August 27, 2025 • 44 mins
Athlete Ally founder Hudson Taylor and University of Washington rower Cillian Mullen join Sarah to discuss what life is like right now for trans college athletes, the current policy landscape and best practices for allies of the LGBTQ community.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Good Game with Sarah Spain, where when the
world feels like a pile of manure, you got to
find the flowers grown out of the shit.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Today's guests aren't those flowers.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
It's Wednesday, August twenty seventh, and on today's show, will
be skipping the need to know and jumping straight into
my conversation with the founder of athlete Ally, Hudson Taylor
and University of Washington rower Killian Mullen. They joined me
to discuss what life is like right now for trans
college athletes, the current landscape of policies governing trans athletes,
and how athlete allies mission has changed because of those policies,
(00:31):
Plus how Killian balance is rowing school and trying to
represent his community and best practices for allies of the
LGBTQ community. That conversation's coming up right after this.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Joining us now.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
He's the founder of athlete Ally, whose mission is to
help every athlete act as an ally and ensure every
LGBTQIA plus person is welcome and safe in sports. A
theater major and a former three time All American wrestler,
he secured the most pins and the most wins in
the history of Collegiate Wrestling at the University of Maryland
and is ranked among the top five pinners in NCAA
wrestling history. A former assistant coach at Columbia University, he
(01:10):
dabbles and beekeeping, puppet making, and jiu jitsu, and he
loves to share lessons learned from fables. It's Hudson, Taylor High, Hudson.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Hey, how's it going. Thanks for having me good.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Thanks for joining us. Also with us.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
He competes on the women's rowing team at the University
of Washington, where he's helped votes to multiple top ten
NCUBA championship finishes. The president of the athlete Ally Chapter
at UW, he was named an Illinois State Scholar in
twenty twenty two and Most Promising Novice for the Chicago
Rowing Foundation in twenty twenty. He's in the Arctic Studies
Program at UW. Enjoys making bagels out of Greek yogurt,
learning about fungal ecosystems, hiking, mushroom hunting, and listening to
(01:45):
pod Save the World. In Nine Inch Nails, It's Killian Mullen.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Hi, Killian Hi.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
Thank you for having me so.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
My first concert ever was Nine Inch Nails but I
prefer Pod save America and love it or leave it.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
But I am still a friend of the Pod like you,
So we have a lot in common. Awesome, Hudson. Let's
start by you telling me why and when you started
athlete ally.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
Sure. Yeah, So I started athlete ally way back in
twenty eleven. As you said at the outset, I was
a theater kid. So I was in two very different cultures,
one where I had a lot of LGBTQ friends in
the theater department and had a lot of teammates using
homophobic and kind of sexist language. And the juxtaposition of
(02:27):
those two worlds really kind of caught me by surprise.
It made me kind of take a step back and say, well,
wait a second. Like sports culture doesn't define me, I
define it. I can choose how I want to treat people,
what type of experience we want to give our teammates.
And so my senior season at Maryland, I was, you know,
one of the top ring wrestlers in my weight class.
(02:49):
I decided to wear an LGBTQ equality sticker on my
headgear to show support, and I didn't really think much
of it. It was I just thought it would look cool,
but the choice to wear that sticker fundamentally has changed
my life. A lot of teammates, we've gotten a lot
of heated debates about it. But then one of my
(03:09):
coaches pulled me aside. It was like, Hudson, would you
be willing to do an interview about why you wore
the sticker? I was like, heck, yeah, sure. And at
the time, you know, I was such an idealistic college
kid that I was like, Okay, change doesn't happen unless
we start dialogues and have conversations. And so when I
did this interview, I asked them to share my email
address with the articles like let's debate, And about two
(03:32):
days later, I opened up my inbox and I had
over two thousand emails from closeted athletes from across the country,
from you know, siblings of LGBTQ, young people, parents, And
I'm just reading these emails like bawling. Because my entire
athletic career has been nothing but positive. I never had
to question or fear how my teammates might treat me
(03:56):
if they found out an aspect of who I was.
And it was just so clear that that same experience
wasn't being afforded to the LGBTQ community. And if my
decision to wear a sticker for two seconds could have
that kind of an impact, imagine if I had been
a football player or an entire team on an entire
league taking a stand. So that was really the genesis
of athlete. Ally that there's never been a successful social
(04:19):
justice movement for minority group without the support of the majority,
and it's kind of incumbent upon all of us to
use whatever power and privilege we have to help dismantle
systems of oppression.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
You know, I read that you come from a long
line of Christian missionaries, and I wonder how you think
that informed your perspective on LGBTQ plus issues.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
It's really interesting. You know, I grew up in fellowship
of Christian Athletes. I was going to all those meetings
as a kid, and I because of wrestling, I ended
up going to boarding school, a school called Blair Academy,
which was like the number one ranked wrestling high school
in the country. And so I moved out at fifteen,
really and I never went back home after that age.
(04:58):
And you know, there's a lot about the faith of
my upbringing that I'm really grateful for a lot of
like the quote unquote like New Testament teachings that I,
you know, how you treat people and how you act
in service of others are really core to who I am.
But then there was also this really like dark side
of the faith that I was raised with that was
so judgmental and so what felt like not in keeping
(05:23):
with the teachings of Jesus or the Bible. And it
was really boarding school and just being away from home
and really starting to ask questions for myself about about
my own faith, about my own perspective, about my place
in the world, and how I wanted to treat people.
That really set me on this journey and so I
moved away from religion for a really long time. It
(05:44):
was this thing that the sort of like door that
closed in my life as an adult. Now I'm a Quaker,
So I now I attend Quaker meeting and that's a
really beautiful and kind of wonderful, wonderful part of my
spiritual life now. But but yeah, it's a part of
the journey. But I think that in a lot of
faith spaces treat the LGBTQ community with a clenched fist
(06:08):
rather than no open hand, and I think that that's
absolutely that's a shame killing.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
I want to switch over to you because I want
to first before we get into your involvement with athlete all,
I ask how you got started in rowing.
Speaker 4 (06:18):
Yeah, so my mom actually rowed for the Purdue University
club when she was at university and really loved her
experience with rowing. And I had been playing volleyball up
to the point that I was fifteen, and there was
a flyer for a local club that my mom happened
to cross on Facebook, I think, and she was like, Oh,
(06:38):
I feel like you would really love this sport, enjoy
this sport. So I went down to Saint Charles, which
was about like fifteen minutes away from where I lived,
to this like barn alpaca farm sort of area that
really only had two boats at the time, and we
didn't really have enough people to even facilitate rowing in
an eight so sometimes you would have to row a
(06:59):
set people and just hope for the best on our
way down the river. And that's kind of where I
started my slightly humble beginnings before moving over to Chicago
Rowing Foundation.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
And for those who don't know, Saint Charles Batavia kind
of where Killing's from is about an hour and a
half or so west of Chicago. So when you get
into rowing in Chicago, are you making that kind of
trip every single time when you want to compete or practice?
Speaker 4 (07:24):
Yeah? So I would have practice about six days a week,
and I feel like the worst commute out of all
of it was Saturday mornings, so I'd usually have to
leave the house at like four thirty in the morning.
I just hope that traffic was light because it was
that early.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
So that is wild, That's crazy.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Okay, So you get invested in rowing, you're doing it
at a really high level in college, and when you
start looking around for where you want to compete in college,
what were some of the factors as far as the team,
the environment, everything else.
Speaker 4 (07:53):
Yeah, so I have a little bit of a unique
experience when it comes to that. Specifically with my experience
in high school. The part of Illinois that I was
in wasn't the most accepting. It's pretty conservative, the further
outside of the city of Chicago that you get, And
because of that, I had a family that wasn't the
most accepting of me either, So I was basically forced
(08:15):
into being on a women's team and I was told
from basically the first year that I started the sport
that it had to be a way for me to
get into university, and I had to stay in the
sport or I would be sent somewhere and basically converted
in like this makeshift sort of way.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
So somewhere that theory had conversion therapy for queer people
or trans people or Okay.
Speaker 4 (08:41):
Yeah, and because that's not illegal, it's illegal in Illinois.
It's been illegal in Illinois for minors since twenty sixteen.
And that was kind of how I found my way
into trying to become a more competitive athlete, trying to
get into college somewhere through women's rowing. Was because of
this constant fear of if I didn't do well enough,
(09:04):
I knew what my other option was, and that option
just wasn't an option to me. Like I couldn't succumb
to that because I knew who I was and I
knew that there was no denying that, and I knew
that going somewhere like that and trying to deny my
personhood would have landed me in a hole that I
knew I couldn't get myself out of. Whereas on the
other side, of things. I felt like the community that
I found in women's rowing was very friendly to queer
(09:26):
people in general. And I was lucky enough to be
at a club where being trands, especially because it was
in the city of Chicago, was a lot easier than
being trans in my hometown in Matavia, Illinois.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
So you were open with your team?
Speaker 4 (09:41):
Yeah, I was very open with my team, and I
was very lucky to be surrounded by an incredibly supportive
environment there that definitely greatly juxtaposed the environment that I
was in when I was at home.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
So it's such a perfect example of what we talk
about all the time, and in the way that sports
can create community and space for folks, and in your
ca in particular, space that you weren't able to find at.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Home or in your hometown.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
So, as you are looking at college opportunities, what did
you think your options were to continue competing while also
being true to your identity as a man.
Speaker 4 (10:14):
Yeah, I had to be careful about the type of
community that I kind of went to. Even if a
college did want to recruit me, I had to make
sure that I was heavily researching all these places to
ensure that I put myself in a space where I
felt like I was safe to be myself and to
be trans specifically, And I did come across a couple
(10:37):
of coaches and people and communities that were not as
accepting or didn't really understand what my situation was, and
that I felt the need to educate a lot of
those people. And I came across instances where, you know,
I had people telling me like, oh, you can't compete
with distaster, Like you can't compete while taking testosterone though
you know that right, and of course I know that
(10:58):
that's a I feel like that's a rule that anybody knows.
You can't take hormones if you're on a women's team.
And I would come across people who were also like, oh, like,
what does that mean you're attracted to?
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Then?
Speaker 4 (11:10):
Like I would have coaches like I've had a coach
ask me that question before, which is just like what
type of coach would ask a seventeen year old what
they're attracted to while they're getting recruited to a college.
And it's just it's one of those things where I
felt like I just had to be super playcative and
super understanding of where people were coming from all the time.
(11:31):
And I also had to kind of do that while
looking out for myself, while making sure that even if
a coach was wonderful and kind and inclusive, that the
community that they were based out of was also kind
of at least a little bit similar. And I actually
started my first year and a half at University of
Virginia before transferring in the University of Washington, and I,
(11:53):
by no means think that going to University of Virginia
was a mistake at all. I mean, I've met some
of my best friends who will probably my best friends
the rest of my life there, but it just ultimately
wasn't a community space that I felt entirely welcomed in.
Charltsville is often seen as this kind of liberal haven
within the bigger, broader state of Virginia, and I think
(12:14):
that that honestly needs to be challenged because, I mean,
I even have a lot of privilege saying this as
a white person, but there's still a lot of blatant racism, misogyny, homophobia,
transphobia in that community that still needs to be addressed,
even if it is seen as this kind of liberal
sphere because it's a university.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Did you always know you wanted to compete in women's
rowing at the collegiate level or was there a process
for you making that decision?
Speaker 4 (12:42):
Kind Of, as I mentioned before, I didn't really have
any choice but to row for a women's team just
because of the terms that I was rowing under when
I was in high school.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Terms made by your parents.
Speaker 4 (12:53):
Yeah, terms made by yeah, my parents, and the terms
that I had to follow were I I literally signed
a contract when I was sixteen detailing that I had
to get recruited to a women's rowing team if I
did not want to be converted or denied my identity
or sent somewhere to be converted. So I was basically like, Okay,
(13:16):
this is the choice is kind of already made for me.
I guess I don't have to think about it that
much more. And I just was like, Okay, I guess
that means I'm going to be on a women's rowing team.
And I mean, even as I've gotten into college and
as i've you know, been able to speak with my
parents who made those terms for me, it's and I've
(13:36):
been able to you know, open up her mind a
lot and open up you know, our relationship and kind
of like make it better, like the relationship between my
mother and I, who's the person who made these terms
for me, is a lot better than it used to be.
Even then, I feel like I've built such a community
for myself in women's sports specifically, and in women's rowing specifically,
that it just wouldn't make sense at this point for
(13:57):
me to try to switch over to a men this
rowing team, even if I was to take hormones, or
if I was to take further steps with my physical
or medical side of my transition.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
We got to take a quick break.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
When we come back more with Hudson and Killian stick around. Hudson,
(14:33):
can you tell us about the current landscape of policies
governing transathletes? So for situations like Killians or for other transathletes,
there's been a lot of changes in just the last
few months. So what does it look like right now
for trans athletes at the NCAA level.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
It's been a really challenging, depressing, disheartening sort of series
of legislative decisions through the K through twelve space, now
the NCAA space, the USOPC. You know, the doors for
(15:09):
at least trans women to compete in sports consistent with
their gender identity have closed almost entirely. You know, as
an organization where we've been fighting and advocating for transa
athlete to play sports consistent with their gender identity, been
pushing for more inclusive and fair policies, and I would say,
(15:32):
starting back in twenty eighteen, you started to see this
wave of policies restricting or rescinding that ability, and unfortunately,
you know, at the time, a lot of those policies
were based off of the most up to date sort
of medical consensus of what eligibility requirements needed to be
(15:52):
met in order for an athlete to compete in a
way that was safe and fair consistent with their gender identity.
The research hasn't changed, but the political pressure has and
now with this administration and the sort of ways in
which they are kind of using pressure and politics on
an institution like the NC double A, which you know
(16:14):
has a lot of nil and other legal battles that
they are still trying to come out on top of.
The unfortunate and most convenient thing is to throw trans
athletes under the bus, and that's unfortunately the place that
we we find ourselves in at the NC DOUBLEA level.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
I think these changes have probably impacted how athlete ally
does the work. Before it was about sort of creating
an inclusive environment around probably language and acceptance and everything else.
Now there's full on bands to competition. So how have
you seen your efforts have to change, Hudson, It's.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
A really big challenge. I think that, you know, we
had a lot, We had a blueprint that was really
successful for a long time. Right, we organize athletes. We
we looked at the spaces around sport policy and practice
that were less inclusive than we wanted it to be.
We'd organize athletes to speak in one voice about what
the solution was or what change we wanted to see,
(17:12):
and more often than not we were successful in that. Right,
We've we helped change the Olympic charter, increase number of
women in FIFA governance, move championships over anti LGBTQ laws.
But then, you know, as the political headwinds have shifted,
we too have to kind of rethink and reevaluate how
we are approaching support for the trans community in particular,
(17:34):
but I would say LGBTQ at advocacy even more generally.
You know, I'm deeply concerned at the right word shift
of young people, especially young men. I think that that
is painting a very scary picture for the future of
progressive politics. And I think that sport is and can
(17:55):
be and should be one of the spaces where we
can hopefully use the pnciples and values of sport to
educate people around you know, the human dignity and liberty
of every person. So you know how we're changing things
that we're doing differently. I think first, as an organization,
we are trying to push for what I would call
(18:16):
freedom of information. I think that in a lot of
advocacy spaces there are barriers to education. Right there's pressure
for me as a nonprofit to like charge more people
to be educated. But the truth is is that the
people with the most power and influence are the least informed.
And if we want to change culture, we have to
be really sort of coming from a place of abundance
(18:38):
about the education and about the experience of trans and
gender diverse athletes. So really trying to push forward with
as much information and access to information as possible. On
the athlete ally side, we have our big event is
called the Athlete Activism Summit. We're trying to make that
free and accessible for every athlete who wants to be
with us, so trying to lift any barrier or burden
(19:03):
that a person might have to accessing information. Number two,
I think is around sort of what I would call
connection and solidarity. Right, we host monthly meetings for our
chapters and any athletes who want to find that supportive space,
maybe they don't have it on their team or maybe
they don't have that in their athletic community. We want
to be building and maintaining those intentionally safe and supportive spaces.
(19:26):
And then second, I think we are trying to think
more intersectionally about the coalitions that we should be forging.
I think that you know, when I look at a
lot of social justice issues, there's like this magic number
of sixty percent support. If we can get to a
place where there's the public opinion is in favor of
(19:48):
trans inclusion or LGBTQ rights, I think that the policy
wins become much more sustainable. And I think in the
absence of that public support, it's sort of on thin
ice whether or not we even if we were successful
in getting better policies pass at the NCAA or the
Olympic or the Paralympic level, without that public support, it
(20:11):
really runs the risk of being rolled backwards right. We
saw this with abortion right. So I think not enough
organizations have engaged in that sort of hearts and mind's work.
And I think for us, it's really how how do
we build a bigger, more abundant coalition of people whose
rights are also being threatened, but we want to work
(20:32):
together in solidarity with one another to prevent the bad
things from happening.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
I think the fear though, is that there was a
preponderance of people in this country who believed in choice,
and it didn't matter when the efforts of a certain
number of political people with power united in an effort
to take them away. And so I agree with you
that that public support is extremely important. But also if
the policymakers have enough power to push things through that
aren't popular with everybody, it doesn't really matter if everyone
(20:59):
is in opposition unless the next time at the polls
they make their voices heard, pushing back on the folks
who have voted in opposition to like what the majority
of the country believes.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
Yeah, I mean, there's no question that the political deck
is stacked against people who care about progressive issues. I
think what I'm hungry for or searching for is a
like a politics of calling people in more, having more
conversation more. I think that even on questions of choice
(21:31):
or bodily autonomy, we don't listen to learn. We listen
to like respond and reload and win the argument. And
that's like, that's like very burdensome work, that's very difficult work.
But I think, you know, on the field of play
in a locker room in sport, that's a space where
that type of approach I think that that type of
(21:52):
bridge building approach can really succeed. And then the last
thing that I was just going to say on strategy
is really also I think for us on the policy front,
looking towards what I would call like athletes civil liberties
as our next like frontier of campaigns and fights that
we want to fight. So, you know, athletes at every
(22:13):
level of sports still lack a lot of structural power.
Right athletes don't have a binding say in the policies
governing their experience. And I think that if we can
you know, lean in on athletes having a voice and
a say over policies governing them, if we can protect
and defend athletes freedom of speech or right to protest
(22:35):
gestures demonstrations, all those things. I think that it becomes
a lot harder for the rights of our most minoritized
athletes to be stripped away from them.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
So yeah, I want to talk about calling in instead
of calling out, and particularly in the sports space. But
first I wanted to ask you, Killy, and if you've noticed,
I think this is going to be your senior year
coming up. Yes, So, over the course of the years
that you've been participating in collegiate sport, how have you
noticed the environment changing for you and what it's like
to be a trans athlete on a college campus.
Speaker 4 (23:07):
I think that like the biggest thing that I've noticed,
especially in this past year alone with the policy changes
that have been made, is like, right, I'm one of
the very few trans athletes who is still eligible and
allowed to play their sport. Right, And it's extremely isolating
because it's like you have the rest of your community
that you want to be fighting for and advocating for
(23:28):
and doing anything that you can for and you're still
in this organization that vehemently opposes them and opposes their existence.
And it's like, right, where do you strike a balance
between Okay, I'm going to participate in this sport. I'm
going to do everything I can to be the best
that I can in this sport and represent my community
while also supporting that community, while participating in an organization
that chooses to do something like that. And I think
(23:49):
that over the past years, especially just on college campuses
in general, I've you know, seen more aggressive opinions towards
trans people being illustrated. I mean, in the past year,
we you know, I've gone to two kind of talkers
that came on a campus. I don't know if you know.
I mean, I'm sure you know who Allygains is. But
(24:10):
when I was at UVA, I also went to a
talk that was given by Abigail Shreer, who has a
pretty strongly worded book specifically on the topic of trans
men who she was. She was there talking about that book,
and the narrative around transmend right was basically that they
were poisoning femininity, that they were causing misogyny, that they
(24:32):
deserved to be basically terminated for who they were, And
I think that that's disgusting. As a transman, I think
that's just disgusting and allowing voices like that to be
on a college campus who are quite literally preaching for
the end of a subset of people is disgusting, and
then having seeing that happen at a more like southern
(24:53):
campus kind of where you would expect something like that
to happen, but then two years later, seeing that happen
on a campus in Seattle at University of Washington, where
you wouldn't necessarily expect an event or a speaker like
that to be sponsored, seeing Riley Gaines show up and
seeing all the people there supporting her and wanting to
spread her message, and then getting wrapped up into that
(25:16):
by having I mean I've had in the past year
for whatever reason, because nobody seems to care about women's rowing,
I guess unless there's a trans athlete participating in it,
which is ridiculous by itself alone. But I've had like
a couple articles written about me, some of them mentioned
Riley Gaines or Riley Gaines spoke about me in it,
(25:37):
and it's just kind of one of those things where
it's confusing because these people opposed me being in a
women's sport as somebody who was born female because I
am trans, which is really just like.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Yeah, I'm gonna ask you about that, because it's a
very no win situation. I when I was researching for this,
I saw your name pop up in some of the
very worst places that love to attack me and other
people who have progressive voices as well.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
So you're not alone in that.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
But the idea that they were like criticizing you even
though this is what they're always demanding. They are demanding
that people play alongside their gender at birth and not
their identity, and yet when you do that, they have
a criticism for that as well. So do you have
to decide this is for me and this is my
choice and this is what I'm doing, and sort of
(26:26):
block out those voices because I think to your point,
there is this need to listen to other groups. So
that doesn't mean we need to sponsor or promote voices
that are about hate, that are not about listening to
the other side, that are not about being educated, that
are not about the science, that are instead simply about
wanting to eradicate a group of people that they disagree with.
I think that we need to say that flat out
(26:46):
when we say call in and have conversations, we don't
mean people like Riley Gaines, who is uninterested in facts
and science and is solely about lining her own pockets
because she's not talented enough at anything else and has
seemed to figure out how to grift on this person
for the rest of her life. But for you personally,
how much do you want to pay attention to that
and understand the space and how much do you want
(27:06):
to say, fuck them, I'm gonna do me.
Speaker 4 (27:08):
Yeah, right, I mean, I think there's a fine line
that you have to balance, right, because I mean I've
read those articles before. I mean, I've had coverage on
Fox News before. I've also read that, and I think
that it's like you kind of have to walk the
line of like, right, I'm not gonna let this offend me.
I'm gonna laugh at it and use it as fuel
(27:29):
for my own fire and then move the fuck on,
because that's just the way that you have to be
about some things. And I think that, like, especially just
reading some of the arguments that were in I think
it was like this article that was.
Speaker 5 (27:41):
We don't need to do with their name ever, sorry,
but like they they made some arguments that were just
completely baseless in science, and we're saying that I was
still somehow cheating by being on a woman's team, though
that was my sex assigned at birth, and it's like right,
Like I.
Speaker 4 (28:00):
Can look at that and laugh, and then I can
also look at the fact that you know, there were
people in the comments saying that I was a lesbian
in denial. I can, you know, my boyfriend and I
look at that and we laugh because it's like that's
not you know, like right, no, it's well.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
That basic and fundamental lack of understanding, I think is
part of the problem, and it's why there's such a
push to ban books, to stop education, to stop the
kind of conversations that we're having right now, because the
more you understand other people, the less likely you are
to try to change them into something you want them
to be instead of who they are.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
And I think that comes back, Hudson, to your.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Work and your group, And I wonder if you have
examples of what you were talking about before, this idea
of can we have a conversation about it, give someone
grace to where they are, meet them where they are
in terms of their understanding, and then potentially even change
their mind. Do you have a favorite story of seeing
someone's mind change or come around because you offer them
the chance to talk instead of berating them for where
(28:56):
they are.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
Yeah, well, I think, I mean, there are many examples
of education, educational sessions that we provided athletes who have
entered into a space that we've helped cultivate or create,
and you know, we've heard firsthand how that exposure does
change somebody. I think there's like this paradox in or
(29:19):
there's like a false way that we sometimes think about sports,
but then also a false way that I think we
can sometimes think about movements in that I think a
lot of times we're told that what it means to
be a great athlete is defined by how well you win,
And I think that really to be a great athlete
is defined by how what you do with losing, what
you do with difficulty, what you do with that adversity.
(29:40):
And I think similarly in our movements, we sometimes I think,
define our movements based off of our areas of political alignment.
It's like, if you agree with me on all these issues,
then we're on the same team. But I think it's
actually what is the spectrum of disagreement that we allow
to exist while still seeing each other's humanity, while still
coming back to the to the team or to the
(30:01):
table and talking about it. And so I think the
first so like thing that I've seen in my work
is just trying to like continue to push my the
comfort and the courage I guess of keeping keeping a
conversation open. That is hard and its difficult and is
frustrating because you know, I think the second that we
(30:22):
close that door, the game is over, right, Like one
of my biggest things that I struggle with a lot,
and at least the trans inclusion work is some of
the biggest, uh sort of enemies of trans inclusion. We're
also some of the most vocal pro gender equity advocates
and people who I was in coalition with and conversation
(30:45):
with and working shoulder to shoulder with. And so I
struggle with where we are now and obviously to walk
to the point that we've made of like, if somebody's
made it their entire identity and life's work to like
deny the dignity of an existence of the trans community,
then that's not a fruitful or valuable conversation. But those
(31:05):
people didn't start that way, right, They started somewhere else.
And I think I'm trying to do better at I
don't know. I think the thing when I think about allyship.
You can do it in three ways as an individual,
in interpersonal relationships and structurally. And I think that individually,
one of the things that we can give each other
more is the invitation to talk, the invitation to ask questions,
(31:28):
tell me why you feel the way you feel, tell
me what you think about that, and so you know,
like anything in sport, in life, everything is a muscle
and if we don't use it, it doesn't become as
effective as we want it to be. So I don't know.
I think at athlete AUTI to be frank, we haven't
developed these tools to the extent that i'd like. I
(31:49):
think that for a long time it was easier to
just say, well, we disagree, so you're unfriended, you're unfollowed,
we're no longer going to talk. And I think where
when I look get where we are politically and culturally,
I am trying to build those muscles better to have
that invitation to talk.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
Yeah, I mean, I think this topic came up recently
when Simone Biles did her best to do something she
doesn't normally do, which is talk about a really difficult
topic and put herself out there, and then unfortunately it
was as much the people on the side of transinclusion,
that we're putting her through a purity test for not
knowing exactly what to say, and how that probably scared
(32:29):
her out of ever talking about it again. And that
is a person with a massive platform and voice. And
I even ended up getting attacked for saying, Hey, I
don't think that's the way we should do this. These
purity tests that the progressive side force everyone into just
continues to dilute our ranks and offers us less of
a unified front when we're going up against a group
(32:50):
of people that have completely abandoned shame, that are willing
to defend literally anything on their quote unquote side, while
we continue to split and bifurcate our into a million
different groups who all have slightly different opinions that mostly
still revolve around inclusion and kindness and grace and all
the other things.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
And so I know that's easy for me to.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
Say as a cis white straight woman, but I have
based the issues of being a woman in this world.
So there is a piece of me that understands on
fairness and wants more fairness for everyone, but understands the
way we're trying to go about getting it isn't working
anymore because unfortunately, the percentage of people who have aligned
with that far right bullshit is too big now to
(33:31):
simply say, fine, you're all out of our house.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
We're not going to talk to you anymore.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
Then they just go hang out with each other, continue
to spread lies, continue to stay uneducated, and then pull
more people into their ranks by having conversations with them
that we're not willing to have with folks because we've already.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
Excluded them from from our group. I mean, we could
talk about this forever.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
I want to get to another couple quick things though,
before before we let you go. I remember Hudson and
you mentioned it earlier in the interview. There was this
big group of massive corporations and leagues, the NBA, the NCAA,
the ACC, all working together with athlete ally. In the
wake of the anti LGBTQ law HB two, they moved
competitions out of North Carolina. They said, we're not giving
(34:11):
you our money, we're not giving you our events because
we do not believe in this. We cannot get that
same response to current recent anti LGBTQ law. Why do
you think right now we cannot rally groups around that,
and how can we get back to a time when
we are forcing leagues and major corporations to feel some
(34:32):
sort of loss or threat if they don't care about
the way that these laws are affecting people's lives.
Speaker 3 (34:43):
It's a really big question. So prior to twenty eighteen,
when we look at the landscape of anti LGBTQ legislation,
the majority of the biggest threats were really relegated to
like five states, and so the movement, the LGBTQ movement
was very sick successful at stopping bad bills from becoming
law because we were well organized and well resourced enough
(35:06):
to do so. You know, out of every one hundred
dollars that is donated to a from a foundation in
the United States to a nonprofit, less than a dollar
goes to an LGBTQ serving organization. So across the world
of philanthropy, LGBTQ work is vastly underfunded. But up until
about twenty eighteen, we were pretty dang successful in stopping
(35:29):
the worst things from becoming law. Then, you know, I
think when we look at twenty eighteen to now, there
was sort of this full court press of anti LGBTQ legislation.
You instead of having five states, you had thirty five
forty states all introducing similar either anti trans or medical
(35:51):
care bans or what's in the library antidi policies. I mean,
the list is very, very long. It's very doesn't just
impact the LGBTQQ unity, but our collective resources got so
very strained and those things started to poke through. And
I think the hard part on the advocacy side of
(36:12):
things is at the time we could point to the
lead in the conversation with leagues, we could say, hey,
HB two is an outlier, right, this is going to
be the worst in the country, And as a result,
you have a responsibility to your constituents to not do
business here, to not reward this the level of discrimination
with your megasporting event. Now it's forty states are in
(36:36):
that same camp or you know, depending on the policy
that you think is matters most to the people that
you work for or work with. And so my answer
this question is probably not a very popular good answer,
but I think my mantra now is like liberation lives locally.
There's a lot in politics in the world that I
(36:57):
can't control. There's a lot of policy that I can't unwind,
but I can put forth a way of organizing, a
way of educating that centers care between individuals at the
team level, at the church level, at the school level.
And I think that if we can collectively kind of
(37:19):
build those muscles around calling in and listening and dialogue,
I think that then those legislative battles like people will
find their bravery and finding their courage to challenge it
and not let the rights of people just be stripped
away from them.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
And we hear that a lot just in general and politics,
is how much work is done at the local level,
whether that's the election of judges or people in different spaces,
and eventually that is what impacts policy at the highest levels.
Speaker 2 (37:45):
It's just harder to see.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
But I think right now, especially, we're all sort of
feeling like the only thing we can do is try
to affect as much as we can in our own
lives because it feels completely untenable to somehow be able
to impact the awful stuff that's going on at the
very highest levels. Kill This is kind of a bigger question,
but do you have advice for folks who want to
be allies but aren't sure if they're up to date
on the right language or the right pronouns, or maybe
(38:08):
they don't know if they're accidentally contributing to creating insensitive
or intolerant spaces. Are there resources, are their practices? Are
there ways that you think the average person who maybe
doesn't know a trans person or isn't super up to
date can like make sure that they're doing their best
to make the spaces there and better.
Speaker 4 (38:26):
I mean, I would you know if you have access,
if you are friends with somebody who is trans. I
feel like having those open and tough conversations is honestly
the best pathway towards education that you can get. I've
had to educate a lot of my friends and family
members on these sorts of issues. But if you don't
have access to that, I feel like we're in a
modern age now where there's no excuse not to just
(38:47):
look it up. Like if you're confused about something, if
you want to understand something a little bit more and
you want to come from a place of truly understanding,
rather than just reading the big news headlines and taking
the first thing that you see and being like, well
that the entire trans community altogether, just look it up
and like, actually do your research if you're somebody who's
actually interested in wanting to learn more, and I mean
(39:08):
there's great resources like you can start somewhere as simple
as the Human Rights Campaign going to their website seeing
what they have to offer about trans people. You can
go to your local library if maybe you don't have
access to Internet, and see if your librarian might have
some books on trans people or books on LGBTQ plus
people in general. There's just I feel like there's so
many pathways to education on this particular topic, and I
(39:31):
think that right now especially, it's important to take advantage
of them while we still have them. Because another thing
that's been coming out recently too is that, I mean,
you see from National Parks all the way from New
York to most recently Yosemite, people being stripped away of
their right to either say that their trans or advocate
for the trans community. More broadly, and you're seeing websites
(39:53):
United States health organizations literally having to take down what
it means to be trans off of their website. So
I think that trying to educate yourself now with the
resources that we still have available while we do is
super important.
Speaker 1 (40:06):
Your dog agrees, I could hear I'm chiming in throughout
your dog was like snaps preach. Yeah, yeah, I mean,
I couldn't agree with that more. And I do think
because I've heard people, whether it's people of color, LGBTQ
plus often say like we're burdened with teaching you and
all the other stuff, that it's also worth asking people
(40:27):
in your life. I'm sure you get asked this a lot,
but do you mind if I ask you some questions?
Speaker 2 (40:32):
I want to know more?
Speaker 1 (40:33):
Or I know you're probably tired of explaining this, but
is it okay? I feel most comfortable asking you to
help me understand, and if they say no, then go
find somewhere else to learn. But hopefully people will be
open to wanting to talk to because I understand both
sides of that coin one thousand percent. On the one hand,
you want to say ask me, I'm the one who knows,
and you also want to be like, stop asking me
and go.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
Figure it out for yourself.
Speaker 1 (40:54):
I'm not around to educate you all the time, but yes,
the best thing to do is go right to the
source and talk to people who have the lived experience. Gosh,
I could talk to you guys forever, but we are
way past time, so thank you so much for the time.
Thank you to the Dog for chiming in and well
of course keep sending people to athlete Ally, to donate,
to read, to support, to learn about the policy changes
(41:14):
you guys have helped enact, to learn about the ways
that you've tried to educate folks on how to best
be in their teams and their leagues and everything else.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
And we'll just keep.
Speaker 1 (41:23):
Pushing for that education to be available to everyone. So
thanks so much for the time.
Speaker 4 (41:28):
Thanks for having us, Thank you for having us.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
Thanks so much to Hudson and Killian for joining us.
We got to take another break when we come back.
Friend of the Show, Representative Lorii Trehan's still doing the
good work.
Speaker 2 (41:41):
I'll tell you about it in a jiff. Welcome back slices.
Speaker 1 (41:52):
We love that you're listening, but we want you to
get in the game every day too, So here's our
good game play of the day. You might remember Congressman
Lorii Trehan joining the show a few months to discuss
her work defending Title nine and gender equality in college sports. Well,
she's still fighting the good fight, and she needs our
help to push back against those trying to enact policy
that will completely fail women athletes. The legislation that Republicans
(42:14):
are pushing forward, called the Score Act, written by Jim Jordan,
Brett Guthrie, and Tim Wahlberg, doesn't work to counteract Title
nine loopholes that deny thousands of women roster spots, doesn't
address how violations of Title nine in the House Settlement
will be remedied, doesn't ensure women can fully participate in
and benefit from the fast growing nil marketplace, and per
Laurie's team, the bill could also overturn vital state laws
(42:36):
unrelated to college sports, including the Michigan law that was
used to prosecute Larry Nassar. Laurie and the Democratic Women's
Caucus fought the bill as it moved through committee, but
Republicans still advanced it through two committees without a single
Democratic vote and with one Republican opposing, and are now
expected to bring it to the House floor of the
week of September fifteenth. Laurie needs top women athletes, coaches,
(42:58):
and high level representatives for women in sport to show
up in person or virtually for a press conference the
second week of September to expose the Score Acts failure
to protect and strengthen women's sports. So if you're interested
in getting involved, please shoot us an email and we'll
connect you to Lori's team. Hit us up on email,
good game at wondermedianetwork dot com, or you can leave
us a voicemail at eight seven two two oh four
(43:20):
fifty seventy, and don't forget to subscribe. Rate and review slaces.
It's easy watch fighting back with information and support, rating
one out of one piece of good news review. It's
hard not to get discouraged right now, but there are
some great examples of folks fighting back, making a difference,
and ensuring that people can still get the information, help
(43:42):
and support that they need. Here in Illinois, for example,
Governor JB. Pritzker just announced a first of its kind
legal hotline for LGBTQ plus folks called Illinois Pride Connect,
wrote Pritzker on social quote, as the only state in
the nation that will provide free legal advice to protect
the LGBTQ plus community. Will help fight ignorance with information
and cruelty with compassion. End quote yes to more of
(44:06):
that now, it's your turn.
Speaker 2 (44:08):
Rate and review.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
Thanks for listening, y'ell, see you Tomorrow, Good Game Hudson
and Killian, Good Game, Athlete, Ally You, Jim Jordan. Good
Game with Sarah Spain is an iHeart women's sports production
in partnership with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment. You can
find us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts. Production by Wonder Media Network, our
(44:31):
producers are Alex Azzie and Misha Jones. Our executive producers
are Christina Everett, Jesse Katz, Jenny Kaplan and Emily Rudder.
Our editors are Emily Rutter, Britney Martinez, Grace Lynch, and
Gianna Palmer. Our associate producer is Lucy Jones. Production assistance
from Avery Loftis and I'm Your Host Sarah Spain
Welcome to Good Game with Sarah Spain, where when the
world feels like a pile of manure, you got to
find the flowers grown out of the shit.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Today's guests aren't those flowers.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
It's Wednesday, August twenty seventh, and on today's show, will
be skipping the need to know and jumping straight into
my conversation with the founder of athlete Ally, Hudson Taylor
and University of Washington rower Killian Mullen. They joined me
to discuss what life is like right now for trans
college athletes, the current landscape of policies governing trans athletes,
and how athlete allies mission has changed because of those policies,
(00:31):
Plus how Killian balance is rowing school and trying to
represent his community and best practices for allies of the
LGBTQ community. That conversation's coming up right after this.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Joining us now.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
He's the founder of athlete Ally, whose mission is to
help every athlete act as an ally and ensure every
LGBTQIA plus person is welcome and safe in sports. A
theater major and a former three time All American wrestler,
he secured the most pins and the most wins in
the history of Collegiate Wrestling at the University of Maryland
and is ranked among the top five pinners in NCAA
wrestling history. A former assistant coach at Columbia University, he
(01:10):
dabbles and beekeeping, puppet making, and jiu jitsu, and he
loves to share lessons learned from fables. It's Hudson, Taylor High, Hudson.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Hey, how's it going. Thanks for having me good.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Thanks for joining us. Also with us.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
He competes on the women's rowing team at the University
of Washington, where he's helped votes to multiple top ten
NCUBA championship finishes. The president of the athlete Ally Chapter
at UW, he was named an Illinois State Scholar in
twenty twenty two and Most Promising Novice for the Chicago
Rowing Foundation in twenty twenty. He's in the Arctic Studies
Program at UW. Enjoys making bagels out of Greek yogurt,
learning about fungal ecosystems, hiking, mushroom hunting, and listening to
(01:45):
pod Save the World. In Nine Inch Nails, It's Killian Mullen.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Hi, Killian Hi.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
Thank you for having me so.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
My first concert ever was Nine Inch Nails but I
prefer Pod save America and love it or leave it.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
But I am still a friend of the Pod like you,
So we have a lot in common. Awesome, Hudson. Let's
start by you telling me why and when you started
athlete ally.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
Sure. Yeah, So I started athlete ally way back in
twenty eleven. As you said at the outset, I was
a theater kid. So I was in two very different cultures,
one where I had a lot of LGBTQ friends in
the theater department and had a lot of teammates using
homophobic and kind of sexist language. And the juxtaposition of
(02:27):
those two worlds really kind of caught me by surprise.
It made me kind of take a step back and say, well,
wait a second. Like sports culture doesn't define me, I
define it. I can choose how I want to treat people,
what type of experience we want to give our teammates.
And so my senior season at Maryland, I was, you know,
one of the top ring wrestlers in my weight class.
(02:49):
I decided to wear an LGBTQ equality sticker on my
headgear to show support, and I didn't really think much
of it. It was I just thought it would look cool,
but the choice to wear that sticker fundamentally has changed
my life. A lot of teammates, we've gotten a lot
of heated debates about it. But then one of my
(03:09):
coaches pulled me aside. It was like, Hudson, would you
be willing to do an interview about why you wore
the sticker? I was like, heck, yeah, sure. And at
the time, you know, I was such an idealistic college
kid that I was like, Okay, change doesn't happen unless
we start dialogues and have conversations. And so when I
did this interview, I asked them to share my email
address with the articles like let's debate, And about two
(03:32):
days later, I opened up my inbox and I had
over two thousand emails from closeted athletes from across the country,
from you know, siblings of LGBTQ, young people, parents, And
I'm just reading these emails like bawling. Because my entire
athletic career has been nothing but positive. I never had
to question or fear how my teammates might treat me
(03:56):
if they found out an aspect of who I was.
And it was just so clear that that same experience
wasn't being afforded to the LGBTQ community. And if my
decision to wear a sticker for two seconds could have
that kind of an impact, imagine if I had been
a football player or an entire team on an entire
league taking a stand. So that was really the genesis
of athlete. Ally that there's never been a successful social
(04:19):
justice movement for minority group without the support of the majority,
and it's kind of incumbent upon all of us to
use whatever power and privilege we have to help dismantle
systems of oppression.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
You know, I read that you come from a long
line of Christian missionaries, and I wonder how you think
that informed your perspective on LGBTQ plus issues.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
It's really interesting. You know, I grew up in fellowship
of Christian Athletes. I was going to all those meetings
as a kid, and I because of wrestling, I ended
up going to boarding school, a school called Blair Academy,
which was like the number one ranked wrestling high school
in the country. And so I moved out at fifteen,
really and I never went back home after that age.
(04:58):
And you know, there's a lot about the faith of
my upbringing that I'm really grateful for a lot of
like the quote unquote like New Testament teachings that I,
you know, how you treat people and how you act
in service of others are really core to who I am.
But then there was also this really like dark side
of the faith that I was raised with that was
so judgmental and so what felt like not in keeping
(05:23):
with the teachings of Jesus or the Bible. And it
was really boarding school and just being away from home
and really starting to ask questions for myself about about
my own faith, about my own perspective, about my place
in the world, and how I wanted to treat people.
That really set me on this journey and so I
moved away from religion for a really long time. It
(05:44):
was this thing that the sort of like door that
closed in my life as an adult. Now I'm a Quaker,
So I now I attend Quaker meeting and that's a
really beautiful and kind of wonderful, wonderful part of my
spiritual life now. But but yeah, it's a part of
the journey. But I think that in a lot of
faith spaces treat the LGBTQ community with a clenched fist
(06:08):
rather than no open hand, and I think that that's
absolutely that's a shame killing.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
I want to switch over to you because I want
to first before we get into your involvement with athlete all,
I ask how you got started in rowing.
Speaker 4 (06:18):
Yeah, so my mom actually rowed for the Purdue University
club when she was at university and really loved her
experience with rowing. And I had been playing volleyball up
to the point that I was fifteen, and there was
a flyer for a local club that my mom happened
to cross on Facebook, I think, and she was like, Oh,
(06:38):
I feel like you would really love this sport, enjoy
this sport. So I went down to Saint Charles, which
was about like fifteen minutes away from where I lived,
to this like barn alpaca farm sort of area that
really only had two boats at the time, and we
didn't really have enough people to even facilitate rowing in
an eight so sometimes you would have to row a
(06:59):
set people and just hope for the best on our
way down the river. And that's kind of where I
started my slightly humble beginnings before moving over to Chicago
Rowing Foundation.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
And for those who don't know, Saint Charles Batavia kind
of where Killing's from is about an hour and a
half or so west of Chicago. So when you get
into rowing in Chicago, are you making that kind of
trip every single time when you want to compete or practice?
Speaker 4 (07:24):
Yeah? So I would have practice about six days a week,
and I feel like the worst commute out of all
of it was Saturday mornings, so I'd usually have to
leave the house at like four thirty in the morning.
I just hope that traffic was light because it was
that early.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
So that is wild, That's crazy.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Okay, So you get invested in rowing, you're doing it
at a really high level in college, and when you
start looking around for where you want to compete in college,
what were some of the factors as far as the team,
the environment, everything else.
Speaker 4 (07:53):
Yeah, so I have a little bit of a unique
experience when it comes to that. Specifically with my experience
in high school. The part of Illinois that I was
in wasn't the most accepting. It's pretty conservative, the further
outside of the city of Chicago that you get, And
because of that, I had a family that wasn't the
most accepting of me either, So I was basically forced
(08:15):
into being on a women's team and I was told
from basically the first year that I started the sport
that it had to be a way for me to
get into university, and I had to stay in the
sport or I would be sent somewhere and basically converted
in like this makeshift sort of way.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
So somewhere that theory had conversion therapy for queer people
or trans people or Okay.
Speaker 4 (08:41):
Yeah, and because that's not illegal, it's illegal in Illinois.
It's been illegal in Illinois for minors since twenty sixteen.
And that was kind of how I found my way
into trying to become a more competitive athlete, trying to
get into college somewhere through women's rowing. Was because of
this constant fear of if I didn't do well enough,
(09:04):
I knew what my other option was, and that option
just wasn't an option to me. Like I couldn't succumb
to that because I knew who I was and I
knew that there was no denying that, and I knew
that going somewhere like that and trying to deny my
personhood would have landed me in a hole that I
knew I couldn't get myself out of. Whereas on the
other side, of things. I felt like the community that
I found in women's rowing was very friendly to queer
(09:26):
people in general. And I was lucky enough to be
at a club where being trands, especially because it was
in the city of Chicago, was a lot easier than
being trans in my hometown in Matavia, Illinois.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
So you were open with your team?
Speaker 4 (09:41):
Yeah, I was very open with my team, and I
was very lucky to be surrounded by an incredibly supportive
environment there that definitely greatly juxtaposed the environment that I
was in when I was at home.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
So it's such a perfect example of what we talk
about all the time, and in the way that sports
can create community and space for folks, and in your
ca in particular, space that you weren't able to find at.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Home or in your hometown.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
So, as you are looking at college opportunities, what did
you think your options were to continue competing while also
being true to your identity as a man.
Speaker 4 (10:14):
Yeah, I had to be careful about the type of
community that I kind of went to. Even if a
college did want to recruit me, I had to make
sure that I was heavily researching all these places to
ensure that I put myself in a space where I
felt like I was safe to be myself and to
be trans specifically, And I did come across a couple
(10:37):
of coaches and people and communities that were not as
accepting or didn't really understand what my situation was, and
that I felt the need to educate a lot of
those people. And I came across instances where, you know,
I had people telling me like, oh, you can't compete
with distaster, Like you can't compete while taking testosterone though
you know that right, and of course I know that
(10:58):
that's a I feel like that's a rule that anybody knows.
You can't take hormones if you're on a women's team.
And I would come across people who were also like, oh, like,
what does that mean you're attracted to?
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Then?
Speaker 4 (11:10):
Like I would have coaches like I've had a coach
ask me that question before, which is just like what
type of coach would ask a seventeen year old what
they're attracted to while they're getting recruited to a college.
And it's just it's one of those things where I
felt like I just had to be super playcative and
super understanding of where people were coming from all the time.
(11:31):
And I also had to kind of do that while
looking out for myself, while making sure that even if
a coach was wonderful and kind and inclusive, that the
community that they were based out of was also kind
of at least a little bit similar. And I actually
started my first year and a half at University of
Virginia before transferring in the University of Washington, and I,
(11:53):
by no means think that going to University of Virginia
was a mistake at all. I mean, I've met some
of my best friends who will probably my best friends
the rest of my life there, but it just ultimately
wasn't a community space that I felt entirely welcomed in.
Charltsville is often seen as this kind of liberal haven
within the bigger, broader state of Virginia, and I think
(12:14):
that that honestly needs to be challenged because, I mean,
I even have a lot of privilege saying this as
a white person, but there's still a lot of blatant racism, misogyny, homophobia,
transphobia in that community that still needs to be addressed,
even if it is seen as this kind of liberal
sphere because it's a university.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Did you always know you wanted to compete in women's
rowing at the collegiate level or was there a process
for you making that decision?
Speaker 4 (12:42):
Kind Of, as I mentioned before, I didn't really have
any choice but to row for a women's team just
because of the terms that I was rowing under when
I was in high school.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Terms made by your parents.
Speaker 4 (12:53):
Yeah, terms made by yeah, my parents, and the terms
that I had to follow were I I literally signed
a contract when I was sixteen detailing that I had
to get recruited to a women's rowing team if I
did not want to be converted or denied my identity
or sent somewhere to be converted. So I was basically like, Okay,
(13:16):
this is the choice is kind of already made for me.
I guess I don't have to think about it that
much more. And I just was like, Okay, I guess
that means I'm going to be on a women's rowing team.
And I mean, even as I've gotten into college and
as i've you know, been able to speak with my
parents who made those terms for me, it's and I've
(13:36):
been able to you know, open up her mind a
lot and open up you know, our relationship and kind
of like make it better, like the relationship between my
mother and I, who's the person who made these terms
for me, is a lot better than it used to be.
Even then, I feel like I've built such a community
for myself in women's sports specifically, and in women's rowing specifically,
that it just wouldn't make sense at this point for
(13:57):
me to try to switch over to a men this
rowing team, even if I was to take hormones, or
if I was to take further steps with my physical
or medical side of my transition.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
We got to take a quick break.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
When we come back more with Hudson and Killian stick around. Hudson,
(14:33):
can you tell us about the current landscape of policies
governing transathletes? So for situations like Killians or for other transathletes,
there's been a lot of changes in just the last
few months. So what does it look like right now
for trans athletes at the NCAA level.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
It's been a really challenging, depressing, disheartening sort of series
of legislative decisions through the K through twelve space, now
the NCAA space, the USOPC. You know, the doors for
(15:09):
at least trans women to compete in sports consistent with
their gender identity have closed almost entirely. You know, as
an organization where we've been fighting and advocating for transa
athlete to play sports consistent with their gender identity, been
pushing for more inclusive and fair policies, and I would say,
(15:32):
starting back in twenty eighteen, you started to see this
wave of policies restricting or rescinding that ability, and unfortunately,
you know, at the time, a lot of those policies
were based off of the most up to date sort
of medical consensus of what eligibility requirements needed to be
(15:52):
met in order for an athlete to compete in a
way that was safe and fair consistent with their gender identity.
The research hasn't changed, but the political pressure has and
now with this administration and the sort of ways in
which they are kind of using pressure and politics on
an institution like the NC double A, which you know
(16:14):
has a lot of nil and other legal battles that
they are still trying to come out on top of.
The unfortunate and most convenient thing is to throw trans
athletes under the bus, and that's unfortunately the place that
we we find ourselves in at the NC DOUBLEA level.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
I think these changes have probably impacted how athlete ally
does the work. Before it was about sort of creating
an inclusive environment around probably language and acceptance and everything else.
Now there's full on bands to competition. So how have
you seen your efforts have to change, Hudson, It's.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
A really big challenge. I think that, you know, we
had a lot, We had a blueprint that was really
successful for a long time. Right, we organize athletes. We
we looked at the spaces around sport policy and practice
that were less inclusive than we wanted it to be.
We'd organize athletes to speak in one voice about what
the solution was or what change we wanted to see,
(17:12):
and more often than not we were successful in that. Right,
We've we helped change the Olympic charter, increase number of
women in FIFA governance, move championships over anti LGBTQ laws.
But then, you know, as the political headwinds have shifted,
we too have to kind of rethink and reevaluate how
we are approaching support for the trans community in particular,
(17:34):
but I would say LGBTQ at advocacy even more generally.
You know, I'm deeply concerned at the right word shift
of young people, especially young men. I think that that
is painting a very scary picture for the future of
progressive politics. And I think that sport is and can
(17:55):
be and should be one of the spaces where we
can hopefully use the pnciples and values of sport to
educate people around you know, the human dignity and liberty
of every person. So you know how we're changing things
that we're doing differently. I think first, as an organization,
we are trying to push for what I would call
(18:16):
freedom of information. I think that in a lot of
advocacy spaces there are barriers to education. Right there's pressure
for me as a nonprofit to like charge more people
to be educated. But the truth is is that the
people with the most power and influence are the least informed.
And if we want to change culture, we have to
be really sort of coming from a place of abundance
(18:38):
about the education and about the experience of trans and
gender diverse athletes. So really trying to push forward with
as much information and access to information as possible. On
the athlete ally side, we have our big event is
called the Athlete Activism Summit. We're trying to make that
free and accessible for every athlete who wants to be
with us, so trying to lift any barrier or burden
(19:03):
that a person might have to accessing information. Number two,
I think is around sort of what I would call
connection and solidarity. Right, we host monthly meetings for our
chapters and any athletes who want to find that supportive space,
maybe they don't have it on their team or maybe
they don't have that in their athletic community. We want
to be building and maintaining those intentionally safe and supportive spaces.
(19:26):
And then second, I think we are trying to think
more intersectionally about the coalitions that we should be forging.
I think that you know, when I look at a
lot of social justice issues, there's like this magic number
of sixty percent support. If we can get to a
place where there's the public opinion is in favor of
(19:48):
trans inclusion or LGBTQ rights, I think that the policy
wins become much more sustainable. And I think in the
absence of that public support, it's sort of on thin
ice whether or not we even if we were successful
in getting better policies pass at the NCAA or the
Olympic or the Paralympic level, without that public support, it
(20:11):
really runs the risk of being rolled backwards right. We
saw this with abortion right. So I think not enough
organizations have engaged in that sort of hearts and mind's work.
And I think for us, it's really how how do
we build a bigger, more abundant coalition of people whose
rights are also being threatened, but we want to work
(20:32):
together in solidarity with one another to prevent the bad
things from happening.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
I think the fear though, is that there was a
preponderance of people in this country who believed in choice,
and it didn't matter when the efforts of a certain
number of political people with power united in an effort
to take them away. And so I agree with you
that that public support is extremely important. But also if
the policymakers have enough power to push things through that
aren't popular with everybody, it doesn't really matter if everyone
(20:59):
is in opposition unless the next time at the polls
they make their voices heard, pushing back on the folks
who have voted in opposition to like what the majority
of the country believes.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
Yeah, I mean, there's no question that the political deck
is stacked against people who care about progressive issues. I
think what I'm hungry for or searching for is a
like a politics of calling people in more, having more
conversation more. I think that even on questions of choice
(21:31):
or bodily autonomy, we don't listen to learn. We listen
to like respond and reload and win the argument. And
that's like, that's like very burdensome work, that's very difficult work.
But I think, you know, on the field of play
in a locker room in sport, that's a space where
that type of approach I think that that type of
(21:52):
bridge building approach can really succeed. And then the last
thing that I was just going to say on strategy
is really also I think for us on the policy front,
looking towards what I would call like athletes civil liberties
as our next like frontier of campaigns and fights that
we want to fight. So, you know, athletes at every
(22:13):
level of sports still lack a lot of structural power.
Right athletes don't have a binding say in the policies
governing their experience. And I think that if we can
you know, lean in on athletes having a voice and
a say over policies governing them, if we can protect
and defend athletes freedom of speech or right to protest
(22:35):
gestures demonstrations, all those things. I think that it becomes
a lot harder for the rights of our most minoritized
athletes to be stripped away from them.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
So yeah, I want to talk about calling in instead
of calling out, and particularly in the sports space. But
first I wanted to ask you, Killy, and if you've noticed,
I think this is going to be your senior year
coming up. Yes, So, over the course of the years
that you've been participating in collegiate sport, how have you
noticed the environment changing for you and what it's like
to be a trans athlete on a college campus.
Speaker 4 (23:07):
I think that like the biggest thing that I've noticed,
especially in this past year alone with the policy changes
that have been made, is like, right, I'm one of
the very few trans athletes who is still eligible and
allowed to play their sport. Right, And it's extremely isolating
because it's like you have the rest of your community
that you want to be fighting for and advocating for
(23:28):
and doing anything that you can for and you're still
in this organization that vehemently opposes them and opposes their existence.
And it's like, right, where do you strike a balance
between Okay, I'm going to participate in this sport. I'm
going to do everything I can to be the best
that I can in this sport and represent my community
while also supporting that community, while participating in an organization
that chooses to do something like that. And I think
(23:49):
that over the past years, especially just on college campuses
in general, I've you know, seen more aggressive opinions towards
trans people being illustrated. I mean, in the past year,
we you know, I've gone to two kind of talkers
that came on a campus. I don't know if you know.
I mean, I'm sure you know who Allygains is. But
(24:10):
when I was at UVA, I also went to a
talk that was given by Abigail Shreer, who has a
pretty strongly worded book specifically on the topic of trans
men who she was. She was there talking about that book,
and the narrative around transmend right was basically that they
were poisoning femininity, that they were causing misogyny, that they
(24:32):
deserved to be basically terminated for who they were, And
I think that that's disgusting. As a transman, I think
that's just disgusting and allowing voices like that to be
on a college campus who are quite literally preaching for
the end of a subset of people is disgusting, and
then having seeing that happen at a more like southern
(24:53):
campus kind of where you would expect something like that
to happen, but then two years later, seeing that happen
on a campus in Seattle at University of Washington, where
you wouldn't necessarily expect an event or a speaker like
that to be sponsored, seeing Riley Gaines show up and
seeing all the people there supporting her and wanting to
spread her message, and then getting wrapped up into that
(25:16):
by having I mean I've had in the past year
for whatever reason, because nobody seems to care about women's rowing,
I guess unless there's a trans athlete participating in it,
which is ridiculous by itself alone. But I've had like
a couple articles written about me, some of them mentioned
Riley Gaines or Riley Gaines spoke about me in it,
(25:37):
and it's just kind of one of those things where
it's confusing because these people opposed me being in a
women's sport as somebody who was born female because I
am trans, which is really just like.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Yeah, I'm gonna ask you about that, because it's a
very no win situation. I when I was researching for this,
I saw your name pop up in some of the
very worst places that love to attack me and other
people who have progressive voices as well.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
So you're not alone in that.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
But the idea that they were like criticizing you even
though this is what they're always demanding. They are demanding
that people play alongside their gender at birth and not
their identity, and yet when you do that, they have
a criticism for that as well. So do you have
to decide this is for me and this is my
choice and this is what I'm doing, and sort of
(26:26):
block out those voices because I think to your point,
there is this need to listen to other groups. So
that doesn't mean we need to sponsor or promote voices
that are about hate, that are not about listening to
the other side, that are not about being educated, that
are not about the science, that are instead simply about
wanting to eradicate a group of people that they disagree with.
I think that we need to say that flat out
(26:46):
when we say call in and have conversations, we don't
mean people like Riley Gaines, who is uninterested in facts
and science and is solely about lining her own pockets
because she's not talented enough at anything else and has
seemed to figure out how to grift on this person
for the rest of her life. But for you personally,
how much do you want to pay attention to that
and understand the space and how much do you want
(27:06):
to say, fuck them, I'm gonna do me.
Speaker 4 (27:08):
Yeah, right, I mean, I think there's a fine line
that you have to balance, right, because I mean I've
read those articles before. I mean, I've had coverage on
Fox News before. I've also read that, and I think
that it's like you kind of have to walk the
line of like, right, I'm not gonna let this offend me.
I'm gonna laugh at it and use it as fuel
(27:29):
for my own fire and then move the fuck on,
because that's just the way that you have to be
about some things. And I think that, like, especially just
reading some of the arguments that were in I think
it was like this article that was.
Speaker 5 (27:41):
We don't need to do with their name ever, sorry,
but like they they made some arguments that were just
completely baseless in science, and we're saying that I was
still somehow cheating by being on a woman's team, though
that was my sex assigned at birth, and it's like right,
Like I.
Speaker 4 (28:00):
Can look at that and laugh, and then I can
also look at the fact that you know, there were
people in the comments saying that I was a lesbian
in denial. I can, you know, my boyfriend and I
look at that and we laugh because it's like that's
not you know, like right, no, it's well.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
That basic and fundamental lack of understanding, I think is
part of the problem, and it's why there's such a
push to ban books, to stop education, to stop the
kind of conversations that we're having right now, because the
more you understand other people, the less likely you are
to try to change them into something you want them
to be instead of who they are.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
And I think that comes back, Hudson, to your.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Work and your group, And I wonder if you have
examples of what you were talking about before, this idea
of can we have a conversation about it, give someone
grace to where they are, meet them where they are
in terms of their understanding, and then potentially even change
their mind. Do you have a favorite story of seeing
someone's mind change or come around because you offer them
the chance to talk instead of berating them for where
(28:56):
they are.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
Yeah, well, I think, I mean, there are many examples
of education, educational sessions that we provided athletes who have
entered into a space that we've helped cultivate or create,
and you know, we've heard firsthand how that exposure does
change somebody. I think there's like this paradox in or
(29:19):
there's like a false way that we sometimes think about sports,
but then also a false way that I think we
can sometimes think about movements in that I think a
lot of times we're told that what it means to
be a great athlete is defined by how well you win,
And I think that really to be a great athlete
is defined by how what you do with losing, what
you do with difficulty, what you do with that adversity.
(29:40):
And I think similarly in our movements, we sometimes I think,
define our movements based off of our areas of political alignment.
It's like, if you agree with me on all these issues,
then we're on the same team. But I think it's
actually what is the spectrum of disagreement that we allow
to exist while still seeing each other's humanity, while still
coming back to the to the team or to the
(30:01):
table and talking about it. And so I think the
first so like thing that I've seen in my work
is just trying to like continue to push my the
comfort and the courage I guess of keeping keeping a
conversation open. That is hard and its difficult and is
frustrating because you know, I think the second that we
(30:22):
close that door, the game is over, right, Like one
of my biggest things that I struggle with a lot,
and at least the trans inclusion work is some of
the biggest, uh sort of enemies of trans inclusion. We're
also some of the most vocal pro gender equity advocates
and people who I was in coalition with and conversation
(30:45):
with and working shoulder to shoulder with. And so I
struggle with where we are now and obviously to walk
to the point that we've made of like, if somebody's
made it their entire identity and life's work to like
deny the dignity of an existence of the trans community,
then that's not a fruitful or valuable conversation. But those
(31:05):
people didn't start that way, right, They started somewhere else.
And I think I'm trying to do better at I
don't know. I think the thing when I think about allyship.
You can do it in three ways as an individual,
in interpersonal relationships and structurally. And I think that individually,
one of the things that we can give each other
more is the invitation to talk, the invitation to ask questions,
(31:28):
tell me why you feel the way you feel, tell
me what you think about that, and so you know,
like anything in sport, in life, everything is a muscle
and if we don't use it, it doesn't become as
effective as we want it to be. So I don't know.
I think at athlete AUTI to be frank, we haven't
developed these tools to the extent that i'd like. I
(31:49):
think that for a long time it was easier to
just say, well, we disagree, so you're unfriended, you're unfollowed,
we're no longer going to talk. And I think where
when I look get where we are politically and culturally,
I am trying to build those muscles better to have
that invitation to talk.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
Yeah, I mean, I think this topic came up recently
when Simone Biles did her best to do something she
doesn't normally do, which is talk about a really difficult
topic and put herself out there, and then unfortunately it
was as much the people on the side of transinclusion,
that we're putting her through a purity test for not
knowing exactly what to say, and how that probably scared
(32:29):
her out of ever talking about it again. And that
is a person with a massive platform and voice. And
I even ended up getting attacked for saying, Hey, I
don't think that's the way we should do this. These
purity tests that the progressive side force everyone into just
continues to dilute our ranks and offers us less of
a unified front when we're going up against a group
(32:50):
of people that have completely abandoned shame, that are willing
to defend literally anything on their quote unquote side, while
we continue to split and bifurcate our into a million
different groups who all have slightly different opinions that mostly
still revolve around inclusion and kindness and grace and all
the other things.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
And so I know that's easy for me to.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
Say as a cis white straight woman, but I have
based the issues of being a woman in this world.
So there is a piece of me that understands on
fairness and wants more fairness for everyone, but understands the
way we're trying to go about getting it isn't working
anymore because unfortunately, the percentage of people who have aligned
with that far right bullshit is too big now to
(33:31):
simply say, fine, you're all out of our house.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
We're not going to talk to you anymore.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
Then they just go hang out with each other, continue
to spread lies, continue to stay uneducated, and then pull
more people into their ranks by having conversations with them
that we're not willing to have with folks because we've already.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
Excluded them from from our group. I mean, we could
talk about this forever.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
I want to get to another couple quick things though,
before before we let you go. I remember Hudson and
you mentioned it earlier in the interview. There was this
big group of massive corporations and leagues, the NBA, the NCAA,
the ACC, all working together with athlete ally. In the
wake of the anti LGBTQ law HB two, they moved
competitions out of North Carolina. They said, we're not giving
(34:11):
you our money, we're not giving you our events because
we do not believe in this. We cannot get that
same response to current recent anti LGBTQ law. Why do
you think right now we cannot rally groups around that,
and how can we get back to a time when
we are forcing leagues and major corporations to feel some
(34:32):
sort of loss or threat if they don't care about
the way that these laws are affecting people's lives.
Speaker 3 (34:43):
It's a really big question. So prior to twenty eighteen,
when we look at the landscape of anti LGBTQ legislation,
the majority of the biggest threats were really relegated to
like five states, and so the movement, the LGBTQ movement
was very sick successful at stopping bad bills from becoming
law because we were well organized and well resourced enough
(35:06):
to do so. You know, out of every one hundred
dollars that is donated to a from a foundation in
the United States to a nonprofit, less than a dollar
goes to an LGBTQ serving organization. So across the world
of philanthropy, LGBTQ work is vastly underfunded. But up until
about twenty eighteen, we were pretty dang successful in stopping
(35:29):
the worst things from becoming law. Then, you know, I
think when we look at twenty eighteen to now, there
was sort of this full court press of anti LGBTQ legislation.
You instead of having five states, you had thirty five
forty states all introducing similar either anti trans or medical
(35:51):
care bans or what's in the library antidi policies. I mean,
the list is very, very long. It's very doesn't just
impact the LGBTQQ unity, but our collective resources got so
very strained and those things started to poke through. And
I think the hard part on the advocacy side of
(36:12):
things is at the time we could point to the
lead in the conversation with leagues, we could say, hey,
HB two is an outlier, right, this is going to
be the worst in the country, And as a result,
you have a responsibility to your constituents to not do
business here, to not reward this the level of discrimination
with your megasporting event. Now it's forty states are in
(36:36):
that same camp or you know, depending on the policy
that you think is matters most to the people that
you work for or work with. And so my answer
this question is probably not a very popular good answer,
but I think my mantra now is like liberation lives locally.
There's a lot in politics in the world that I
(36:57):
can't control. There's a lot of policy that I can't unwind,
but I can put forth a way of organizing, a
way of educating that centers care between individuals at the
team level, at the church level, at the school level.
And I think that if we can collectively kind of
(37:19):
build those muscles around calling in and listening and dialogue,
I think that then those legislative battles like people will
find their bravery and finding their courage to challenge it
and not let the rights of people just be stripped
away from them.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
And we hear that a lot just in general and politics,
is how much work is done at the local level,
whether that's the election of judges or people in different spaces,
and eventually that is what impacts policy at the highest levels.
Speaker 2 (37:45):
It's just harder to see.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
But I think right now, especially, we're all sort of
feeling like the only thing we can do is try
to affect as much as we can in our own
lives because it feels completely untenable to somehow be able
to impact the awful stuff that's going on at the
very highest levels. Kill This is kind of a bigger question,
but do you have advice for folks who want to
be allies but aren't sure if they're up to date
on the right language or the right pronouns, or maybe
(38:08):
they don't know if they're accidentally contributing to creating insensitive
or intolerant spaces. Are there resources, are their practices? Are
there ways that you think the average person who maybe
doesn't know a trans person or isn't super up to
date can like make sure that they're doing their best
to make the spaces there and better.
Speaker 4 (38:26):
I mean, I would you know if you have access,
if you are friends with somebody who is trans. I
feel like having those open and tough conversations is honestly
the best pathway towards education that you can get. I've
had to educate a lot of my friends and family
members on these sorts of issues. But if you don't
have access to that, I feel like we're in a
modern age now where there's no excuse not to just
(38:47):
look it up. Like if you're confused about something, if
you want to understand something a little bit more and
you want to come from a place of truly understanding,
rather than just reading the big news headlines and taking
the first thing that you see and being like, well
that the entire trans community altogether, just look it up
and like, actually do your research if you're somebody who's
actually interested in wanting to learn more, and I mean
(39:08):
there's great resources like you can start somewhere as simple
as the Human Rights Campaign going to their website seeing
what they have to offer about trans people. You can
go to your local library if maybe you don't have
access to Internet, and see if your librarian might have
some books on trans people or books on LGBTQ plus
people in general. There's just I feel like there's so
many pathways to education on this particular topic, and I
(39:31):
think that right now especially, it's important to take advantage
of them while we still have them. Because another thing
that's been coming out recently too is that, I mean,
you see from National Parks all the way from New
York to most recently Yosemite, people being stripped away of
their right to either say that their trans or advocate
for the trans community. More broadly, and you're seeing websites
(39:53):
United States health organizations literally having to take down what
it means to be trans off of their website. So
I think that trying to educate yourself now with the
resources that we still have available while we do is
super important.
Speaker 1 (40:06):
Your dog agrees, I could hear I'm chiming in throughout
your dog was like snaps preach. Yeah, yeah, I mean,
I couldn't agree with that more. And I do think
because I've heard people, whether it's people of color, LGBTQ
plus often say like we're burdened with teaching you and
all the other stuff, that it's also worth asking people
(40:27):
in your life. I'm sure you get asked this a lot,
but do you mind if I ask you some questions?
Speaker 2 (40:32):
I want to know more?
Speaker 1 (40:33):
Or I know you're probably tired of explaining this, but
is it okay? I feel most comfortable asking you to
help me understand, and if they say no, then go
find somewhere else to learn. But hopefully people will be
open to wanting to talk to because I understand both
sides of that coin one thousand percent. On the one hand,
you want to say ask me, I'm the one who knows,
and you also want to be like, stop asking me
and go.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
Figure it out for yourself.
Speaker 1 (40:54):
I'm not around to educate you all the time, but yes,
the best thing to do is go right to the
source and talk to people who have the lived experience. Gosh,
I could talk to you guys forever, but we are
way past time, so thank you so much for the time.
Thank you to the Dog for chiming in and well
of course keep sending people to athlete Ally, to donate,
to read, to support, to learn about the policy changes
(41:14):
you guys have helped enact, to learn about the ways
that you've tried to educate folks on how to best
be in their teams and their leagues and everything else.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
And we'll just keep.
Speaker 1 (41:23):
Pushing for that education to be available to everyone. So
thanks so much for the time.
Speaker 4 (41:28):
Thanks for having us, Thank you for having us.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
Thanks so much to Hudson and Killian for joining us.
We got to take another break when we come back.
Friend of the Show, Representative Lorii Trehan's still doing the
good work.
Speaker 2 (41:41):
I'll tell you about it in a jiff. Welcome back slices.
Speaker 1 (41:52):
We love that you're listening, but we want you to
get in the game every day too, So here's our
good game play of the day. You might remember Congressman
Lorii Trehan joining the show a few months to discuss
her work defending Title nine and gender equality in college sports. Well,
she's still fighting the good fight, and she needs our
help to push back against those trying to enact policy
that will completely fail women athletes. The legislation that Republicans
(42:14):
are pushing forward, called the Score Act, written by Jim Jordan,
Brett Guthrie, and Tim Wahlberg, doesn't work to counteract Title
nine loopholes that deny thousands of women roster spots, doesn't
address how violations of Title nine in the House Settlement
will be remedied, doesn't ensure women can fully participate in
and benefit from the fast growing nil marketplace, and per
Laurie's team, the bill could also overturn vital state laws
(42:36):
unrelated to college sports, including the Michigan law that was
used to prosecute Larry Nassar. Laurie and the Democratic Women's
Caucus fought the bill as it moved through committee, but
Republicans still advanced it through two committees without a single
Democratic vote and with one Republican opposing, and are now
expected to bring it to the House floor of the
week of September fifteenth. Laurie needs top women athletes, coaches,
(42:58):
and high level representatives for women in sport to show
up in person or virtually for a press conference the
second week of September to expose the Score Acts failure
to protect and strengthen women's sports. So if you're interested
in getting involved, please shoot us an email and we'll
connect you to Lori's team. Hit us up on email,
good game at wondermedianetwork dot com, or you can leave
us a voicemail at eight seven two two oh four
(43:20):
fifty seventy, and don't forget to subscribe. Rate and review slaces.
It's easy watch fighting back with information and support, rating
one out of one piece of good news review. It's
hard not to get discouraged right now, but there are
some great examples of folks fighting back, making a difference,
and ensuring that people can still get the information, help
(43:42):
and support that they need. Here in Illinois, for example,
Governor JB. Pritzker just announced a first of its kind
legal hotline for LGBTQ plus folks called Illinois Pride Connect,
wrote Pritzker on social quote, as the only state in
the nation that will provide free legal advice to protect
the LGBTQ plus community. Will help fight ignorance with information
and cruelty with compassion. End quote yes to more of
(44:06):
that now, it's your turn.
Speaker 2 (44:08):
Rate and review.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
Thanks for listening, y'ell, see you Tomorrow, Good Game Hudson
and Killian, Good Game, Athlete, Ally You, Jim Jordan. Good
Game with Sarah Spain is an iHeart women's sports production
in partnership with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment. You can
find us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts. Production by Wonder Media Network, our
(44:31):
producers are Alex Azzie and Misha Jones. Our executive producers
are Christina Everett, Jesse Katz, Jenny Kaplan and Emily Rudder.
Our editors are Emily Rutter, Britney Martinez, Grace Lynch, and
Gianna Palmer. Our associate producer is Lucy Jones. Production assistance
from Avery Loftis and I'm Your Host Sarah Spain
Host
Sarah Spain
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