are the conservative
(08:47):
politicians who are talking about using this asset of platform,
and you kind of already mentioned, but can you talk
more about that? Because I think this is where we
talk about. This is the intersectionality of it all, Like
no one really wants to talk about the bigger picture
and think that when they say we're protecting young girls
or women in general, is not actually about that.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
I think if we want to talk about protecting girls
and women in sport, then we need to talk about
what's actually impacting girls and women in sport. And of
course these issues are ones that impact a lot of people,
even though it's not in sport. I find it shocking
when people talk about trans athletes and the harms that
(09:33):
they don't talk about the rampant abuse that happens in sport.
I also find it curious when we talk about trans
athletes that there is such a focus on CIS women,
mostly because I think about you know, a lot of
what we talk about in the book is about imagining
(09:53):
a different future of sport, right, Like, let's think about
what sport could be. And when we think about that, obviously,
you know, we're not just talking about trans athletes they
make up a very small portion of the population.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
But we're talking about.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
Creating healthy sports systems and systems where people can participate
and be themselves but also be safe. I think about
that a lot when I think about men's sport too. Right,
there's only been one study so far on the impact
of these conversations around trans women on CIS boys, but
(10:33):
it really makes me wonder, what are we saying to
young boys when we say, whatever you are, do not
be a trans woman. What does it say when you're
saying to a boy, whatever you are, don't be a woman,
don't be feminine? That I think gets to the crux
(10:55):
of it. A lot of this is about a reasoner
of masculinity in very particular ways.
Speaker 4 (11:03):
Oh yeah, I literally when you talked about the linkage
about the damage on CIS boys. It started because we've
had a big conversation over here in the last few
months and talking about the loneliness epidemic of men and
male loneliness and how it's kind of gotten to this
greater force of like, it's not necessarily true that there's
more loneliness than men. It's just that the violence that
(11:25):
happens and the impact overall is that when men are lonely,
it impacts women because we are the ones who are
getting taken out on in general, and this level of
conversation that actually, when we talk about anti trans violence
and rhetoric, we we're pushing on that toxic mexiculinity onto
(11:45):
young CIS boys, and oh my god, that hits something
like y'all writing that is like this is this bigger
relate like language of the overall simple statement patriarchy hurts
everyone and overall like how this really does damage the
society as a whole, but it really is just as
bad for SITH boys as it is for any other
(12:06):
gender or any other part of any other marginalized community
in itself. Can you kind of expound on that, because
that was a deep statement that I feel like we're
not talking enough about.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
Yeah, you know, it's interesting when we look at states,
and this was primarily the case before the last two years,
but when we look at states within the US that
had policies in sport and in their education systems that
were inclusive of trans athletes and trans kids, those were
(12:40):
places where cisgender girls also were thriving. So basically, studies
show if you have protective policies for trans athletes, then
all athletes are going to thrive. Cis gender girls, in particular,
in those states would report being happier participating in sport,
(13:03):
They stayed in sport longer, they had a healthier relationship
with our bodies, and expressed more confidence. And so this
is about policy, but it's really about how do we
create cultures where people can learn thrive be in their
bodies in ways that are healthy. Right, And so I
(13:27):
wish we had more data on how boys perform in
those spaces too, But it makes complete sense if you
have policies, if you're educating coaches, sport organization leaders, even
athletes and parents to be inclusive, you're going to create
(13:47):
healthier spaces for all athletes, including SIS boys. And I
would say CIS boys in some ways are the people
who need it the most, especially right now.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Yeah, I was struck by you mentioned kind of the
toxicity of the locker room talk, and I was like, oh, yeah,
still so pervasive. Something else that you tackle in this book,
(14:27):
because you tackle a lot of mists around this whole,
all of this discussion around trans athletes, and one of
the ones that I have often thought doesn't make sense
but people present as fact is kind of the scientific
one because I've always personally thought like, well, people just
naturally are different, Like I don't understand this, but they're
(14:51):
always is always presented as sis, women are weaker, men
are superior, and this fact and here the science and
in the book you talk about that and you point
out that a lot of the data is either faulty
or just not there. Yes, so can you discuss please?
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Yeah? Okay, So I'm a sais woman, right, clearly have
a vested interest in sport. So the idea when people
say to me, well, like, all men are bigger, faster,
stronger than all women, I mean, first of all, it
kind of irks me, like, let's just put that out there.
But also it's not true, right, There are plenty of
(15:35):
examples of sports where women perform as well, if not
better than men. We're learning more and more about those sports.
Ultra running is a great example, and we talk about
that in the book But what we really know about
athleticism and physiology is there isn't great data, especially when
(15:58):
we're talking solely about bodies, right, But beyond that, I mean, okay,
first of all, it's way more complicated than that, right, sport,
What are we talking about when we talk about sport?
There are so many different kinds of sports that value
so many different parts of what it means to be
an athlete. So to broadly state that all men are
(16:22):
better than all women in all sports is ludicrous. Still,
when we look at the science too, and when we
look at the data, what we really know is physiology. Okay,
there are some variables that can have an impact in
certain sports, but what really broadly makes a great athlete
(16:44):
science is the data is very clear. It's who has money,
who has access, and who has the resources and support
early on in their lives to become an elite athlete.
That's Theottom line. And so when we look at who's
winning in sport, if we look at you know, who
wins Olympic medals, it is athletes who have had access,
(17:09):
and some do have genetic variations that make them better
at sport, Michael Phelps's case in point. But overall, the
people who have always won in sport are still winning.
It's the people who have the resources to be able
to be good at sport and to put time and
energy into it. So when we talk about, you know,
(17:32):
the science, when we talk about the physiology, sure, I'm
happy to talk testosterone. I'm happy to talk about you
know what impacts athletic ability, But if we really want
to talk about it, then let's talk about who has
the money to do it?
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Yes, because it's it's there are so many systemic things.
And as you point out, because this argument is usually used,
it's why trans women should not compete, because then that
is unfair to cist women, whereas the other argument about
trans men, it's almost never made. But as you illustrate
(18:09):
throughout the book through these interviews, to be a trans athlete,
especially younger, you have all of these obstacles to go through.
You have all of these systemic things that are preventing you.
So of course it makes sense that you know, we
unfortunately don't see a lot of them in more spotlight.
(18:34):
But I don't know, that's just another thing that I
it makes sense to me that it would be more
about resources than it would be about I don't know,
testosterone or whatever it is.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Yeah, and I think it really raises the question of
Like the question that I think it raises is is
our sports system working? And you know, people don't necessarily
want to think about that, But the bottom line is
in this country, you know, the United States is one
(19:08):
of the few countries in the world that doesn't have
federal oversight of sport. We don't have a federal governing
body for sport like most countries, especially those in the
global North, and within our education system, what we've seen
broadly is physical education is being redacted across the country.
(19:29):
So the only way kids get access to their bodies
typically is through sport. And because sport isn't regulated, it's
sort of like the wild wild West. I mean, it's
really we are operating in a pay to play system.
So the only kids who get access to their bodies,
(19:50):
which I think access to your body, to be empowered
in your body as a human right, are the ones
who can afford it or who have families who can
afford it. That is a really big and sticky point,
and it raises some really big questions. But I think
a lot of the conversations we're having about trans athletes again,
(20:11):
you know, the irony is just so so deep that
we want to talk about trans athletes, but we don't
want to talk about pay to play. So that's, you know,
for me again, when we get when I mentioned the
distraction technique earlier, it makes me wonder, is this a
distraction from the realities of people not knowing how to
(20:34):
or wanting to address all the issues that we have
in sport broadly, right, You do.
Speaker 4 (20:39):
A really good point into like in the conversation specifically,
I think it was Sue. I'm trying to remember the
story that I'm getting all confused where she talks about
who ended up beating men when she was able to
race against it as a like ginger neutral type of
I think it was ultra running.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
I'm trying to remember all those stories.
Speaker 4 (20:59):
And after that the league kind of had a problem,
was like, you know what, maybe we should we should
ginger these we should ginger these types of.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
Sports so we have you know, fair play and all this.
Speaker 4 (21:09):
And then the quote said the timing of the sex
segregation seems driven by a desire to protect men and
not women, And I was like, yes, because we've talked
about the beginning of Olympics and as well as the
Boston Marathon, and I know y'all brought that in its
examples of like not allowing women to participate in saying
this to protect them and they're too gentile and they
(21:31):
can't do this sports because they're not built for it.
But in actuality it feels more like, oh, but we
want to make sure that men have dignity enough to
beat them and so they don't want this.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
Type of competition.
Speaker 4 (21:42):
And I thought like that was a big statement in
itself as well, like kind of protecting men's pride over
actual sportsmanship.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
And I just really like the hit.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
Yeah, And I think it's I think it's complicated, right,
because as in some ways this book has brought me
more empathy for men than I ever expected, because I
do feel empathetic. I mean, I look at my nephews.
They're young, they're six eight, and I look at them
(22:19):
competing against girls just playing, and the fear that I
see if they are beaten by a girl in sport
in any way, it breaks my heart. And then of
course girls end up playing smaller or end up leaving sport.
(22:41):
But yeah, I mean protecting men again. This really it's like,
can't we think of something better? Can't we think of
some other way to teach boys about how they can
be the best versions of themselves with out having it
be a comparison to a girl or a woman or
(23:05):
to other boys. I mean that's a radical thought, and
for me, it's an exciting one and I think a
lot of what we talk about in the book too,
and a lot of our stance on this is Don't
get me wrong, I'm critical a sport, but I love sport.
Sport has changed my life. I love it, I love
being a coach, I love being an athlete, and I
(23:27):
want everybody to have access to a sporting system and
to their bodies that that's healthy and not based in comparison,
but the amount of money and energy and time that
we put into sport in this country, and even into
this conversation about trans athletes, what if we put that
into creating a better system of sport where boys weren't
(23:51):
afraid to lose to little girls? What would that do
for our country? What would that do for our worlds well?
Speaker 1 (23:59):
And one thing that really struck me reading this is
that a lot of the people you interviewed were very, very,
very competitive, but plenty of them I don't say weren't,
but they just more wanted the experience of knowing what
(24:19):
my body can do, how far can I push myself?
And it was never about like going to the Olympics,
or never about like anything like that. It was just
I enjoy the sport. I enjoy feeling empowered in my
body and knowing what it can do. And I just
love that because I think so many times we get
lost in sort of this conversation of just professional athletes.
(24:42):
It's all about winning, but for some people you interviewed,
it was much more about like, I get to be
a part of a team now and I get to
see what my body can do now, and how powerful
that was. So can you talk about why that is
so important in the role of sports for trans gender folks?
Why can that be so powerful and important?
Speaker 2 (25:03):
People participate in sport for a lot of different reasons, right,
And I think broadly the point that we are making
is simply trans athletes participate in sport for all the
same reasons that SIS athletes do, and most often it's
not because they're aiming to win an Olympic gold medal.
(25:24):
I mean, maybe they are, and that's great too, but
I think the impetus here and I think it's really
important to say too so when we talk to kids,
all of the studies for a very long time who
have where they've interviewed or surveyed children about why they
participate in sport, why they choose the sports that they
(25:47):
participate in why they stay in sport. The answer almost
always is because my friends are. Of course, that makes
complete sense to me. Right. So to then say, okay, well, actually,
all we're going to talk about is elite competition gets
(26:09):
away from the fact that, to your point, most people
participate in sport because it's fun, because they have fun
doing it, because it's enjoyable, because they get to be
with their friends, right. And that's true for most adults too.
And I think when we look at trans athletes in particular,
I mean most of them, I would.
Speaker 5 (26:30):
Say, why would you put yourself in that situation if
you don't love it, if you're not enjoying it, if
you're not having fun in that space, particularly now, right.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
So yeah, and then of course you know there are
all of these benefits to sport. Then we talk a
little bit about that in the book too. But the
bottom line is sport can be really good for people,
and it can be really bad for people, and we
have to name that, and we have to say and
(27:05):
I think the broader point of the book is to say,
let's make sport healthier, more fun, make it easier for
kids to hang out with their friends in the.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
Sport let's give them time to play, right.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
I mean, it's it's not complicated. It's not complicated, right.
Speaker 4 (27:36):
One of the things I loved about your storytelling about
having the transit community to come out and tell their
stories are both the mixture of like the good experiences
and the bad experiences. But not only would the good experiences.
It was not just about the individuality, but you even
talk about the coach's reactions. The team makes reactions the
good and the bad. And I love that because oftentimes
(27:56):
in these stories we hear the pity porn of it all,
and I like that there's so much like we want
to see the trauma. But you make sure to balance
both of those narratives so that we can have a
point of view of what it looks like to have
great team advocacy and people who are supported, versus what
it looks like when they don't.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
But you have that balance.
Speaker 4 (28:16):
Why do you think, especially in this type of conversation,
it's important to have individuals telling those types of stories
and having those balances in this type of advocacy work
because essentially this is advocacy work because we know at
this point we're having to fight for a right for
an individual who just won't want to be healthy and
have fun.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
Well, I think first of all the benefits of sport physiologically,
you know, we know a lot about that. Of course,
it can help with confidence, with empowerment, there's all of that.
But I think you know earlier you mentioned a lot
(28:59):
of conversations recently about social isolation, and I think it's
important to underscore that sport can be often is a
great space of community building, even if it's an individual sport. Right,
You don't do sport alone ever, and so for us too,
(29:24):
a lot of this is talking about how we counter
social isolation and how sport can be that, which again
raises a question for me of why in the world
would we take away somebody's access to community because we
want them to feel isolated, right? And why would they
(29:49):
Why would folks want us to feel isolated? A lot
of what we talk about too in the book and
well a little bit is people who don't have access
to their bodies or communities are much easier to control, right,
And so sport can be a counter to that. We
(30:09):
hope it is a counter to that. We want people
to be in their bodies, we want them to be
feeling what's happening in the world around us, because if
we're feeling it, then we're paying attention, right and most
often our bodies tell us pretty quickly what's going on
and what to trust and not to trust. So teaching
(30:29):
people that teaching kids that I think matters, but it's
also teaching people how to be in community together. You know,
I grew up playing sport, and I should say both
of my parents are from Montana, and so I think
that they always sort of imbuede in us a very
(30:50):
clear sensibility of how you should operate in the world,
which is you have to live in community. So when
I started sport as a kid, my parents always told me, Hey,
this is a space where you're going to meet people
who are not like you. This is going to be
a space where they're going to people be, people who
(31:11):
think differently than you, who operate in the world differently
than you, And this is a chance to get to
know them, to figure out how to work together. Even
if you don't like somebody, right, you're going to have
to work with them to be the best versions of
yourself and to help them be the best version of themselves.
And so again, I mean I think when we it's
(31:34):
not just about community. It's not just about the coaches
for supporting the athletes. Of course it is, but it's
also about how we learn to relate to each other
and have hard conversations.
Speaker 4 (31:43):
Like you gotta be the first person I've met that
come from Montana.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
It's beautiful. It's beautiful.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
I'm trying to remember. I'm like, have all of the
people that have met haven't met anybody from Montana? That's amazing.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
Yeah, I think that.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
I was.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
I mean, this is one of many thoughts I had
when I was after I finished the book. But it's
so true that, you know, being in sport does you
have to learn how to navigate with people, how to
work with people you might not agree with. But I
think you also have to learn how to lose. You
have to learn how to lose gracefully. And a lot
(32:27):
of these when I see a lot of like anti
trans athlete rhetoric, I feel like some of it is
coming from a place of you never learned to do that,
so you actually didn't learn what the sport should have
taught you.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
You know. Part of what I love about sport is
that often when you are competing with somebody or against somebody.
They are going to see the best versions of you
and the worst versions of you, and you're going to
see the best version of them and the odorst versions
of them. So there is sort of this inherent trust
(33:06):
in some ways that comes with participating in sport, and
I think that's also something that I really wish we
had more of. I love the idea of being truly
vulnerable in sport, and sport frankly, I think is one
of the spaces where most men feel like they can
(33:28):
be vulnerable. Yeah, just interesting.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
I think we did talk about that in our Male
Only this epidemic because it's one of the few things
they would do, like as in a friend group or
even if it's just watching sports. So yeah, that is interesting. Well,
I know this is a big question. We've talked about
it before on our show. But before we move into
(33:55):
the future of what we could maybe build better, this
didn't come out of nowhere, you do discuss the history
of gender segregation in sports and how it sort of
led us to where we are right now. And you
know some of the organizations you mentioned how they are
(34:17):
trying to change, But can you talk a little bit
about the history for a second.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
Yeah, I guess I should say first, I don't think
we can talk we can have this conversation without also
talking about race. When we look at the history of sport,
it's pretty clear, right, like people have been excluded, separate
but equal was a refrain, to be clear, that did
(34:45):
not work out well, both when it came to race
and when it came to sex or the separation of
men and women. When we look at the history of
binarid sport, a lot of people talk about how Title
(35:05):
nine was written so that women could have a separate
space of sport and could be protected in sport. That's
actually not why Title nine was written, and that's not
really how binaried sport began. So Title nine, this educational amendment,
was passed and enacted in the early nineteen seventies, and
(35:27):
the impetus behind it was we want to give the
underrepresented sex more resources in education systems. So actually a
big part of this was about allowing women to get
into law schools and medical schools. But the history is
more complicated than that. Regardless, sport was sort of a
(35:50):
byproduct of that. Right, people weren't necessarily considering sport at all,
but it turned out most federal education systems or education
systems that receive any federal funding, which is almost all
schools in this country, then needed to comply with Title
nine and not applied to sport. So all of a sudden, girls'
(36:13):
sports programs were getting money where girls were given access
to sport in ways that they had never had been
and there ultimately was a lot of tension between men's
sport and women's sport. Actually, the NC Double A and
(36:36):
really the people who were spearheading men's American Football and
the NC Double A are the ones who push for
binary sport. Because a lot of women started participating in
sport and they started to gain a lot of traction
really quickly. There were a huge number of spectators, a
lot of money going into women's sport pretty early on,
(37:01):
and ultimately there were people who said, we don't like this,
we don't feel like there's enough money to go around,
so we're going to contain women over in this corner
of sport so that men could maintain their rights to television, radio,
(37:22):
and other forms of income related to sport. So again,
I mean there's a lot there, But I think when
we talk about when we talk about trans women, a
(37:43):
lot of times people will say to me, it's unfair
because they're taking away opportunities from CIS women. And I
think we need to talk about that fear because I
hear it all the time. You hear it from certain
politicians and anti trans women advocates. I think that fear
(38:06):
is valid to say, I'm afraid that somebody is going
to come in and men or men might come in
and take over women's sport, And that fear is valid
because men have done that in women's sport. They still
try to, but trans women aren't men, right, So again,
(38:29):
I think it's this. It's a curious transference of our
fear of scarcity and our fear of what causes scarcity
in certain systems that's being transferred over to trans folks.
(38:50):
Women's sport is scarce, right, There is a scarcity mindset
whenever we talk about this, and it's because women's sport
is scarce. It's underfunded across the board. We don't get access,
we don't get sponsorships in the ways that men's sports do.
We never have. Still to this day, almost all institutions
(39:13):
are out of compliance with Title nine. But that scarcity
didn't come from trans athletes. So what if instead of
talking about trans athletes, we talk about how to make
sport less scarce for women and for men and for
trans athletes. We's start there.
Speaker 4 (39:34):
Yeah, you do talk about the scarcity model in this conversation,
and again this goes overall to all things intersectional, when
we talk about glass ceiling, for work, job, career, all
of that, it holds. But the one thing that has
worked as the boogeyman, the underlying idea is that if
(39:55):
we can hold limits for those who are marginalized, then
those who have already won or are already on top,
can remain on top. Which again is that conversation, and
you talk about it, and you're very open in your book
about how you came to this point of understanding, of
letting go of your own fears and because of the
scarcely amount realizing where the problem was, has begotten where
(40:19):
the problem lies. It's kind of that same level of
conversation about billionaires when we talk about people not having
jobs and such, or are like.
Speaker 3 (40:25):
M, it's not those who you're stealing jobs from? You
can we talk about that.
Speaker 4 (40:30):
We're not gonna talk about that, but I'm just saying
that that's kind of that top point.
Speaker 3 (40:33):
But how does that like, how did you come to
that point of understanding?
Speaker 4 (40:37):
This is where it is, This is the fear, This
is the basis of why we are scapegoating trans people
in general in this moment, and why this is only
the beginning for a larger conversation.
Speaker 2 (40:53):
Well, I think for me it was a journey. You know,
Ellie and I talk a lot about her journey in
this too, And Ellie was right off the bat like,
this is not right, that's it, like, let's figure it out.
And for me it was much more complicated. And I
(41:14):
think part of that is because a lot of my
own identity and my career was tied up in women's
sport in a very particular way. But for me, you know,
I what I was being told, essentially, I think, is
what a lot of people have been told. If we
allow trans athletes to enter women's sport, that's a slippery
(41:40):
slope and what does that mean for competition and women's
sport broadly? I did a lot of research, As I said,
I mean it took me years of looking at the
research and having a lot of conversations with trans athletes
and sis athletes to get to the point where I
(42:00):
could say, yeah, no, that's this just isn't right. It's
just not right. But I raise that too because I think,
you know, early in my career, when I was hired
by this LGBTQ rights organization, it was sort of positioned
to me like you're either four trans athletes or you're
(42:21):
against them, like there are two camps, and I just
I think that's also a false narrative that we need
to address. Right. First of all, there are a lot
of people who are in the middle. But beyond that,
I think it's also the fact that we're human beings
who can learn, and who can be curious, and who's
(42:42):
you know, thinking can evolve. And for me that did happen.
I was pretty intimidated by this topic overall, and as
I learned more, I mean, now my convictions are very clear,
but I think it took a lot. And something I
talk talk about in the book too, is it actually
(43:04):
took something pretty extreme, which was my dad died sort
of out of the blue, and as soon as that happened,
you know, they say that grief concentrates them now on love,
and for me, that was definitely the case. I realized
in this moment of grief. If I really focus on
(43:28):
what I love, I could set my fears aside and
I could see everything much much more clearly. Now. My hope,
of course, is not that everybody has to have something
that extreme, But the point is, if we can put
our fears to the side, what do we really think
about this? And why am I privileging my fear over
(43:52):
somebody else's.
Speaker 1 (43:54):
Yeah, it's kind of a daunting thing. But you did
discuss how we could build a better system that may
be of sports that is more inclusive, and what that
(44:18):
could look like. Could you talk about that.
Speaker 2 (44:22):
Yeah, of course we've talked a lot, and it's been
a little bit sad, it maybe a little depressing, But
the bottom line is, you know, I think this is
a wonderful moment for sport because in some ways it's
allowing us to really interrogate what's going on in sport,
(44:43):
what's working and what's not working, and when we can
get curious and imaginative about sport. I think there's a
lot of possibility and a lot of what we talked
about two is the idea that what if we didn't
fear trans athletes, but what if we look to trans
athletes and said, hey, what could the future of sport
look like? Right for the people who are most marginalized
(45:08):
in sport, arguably, to ask them what could a future
of sport look like? What they suggest is brilliant and beautiful.
One example I want to give, and this is a
little bit dark again, but I think it really highlights
for me one of the ways that we could reconsider
(45:31):
trans athletes involvement in sport. So I have a friend
trans woman who was a very high level rower in
international rowing. She left her home country. She went to
Canada and was rowing in elite Canadian boats on the
(45:55):
women's side, and I asked her about some of her experiences.
She told me a story of one of her coaches.
So she was competing in Canada. Team Canada hired a
new assistant coach for the women's team. This young man
(46:15):
came over from some other country and the first time
he walked into their space, she said, something doesn't feel
right about this guy. And her teammates all said, no,
that's just kind of men coaches, that's sort of like
how they are around women athletes. Turns out, of course,
(46:38):
two years later, allegations came out about him abusing athletes.
And you know, my friend just said, yeah, I've been
pointing this out the whole time. And the reason I
can point it out is because growing up and participating
in men's sport, I had never seen that, right, and
(47:02):
so immediately I knew this isn't this isn't right, this
isn't normal. And to hear all of the women say, yeah,
it's a little bit weird, but fine, it's normal, right.
I mean, that indicates so much to me about first
of all, how men are treated in our sporting systems,
(47:23):
how women are treated in our sporting systems, but also
what would it look like if we had people who
could help us navigate creating healthier sport on both sides, right.
I mean that's one sort of silly example, but I
(47:44):
think or one serious example. But some other examples, of course,
are like, it's not complicated, make sport free, get every
kid in sport. If you want to talk about fairness
in sport, the first stup you can take is to
give everybody free access to sport. Right. We give a
(48:06):
lot of other examples, of course, but I think the
bottom line for us is we want this to be
an invitation. While everybody's talking about sport, while people are
talking about trans athletes and sport, even people who maybe
don't have a vested interest in sport. Let's talk about
how we can utilize this moment to figure out how
to make sport a better social system for all people.
(48:29):
The end, right, the end.
Speaker 3 (48:31):
I love it.
Speaker 4 (48:32):
I'm over here in the amen choir going mm hmm,
that's right, Amen, Amen. But it is this conversation of
when it comes to intersectionality, when the most marginalized community
gets equity, then everyone are on equal playing fields, and
that benefits everyone. And it's just quite just this level
(48:52):
of simplicity that it's not talked about enough. But at
the same time, that is the most difficult thing for
a lot of people to understand and to even visualize.
Speaker 3 (49:02):
Honestly, even those who hope for it.
Speaker 2 (49:04):
I can't.
Speaker 4 (49:04):
I couldn't imagine what that actually looks like, which makes
me sad.
Speaker 2 (49:09):
Well, you know, I did want to ask you both.
I meant to ask you before we started, but I've
listened to your podcast and I'm curious what your personal
relationships are to sport. If you're willing to talk about it, Annie,
go ahead.
Speaker 1 (49:29):
I was very competitive kid. I grew up playing a
lot of different sports. A lot of it was for fun.
When I was asked to actually compete, like at a
I got really good at gymnastics and I got asked
to go to a competition, and I quit because I
had like a fear of proving, I guess, proving the
(49:53):
stereotype like oh, she's not actually good. And then when
I got older and I became uncomfortable with my body,
I quit. I pretty much quit, but I loved it,
Like I thought it was so fun and competitive and
just I loved it until all these We.
Speaker 2 (50:13):
Did have a creepy, creepy coach too.
Speaker 1 (50:15):
By the way, all these other things kind of encroached
that I was told, like you can't be too good,
or no boy will want to date you, which good riddance.
Speaker 2 (50:26):
I think that could.
Speaker 1 (50:27):
Care less than get. But at the time I was like,
oh no, so I did do what you said earlier
of kind of making myself smaller, And then eventually retreated
all together. And when I got older, I got much
more into like things I could do by myself, which
I guess is kind of sad, But I got into
(50:47):
like knife throwing and stuff.
Speaker 2 (50:50):
She do too.
Speaker 3 (50:52):
And Arrowstually, I don't know why I said like that.
I know what that is.
Speaker 1 (50:58):
Yeah, yeah, but I look back and it does make
me really sad because I think I would have really
enjoyed it. I had a lot of friends on the
soccer team. I think I would have had a great
time if I stayed. But I was just I was
so self conscious and so worried about how other people
would perceive me, particularly men and boys.
Speaker 2 (51:18):
So I quit.
Speaker 4 (51:19):
Yeah, for me, I grew up in a very rural town,
and so the accessibility part there wasn't a lot of
different sports. It was football, you know, It's one of
those like you got football, you got baseball, you got
basketball and running. And I'm also very grew up with
a lot of trauma. We love trauma around here, right,
And so that made me and that if I'm not
(51:40):
the best, then I shouldn't do it at all, Like
it's kind of that level. And so I didn't even
want to try if I didn't think that I could
be the best. Like at this level of anxiety of
performance anxiety as well as I had to prove myself
as existing, so proving myself in sports was even harder.
I as an adult. I really got too though, finally
(52:01):
started doing things like running, and I really did enjoy
doing like half marathons and such until my body was like,
you're too old for this. Stop it. It was really
nice and the commodity of like runners seeing each other,
like giving each other a nod type of thing, and
then doing the races was really fun. And I think
more of like I did cheer, so you know, but
(52:22):
you know how that becomes very feminized, especially in a
rural town, in that it's not sport, it's not competitive,
and I'm like, I don't know, we compete. I don't
know what you mean, but but stuff like that. So
it was very small opportunities because as I grew up,
I was like, man that existed, I would have loved
to try that because it seemed like I had a
lot of anger issues and I would have loved to
try some would like you know, those sports that help
(52:44):
you get out. That meditated a little bit. So it
was a It's an interesting story in that level of again,
what is accessible?
Speaker 3 (52:51):
Who has the money?
Speaker 4 (52:52):
And also I grew up in a fairly not poor family,
but we definitely didn't have extra money, and I was
the youngest child so by the time it got to me,
the funds were a little more dry. So being able
to afford even recreational sportes, you know, trying to get
the uniforms and any of those stuff was actually a
lot of money. Traveling cost a lot of money for
even children's recreational stuff. So I was definitely less prone
(53:16):
to be in sports. I was a nerd that left
to read books instead.
Speaker 3 (53:22):
Me too, That's the way I in that category. Yeah,
you still.
Speaker 1 (53:27):
Though, you still exercise, and I did. I used to
run a lot too.
Speaker 4 (53:31):
I forgot more than me. She went like marathons during
the week just for the heck of it.
Speaker 1 (53:39):
Yeah, And then I said I wasn't a runner, and
the guy who was selling me shoes was like, did
you just tell me you run half marathon every weekend.
I was like yeah, He's like, you're a runner. Oh
got it, got it.
Speaker 3 (53:54):
She still does the Pchtree road race. That's huge down here.
Speaker 2 (53:57):
Yeah, I thank you both for for saying that. I
was really curious as I've been, you know, listening to
the podcast. You know, I think a lot like, okay,
so my objective in life trans athletes. You know, I'm
talking a lot about them right now. But the bottom
line is, I really want people to feel more confident
(54:23):
in their bodies. I think we live in a society
and a world that constantly, constantly tells us to not
trust our bodies, to not be in our bodies, to
not like our bodies, to not appreciate our bodies. And
(54:46):
I just, I truly believe that a more embodied world,
with more embodied people would be not just more free,
but more welcoming for everyone. And I think a lot
of what you just talked about and your own experiences
(55:09):
and sport, that's precisely what we need to solve all
of that. It should not be the case that somebody
says to you you're not a runner, right, I mean,
whether you're saying it to yourself, somebody got that story
in your head, right, Let's do better for everybody.
Speaker 4 (55:34):
Yes, I think we need you around just to give
us the pep talk, let inspire pep talk.
Speaker 3 (55:39):
In the end, we might just need you to come back,
you know.
Speaker 6 (55:43):
I'm also like it's one of the few places where
I get to be like really silly, Like it used
to be the case that it was one of the
few spaces where I felt like I could be truly
competitive and not judged for it.
Speaker 2 (55:58):
And now I'm like, it's one of the few spaces
as an adult where I feel like I get to
be like silly and I get to like mess up,
and I guess if somebody judges me, I'm like.
Speaker 3 (56:11):
Whatever, you're not doing it. I'm doing it.
Speaker 2 (56:14):
Yeah yeah, But like god, I just want that for everybody.
I want us to all have a space where we
can go and just like be, just be with ourselves.
Speaker 1 (56:25):
Well, thank you, thank you, thank you so much for
being here. You have been a delight. We would love
to have you back. Where can the good listeners find you?
Speaker 2 (56:38):
Social media of course, doctor Bay PhD on Instagram, LinkedIn.
Of course I don't use x I'll have a website,
And of course, you know, highly encourage folks to buy
the book. Most often we say too, even if you
(56:59):
don't read the book, hopefully there's somebody in your life
who you can give the book too. So maybe it's
you know, uncle Joe. Next year Thanksgiving. When you mentioned
that you are a women's sports fan and this topic
comes up, it's a great talking point. But of course,
(57:19):
also please feel free to follow Ellie, Ellie Rocher and
Chris Mosher and for folks who are really looking for
activations and ways to get more involved, Chris always offers
great device, great talking points and great action steps people
can take on his instagram, the Chris Mosher.
Speaker 4 (57:41):
And the name of the book is Fair Game, trans
Athlete and the Future of Sports by Ellie Rocher and
doctor Anna Bit. And I'm going to put that out
there again because you know, I don't know if we've
said the title too many times. We need to say
it more. And it's a fantastic book. It's an amazing read,
and I think it's very important for today in context
is what well every day, but especially with everything going down,
(58:04):
and especially to note what is happening in this time
before everything is being silenced in a race.
Speaker 1 (58:11):
Yes, if you would like to contact us, you can
or email is Hello at stuff wenever told you dot com.
We're also on Blue Skye Mom Stuff podcasts or on
Instagram and TikTok at stuff I've never told you. We
have a YouTube channel. We have some merchandise at copp Bureau,
and we have a book you can get where if
you get your books. Thanks as always to here as
superducer Christina Executive Prusin Maya and our contributor Joey. Thank
(58:33):
you and thanks to you for listening stuff I've Never
told you Instruction by Heart Radio. For more podcast from
my Heart Radio, you can check out the I Heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows,
Stuff Mom Never Told You News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Samantha McVey
Popular Podcasts
Two Guys, Five Rings: Matt, Bowen & The Olympics
Two Guys (Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers). Five Rings (you know, from the Olympics logo). One essential podcast for the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics. Bowen Yang (SNL, Wicked) and Matt Rogers (Palm Royale, No Good Deed) of Las Culturistas are back for a second season of Two Guys, Five Rings, a collaboration with NBC Sports and iHeartRadio. In this 15-episode event, Bowen and Matt discuss the top storylines, obsess over Italian culture, and find out what really goes on in the Olympic Village.
iHeartOlympics: The Latest
Listen to the latest news from the 2026 Winter Olympics.
Milan Cortina Winter Olympics
The 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan Cortina are here and have everyone talking. iHeartPodcasts is buzzing with content in honor of the XXV Winter Olympics We’re bringing you episodes from a variety of iHeartPodcast shows to help you keep up with the action. Follow Milan Cortina Winter Olympics so you don’t miss any coverage of the 2026 Winter Olympics, and if you like what you hear, be sure to follow each Podcast in the feed for more great content from iHeartPodcasts.