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