Riding a Trans-Inclusive Tidal Wave with Schuyler Bailar

Show Notes

We take a bite out of trans inclusion and participation in sports with Schuyler Bailar, also known as PinkMantaray on social media. Schuyler was one of the keynote speakers at MBLGTACC 2022 and during our candid conversation he shared incredible wisdom about tackling anti-trans aggressors as well as sharing his story as a young swimmer coming into transness in college. 

Additional Resources & References  

• Alicia Kozlowski, an Ojibwe and Mexican-American nonbinary person, is one of many LGBTQ+ candidates becoming the “first” to serve in their elected role 
• Lia Thomas becomes a national champion and first known trans athlete to win a Division 1 title 

To learn more about the Midwest Bisexual Lesbian Gay Transgender Asexual College conference, check out mblgtacc.org 

For questions, comments or feedback about this episode: [e-mail]

We’ve joined TikTok! You can also find us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram or at sgdinstitute.org 

Host: R.B. Brooks, they/them, director of programs for the Midwest Institute for Sexuality and Gender Diversity 

Cover art: Adrienne McCormick

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Creators & Guests

Host

R.B. Brooks

Director of Programs, Midwest Institute for Sexuality and Gender Diversity

Producer

Justin Drwencke

Executive Director, Midwest Institute for Sexuality and Gender Diversity

What is Take the Last Bite?

Take the Last Bite is a direct counter to the Midwest Nice mentality— highlighting advocacy & activism by queer/trans communities in the Midwest region. Each episode unearths the often disregarded and unacknowledged contributions of queer & trans folks to social change through interviews, casual conversations and reflections on Midwest queer time, space, and place.

For questions, comments and feedback: [e-mail]

To support this podcast and the Institute, please visit sgdinstitute.org/giving

Host: R.B. Brooks, they/them, director of programs for the Midwest Institute for Sexuality & Gender Diversity

Cover Art: Adrienne McCormick

RB BROOKS:
Heyhihello ya’ll, my name is R.B. and welcome to Take the Last Bite, a show where we take Midwest Nice, roll it out on a floured surface, shape it into a pie pan and bake it until it’s fruity and flaky.

I think we all deserve a round of applause for making it to the other side of yet another “very important” election season. Whether you were actively involved in a candidate's campaign, drafted a voter guide, got yourself to a polling place, or rallied around all the credible alternatives to electoral politics, we made it through the rigamarole and across the board it appears there were some significant wins and certainly some letdowns– all of which will flavor the work moving forward.

I know I’m personally pretty hype about Alicia Kozlowski, an Objiwe and Mexican-American nonbinary human, being elected to the Minnesota House– which means they’ll be the first nonbinary person to serve in the Minnesota state legislature. I only wish I had the chance to vote for them myself, but I am not in their district so they were not on my ballot.

Of course, there are many headlines from elections across the country at all levels of government spotlighting instances of “firsts”-- especially LGBTQ+ folks being elected into positions where they are the first fill-in-the-blank identity to serve in the role. And while it’s not something to scoff at when someone who claims queerness or transness breaches the cishetnormative parameters of electoral politics and gains a seat in major decision-making spaces, there’s a complexity to the notion of “firsts.”

Simply being some shade of LGBTQ doesn’t mean that someone is enmeshed in the culture or accountable to others in the community. And when the norms within political spaces trends toward upholding structures that inhibit queer and trans existence, it’s more meaningful when an LGBTQ+ person in a place of power utilizes that power to pull us all up, not just lavish in the luxury of borrowed power. Being the “first” can be significant, but being the most empathetic, the most collaborative, the most attuned to the needs of disenfranchised communities– that’s how we build collective power.

On today’s episode, I chat with someone who knows all about being the “first” and also knows a whole lot about making deep connections between various movement efforts in order to make transformative change. Swimmer, educator and advocate Schuyler Bailar, also known as pinkmantaray on social media, was the first trans athlete to compete for an NCAA Division 1 men’s team. Schuyler was one of the keynotes at this year’s Midwest Bisexual Lesbian Gay Transgender Asexual College Conference and I had the absolute pleasure of sharing the stage with him for a candid conversation about his emergence into athletics and his trans experiences as well as analyzing the ways anti-trans attacks have turned toward trans participation in sports as the latest tactic against our communities.

Take a deep breath and get ready to dive into this episode of Take the Last Bite

[INTRO MUSIC PLAYING]

Why can't we be in space with hundreds of other queer and trans folks and having these necessary conversations?

When it comes to dynamics around privilege and oppression, and around identity. Well intentioned isn’t actually good enough.

How far is too far to drive for a drag show? I don’t know, we’re in Duluth right now, I would straight up go to Nebraska, probably,

If you are not vibing, or something’s not right, or also like there’s an irreparable rupture, you have absolutely every right to walk away.

Definitely going to talk about Midwest Nice and if that's as real as it wants to think it is.

Midwest nice is white aggression. That's what it is.

[END MUSIC]

RB BROOKS:
I think a natural place to start is why don't you share a bit about who you are, a bit about your story and what you're up to.

SCHUYLER BAILAR:
Yeah. My name is Schuyler. It's really lovely to see you all. Stephanie was talking about how it's a powerful radical revolutionary thing to have so many queer and trans people in the same place. I was listening and surveying the room and feeling the same kind of power. I hope you all can feel it. If you don't already, that it builds over your time here. I am the first openly trans athlete on the NCAA program. I spent years at Harvard University and that's what has given me a platform. I've toed that label for a while now and I say that in that way intentionally because I'm also more than just a trans athlete, of course. I think that's one of the problems is that we become as trans and queer people one label and we get reduced to that. I think trans athletes especially. I'm also an educator and that's a lot of what I do as you said. I host support groups, I do some stuff on Instagram, although I feel like I'm outdated because I haven't moved to the next thing yet. Recently everybody has been telling me to do TikTok. Somebody told me YouTube is coming back. Are you on YouTube? You're just as clueless as me. Someone told me I needed to get on YouTube shorts. I've been out of college for three years now. I have a puppy and a partner. When I was giving speeches in college everybody always asked me what do you want to do when you grow up, what do you want to go when you leave college? I said I want to have a cat, a partner and a place to live. I have two of those. The dog will have to do. [LAUGHTER] So that's me in a nutshell.

RB BROOKS:
I always joke about how I transitioned from not being a cat person to being a cat person because now I have two of them and I love them dearly, even though I always swore I would never be a cat person. I feel that.

SCHUYLER BAILAR:
Can you be queer and not be a cat person, though?

RB BROOKS:
I guess I learned. It's a DIY identity forum for cat lovers later.

SCHUYLER BAILAR:
I'm only joking.

RB BROOKS:
Let's not get on the Republican talking point about the litter boxes.

SCHUYLER BAILAR:
I don't even know it. I don't think I want to.

RB BROOKS:
It's a made-up thing but they think high schools are putting them in bathrooms. It's a fear mongering scare. This is how our opposition spends their time by thinking about things like this.

SCHUYLER BAILAR:
Oh, my god.

RB BROOKS:
We'll get to our opposition in a bit. Why don't -- going along the trajectory of your story, in what ways would you say the emergence of your athleticism and coming into your experience as an athlete, because you've been doing this since you were very young, where did that interplay and how does that intertwine with understandings of your queer identity?

SCHUYLER BAILAR:
Understanding my identity in athletics. How long do you all have? I learned how to swim before I was 1. I've been swimming my whole life. Luckily I'm sitting today, but I often trip on stage. I always joke that I'm not much of a land animal. I've spent my life in the water, feel comfortable swimming. Gender identity according to most of the major psychiatric associations, in some ways I've been swimming longer than I've been me. I think my identity as a swimmer came on pretty early. I realized my queer queerness with words. I was able to say I identify as queer around the age of 12, I think. But that was only about sexuality. I didn't understand that gender identity was a thing that I could claim as my own and as different from what I was assigned. But most of my childhood I presented myself in a very stereotypically masculine way. All my clothes were from the boy's section, I played boys soccer, lacrosse, baseball. That was OK in the ways I was. I was lucky to have parents who supported me in that way. Not as lucky at school. Kids were not particularly nice to me because of that. The reason I'm saying this, I didn't have the words to describe that, but I was pretty sure about who I was at that time. It wasn't until I actually developed an eating disorder and really struggled with my mental health in high school that I was actually at all able to confront my identity. And come out as gay somewhere in high school and I mean gay as in I knew I liked girls, maybe that's the thing. It wasn't the thing, in turns out there's more. So when I went to rehab, a residential treatment center for my eating disorder and spent five months there and it was that place where I was able to slow down, come up for air, I wasn't allowed to swim when I was there and I had the space to say gosh I'm actually not a girl, I'm a boy, I'm trans. I was recrude to swim for Harvard's women's team. It posed a big problem for me. Most people say gender is pretty important in sports, especially in swimming, where there's no gender-neutral uniform. It's that tiny little men's speedo or the one piece women's suit. So I was so afraid. When I figured I was trans there was no relief pretty much. A short amount of relief, fuck, that's it. Stephanie swore, so I've decided to. I was like I don't know what I'm going to do now. I felt like I had to choose between being an athlete and being trans. I had no examples. I spent so much time googling transgender athlete, swimmer, person. And pretty much nothing came up. There was no resources, nobody was talking about trans athletes at that time at all. There was pretty much nobody who had competed either who was openly trans. There were a couple of people who competed on the teams they were assigned. Nobody had done what I had done at that time. I concluded I had to hide it and I was like OK I'm just going to figure this out I guess and I'll pretend to be a woman for the first my college career and then I'll transition. But that didn't work out for me. I decided I needed to be more of myself and try to make this story shorter, sorry, y'all. I ended up deciding it was best I come out, I told my coaches, which I found support there, I didn't expect that, found a spot on the men's team instead at Harvard. I said not first time. You want me to be about 40 college age athletes? Absolutely no. You have to remember this is baby trans Schuyler. I've just come out as trans, just figuring out how to present my masculinity, what that feels and looks like to me I have four people in the world calling me he/him pronouns and they're like yeah, go to the party with the guys, the entire men's team. I felt like a fetus. I really did. They're all like 6'4" bearded men and I'm also a man, I guess. But I actually found myself feeling more comfortable than I expect and I found myself being able to be more of myself. As you all know I decided to be on the men's team and the rest is history. We can go into more pieces of that at some point.

RB BROOKS:
The rest was truly history, as we know from being the first openly trans athlete in the NCAA to compete. So something that you mentioned too is that when you were Google searching, nothing. Was this the days of tumbler? Even then not as much because there wasn't folks. It sounds like that is a big piece of why you do things like this. You come to spaces like this to share that story so that no-one else has to end up in that situation. Can you speak more to that?

SCHUYLER BAILAR:
Yeah. For a while, and I say -- for a while my goal in sharing my story was very simple simple. I wanted people to know this was possible. I wanted people to know that I was possible. Not me as in Schuyler Bailar but me as an openly transgender athlete who was competing in his sport and happy and supported as well. I wanted to spread that message of the possibility. I say this as past tense because I used to end every speech I gave with "and I'm here to prove to you that you can be who you are and do what you love." That's no longer true. We have so many states, over half the states in the United States who have attempted trans kids to do exactly what I've done. The statement" you can be who you are and do what you love" is no longer a universal statement in the United States. That's devastating. That's why y'all are here here, not specifically because of the theoretic part perhaps -- athletic part but they are trying to yank us backwards. Now the journey is about sharing the possibility but more so sharing the fight to bring people along here and make it possible again for especially trans young people to do this. I think that one of the other things I really want to communicate to people is really my humanity. I think people miss that that. There are many times -- you all are what I call a voluntary audience. You chose to be here. I'm expecting. Maybe your friend dragged you here, but for the most part you chose to be here. I go to a lot of places where people don't choose to be here. It's a school assembly, the athletics department and the teams are forced to be there. Those places are different. The reason I'm sharing this is because every time I go to these places with conscripted Australians, people who are -- audiences, a lot of times guys come up to me me, I assume cis, gosh, before I came here I didn't want to come. They're direct with me. I didn't want to be here. I had other things to do. OK, sure. I really didn't like people like you. OK, well, alright. And then they will be like I sat here and listened to you and it turns out I kind of felt the same way at X, Y, and Z point in my life. I also felt like I didn't fit in. I also struggled with depression. My friend said they felt the same way you did and it turns out you are actually just like me. Sometimes I have to keep myself from being like Duh, yes, we are both human human. But that's really what's lacking. It's funny but it's also not because that's what's lacking. People are unable because of the amount of lies they've been told, people aren't able to connect with another person who they perceive as other. When I show up and say hi, I'm this person, that's really all I do, by the way. I tell them my life story. I don't force anything down them. I say hey, this is no, I am. When I do that I think what happens is not only am I present presenting my humanity, here, witness this, what I'm hoping to do is invite them into their own humanity because that's what's missing. When we oppress others, we are not being fully human ourselves, in my opinion. There's a lot there, but those are the thoughts I have.

RB BROOKS:
I love every single piece of that. I think what stuck out to me too is thinking about other folks in athletics who either are not or are not currently claiming any shade of trans or queerness is kind of the realization of kind of in the realm of sport and athletics, some of the rigidity in what you're doing with your body, how hypergenderred those spaces can be, some of the pressure and expectations and how that is maybe not focused or fostered in those spaces, especially college athletics and how you kind of coming in probably to check a box, unfortunately, because higher ed, looking at you, that folks can recognize that humanity and maybe start to kind of re-evaluate kind of the culture of athletics and what else might be worth addressing beyond one of the very clear things that needs addressed is how trans folks are being treated and/or ill-considered in those athletic spaces. There's no a question there but kind of a thought. I will name too that there are additional conferences this weekend around some of the complex and cringy things that can take place that aren't as public-facing in athletics, especially in college sports programs. We have a presenter who is speaking to some of his unfortunate experiences, very similar to kind of the -- I can't think of his name, but the Michigan State scenario with the person convicted for doing horrible things to some of those youth athletes. There's a comparable narrative coming up this weekend too and the culture of things taking place. You hit on something that I wanted to take us towards because again the programming group is eager to focus on that onslaught of attacks. I think it's important to be realistic and embrace the fact that you should be able to do what you love and be who you are.

SCHUYLER BAILAR:
Absolutely.

RB BROOKS:
And that there is a huge, huge frontier being being-ridden -- I don't know. We're going to choose that verb today. Why do you think it is that in this particular moment our opposition, as I like to call them, I don't like to give them too much power, we know who they are, are choosing athletics and sports? Because it used to be bathrooms. That used to be the big deal. Not that that's gone away, but it seems there's a precise focus on sports and athletics. Why do you think that is?

SCHUYLER BAILAR:
Well, there are many different reasons. Power and the desire for power is the primary primary. We'll break it down. Why sports? You all might have remembered HB 2 in North Carolina, the bathroom bill, it started a couple of years before that in Houston where they were trying to pass a bill that would allow -- this is relevant, I promise. They were trying to pass a bill that would protect gender identity, add gender identity and expression to list of protected classes and it would have allowed people to use the bathroom of their choice. And republicans decided and figured out a little bit of a genius tactic tactic, if you will, they decided that if they fear mongered us about bathrooms, told people were going to abuse people in bathrooms, it would take hold. They did that. It wasn't even about bathrooms. The bill didn't get fast. Fast-forward two years, they started doing bathroom bills directly. Now we're here with trans athletes in sports. All of them have the same through line. The reason this is important, you don't have to care about athletics, by the way, to care about this, or trans people. What's happening is they're using pretty much any group they can and trans people are an easy target because of the way people rally around what they think is feminism. The Republicans, the opposition, is using these arguments to manipulate people into essentially supporting them, which is power power, right? And they're manipulating feminism to do it. This is the key. It's a manipulation of feminism. They are tricking pretty much the moderate, the people who are like I support trans people, but trans people in sports? What? That's the crew of people they want because they can tell those people, fight for women. It's women's rights. That's why we need to exclude trans people. Women's rights. It's under this guys guise of feminism. That feminism is hell White. This is important. Per St. if we're not looking at it from an intersectional lens,. The same arguments that are being made about trans women were made about Black women. I said were. They are. Serena Williams is still used. It happened to others. There's one through line for these women. They are all Black. The thing everybody misses when they decide that they are going to be a feminist and therefore support excluding trans women is they are feeding right into the trap it's a designed trap. The goal is to tell people this is the right thing to do, this is feminist and that is how we'll control you. I saw a great tweet. There was somebody who had tweeted something like -- it was about when Roe v Wade was overturned. Somebody retweeted and said it didn't start here either. This is key. They said it didn't start here with overturning Roe v Wade either. You didn't see attacks on trans people as legitimate attacks on bodily autonomy. That's what's happening. They're using trans people to ease the country into it. They're using it to divide the country. The best way to be empowered over people is to divide the people you want to have power over. It's not about sports. It's not about health care. It's not about the bathrooms or abortions actually either. It is not about any of the things they are saying it's about. If you dissect any one of them, there's no basis to their arguments. We can get really into the weeds with trans athletes and I can give you the facts as to why it's fair for them to compete. We don't need to go that today. Trans people and our existence, it threatens -- they see us as a threat. We are because we are threatening cic-het row patriarchy. That's why they're freaking out. In this situation, I don't mind being that threat because I want that to fall. I don't want that to stay. The problem is that we have to actually understand that's the system we're taking down. Also by the way it's White cis Hetero patriarchy. They're overlapping. I think people miss that. The amount of people I've talked to who are like I want to protect women, then why where you beginning women in a reductive 1920s way by only their reproductive capacity? Last time I checked women are more than that. In order to designate someone, --
We could go on, but that's my diatribe.

RB BROOKS:
Absolutely. I think that framing is so stunning stunning. I think too when I was in college I feel like the bathroom conversation was really where the pin was. Something I'm curious about and have tracked is I think the pitfall in some ways and why we've seen the morphing of the bathroom conversation explicitly turn into this trans athletics conversation is that they probably figured out quickly how impossible and ridiculous it would be to enforce the bathroom bills. Are you going to station someone at every door? We live in a police state. Ultimately, unfortunately, there's some quicker reach to saying who can and cannot participate in sport and athletics. Unfortunately, not to say it's not transcending age, but we're seeing it's specifically going for children who should have nothing to do with this. We should not be doing this to our children. But that's where we're at. I think too about what you said about kind of really being able to sway and convince kind of the moderate, average person who's maybe not politicized or maybe not immersed in caring about trans people. I think about earlier this year where everyone and their hamster had an opinion about Leah Thomas. You told me. You tell me.

SCHUYLER BAILAR:
Is that the question?

RB BROOKS:
Yes. No. Also a swimmer, was at.

SCHUYLER BAILAR:
University of Pennsylvania.

RB BROOKS:
Thank you. One of the Pennsylvania schools and won as the first openly trans person to win an NCAA Division 1. I am not a sports gay. I hope that's clear. I'm interviewing the sports gay for a reason, OK? People who have never cared or watched collegiate sports, especially swimming, all had an opinion about Leah Thomas participating. There were people who were wearing the wrong swimmer.

SCHUYLER BAILAR:
We had some fun pictures of Katie Ledecky. She's a man. I love it when they use the correct pronouns and also say she's a man. Anyways Anyways. There's many tweets of Katie Ledecky, who also -- we can go on and on about that. Katie is an in incredible swimmer. Leah was nine seconds behind her record. Dominating sports. A whole pool length.

RB BROOKS:
We're getting riled up here.

SCHUYLER BAILAR:
What's the question?

RB BROOKS:
I think I'm naming what you said about the general public can latch on to some of this language that's been weaponized to say who should and shouldn't be participating. These folks on social media talking about it who have no stake in this game, literally, suddenly having a proclamation about who should and should not be able to participate in sports. I think that's one of the examples of how you're naming that folks can be yields swayed and that it's a designed tactic because no-one would have been reaching for that particular conversation with Leah Thomas unless the way it reached sensationalized public facing. I think that's a key example just from this year.

SCHUYLER BAILAR:
Yeah. One of the things I think is interesting, I like to point out the irony. We have all these people in the Republican Party specifically who are fear mongering about how trans people are going to abuse people in bathrooms, how we're going to destroy sports, take over sports, we're go to molest, groom all the children. These are all the arguments. The people who with have the highest rates are the Republican Party. If you do a Google search, sexual assault, they have more cases. There's plenty of reports about that. I've done plenty of research on it it. We have a republican whatever his name, he's literally under investigation for sex trafficking, a minor. We have to understand also that they are saying over here, in the front door saying trans people are going to ruin all these things, take our children, sexually assault people in bathrooms and they're doing each and every one of those things. When we miss that, we're again missing the manipulation. That's where that moderate gets swayed because they're only listen listening to what they're saying and not looking at what they're doing. I've had interesting conversations with people having trouble with Leah because they had read all the crap. I literally told them you got played. You totally got played here because you ate that up. If you know the facts, Leah is not threat threatening anything. One of the things that's really difficult about the work I do right now that's different from what it was, so five years ago, actually seven, you started doing this work. At that point most people couldn't define the word transgender. They had no ability to define that work. They didn't know what trans people were. They were blank slates, which actually wasn't that bad. I got to say this is what trans people are like. Here are all the facts about how it's fine for us to compete in sports and so on. People were supportive a lot of the time. Over the past three years we've seen this onslaught of anti-trans bills. Now when I go and speak people are destroyed with all of this bullshit and I have to start with unpacking all that first before I can get them to even step forward. It's hard. It's really hard. It's possible, though. I don't want to just be a Debbie Downer here. I want you to know that it's possible for people to walk through this. I know you were using the term opposition and I would offer a challenge. Those people are actually afraid. There's a word, that quote where it's like oh, you're not actually homophobic, you're not afraid, you're just an asshole.. I think they're also afraid. I mean this. It's important. They're terrified that they are losing power and they're scrambling for it. The reason is like never before we know ourselves. Like never before you all are collecting yourselves in spaces. We are creating community online, Trevor project, lifeline, so many organizations that never existed existed 30, 40 years ago. We are organizing like we have never done before because we were able to know ourselves like never before. That's terrifying to those people, which is awesome. But the less awesome part is when they get scared they do this and grapple for that power. One of the things I don't want us to miss as queer and trans people is that despite the fact that it feels like they're pushing us backwards they're only doing that because we're moving forwards. We have to know that. We can't get go -- let go of that. Despite the fact I've said sad things, it's because I do have hope that we're going to move forward. I have endless hope we're going to do that. It's not hope at this point; it's knowledge. I know we're going to move forward and that's because we stand on the shoulders of amazing people, in the queer community who have charted this path and we have to keep it going.

RB BROOKS:
Challenge accepted because I agree. [APPLAUSE] Wholeheartedly. In many ways I think trans folks especially have been underestimated because of the gaps in documentation of our history and contributions. There is some in-house reason for that too. Cis White gays and lesbians not really giving room to trans folks in any decade. I was going to say the 1990s I refer to a lot because of the origin of our space. Trans folks were not given that space. It doesn't depict the fact that behind every shift and move and movement, it's been trans folks, especially trans women and Fems of color which I will absolutely plug the lunch and learn tomorrow to learn more about the history from some amazing trans women of color who are doing incredible work. Whether or not we focus on that is a whole different story, which is why one of our tracks is designing a future through media because they're there too but the media needs to do another thing. Plugging things. That's what I do. Director of programs. I'm looking at the time. I want to make room for questions from the audience and then we'll pull back to do final thoughts and wrap us up.

RB BROOKS:
Once we opened up the room for questions, a huge line formed behind a stationed microphone. While we ended up having to cut the Q&A portion off before everyone got to ask their questions, Schuyler was incredibly generous with his time and connected with attendees after the session wrapped up. In the interest of privacy and confidentiality, we will be including some of the questions asked during the session but they have been re-recorded and paraphrased.

The first question was: quote “I’ve been following your story for a long time and I’ve always seen on TV what I can assume is a reservation to say things that would look bad on air. I wonder, if it weren’t for presentability politics, what are the things you wish you could say on TV more?” end quote

SCHUYLER BAILAR:
It's interesting your reflection reflection. I don't want to invalidate anything you've said. I don't know that I restrain myself in the contents of what I say but rather in how I might say what I say. I don't think I've gone on TV and said I can't say that. If they are putting me on TV, I'm going to say whatever the hell I want to say. I will hear things they don't want to hear. I think in many ways I don't think I restrain the contents, but I think there are times when I want to just say you're wrong and that's not enough, if you will, of an answer. What you might see is sort of careful consideration of how best to use my words. But I want to pull out one of the things you said. I can't remember if you use this exact word but palatability is a word I'm thinking of. In order for somebody to listen to me in some contexts, they must perceive me as palatable. What does that mean? I need to be presentable. Same idea. I need to feel presentable to them, I need to sometimes cuddle them to make sure they don't feel attacked. I might need to use different language that they understand. To me, this practice, if you will, first of all, a white supremacist, ableist and so on, and I want to recognize that. At the same time for me what happens is it's a tension between validity and productivity and I'll explain. It is valid for me to yell at somebody and say how dare you. It's valid for me to feel that way. It's not always productive. In order for me to be successful and change somebody's mind, I can't yell at them. It doesn't work, unfortunately. It would be great if I could blurt it out, but it doesn't work. I tone police myself. That's a term that Black activists have coined and we're using here to use as well this terms of people saying you have to be this way in order to be received. I can tell you it works and that's why I do it. But the validity part of that, validity versus productivity, the validity part of that is important. What I always tell people when I do speeches and people come to me, oh, you know you're so calm and you're so -- you explain these so nicely to us us. I appreciate it. Other people get mad and nasty. I say to them immediately there's a reason they're mad and nasty. You probably said something that pissed them off. I tell them you need to understand when people get mad there's a reason they're mad and I have the privilege to not get mad. I have the privilege of therapy, supportive family, financial freedom. I could name many things that allow me to actually have an ability to calm myself in these moments and say things in a way that's palatable to somebody else. Therefore, it is productive. The anger is also valid. I think it's a tension I walk carefully because I want to be productive in what I do. But sometimes I really have to also remind them that productivity excludes emotions sometimes and that's also not good. It's an unfinished statement because it's an unfinished practice.

RB BROOKS:
Our next attendee question was: quote “A lot of the time when we engage in activism or we present ourselves as out and open to people, it can be very exhausting. The question I want to ask– what was the something that made you happy about deciding ‘I’m going to be out, I’m going to be competing openly trans and I’m going to be an activist’? Was there any joy in it? For me personally doing the work I do, there are some days where I’m like is there joy in this for me at the end of the day?” end quote

SCHUYLER BAILAR:
It's a good question. I appreciate you making space for it. I think the short answer is that I did not come out and share my trans transness with the world. I'm a swimmer and I'm naked in the pool. People were going to know. I decided that, A, I wanted people to know because of what I said earlier. I wanted to know it's possible. But I also knew it was better that I take control of the story. Lastly, I wanted to swim. I did what I did and I said this throughout my entire college career. I religious religiously rejected the word activist when I was in college. I said you're only calling me that because I'm transgender and a swimmer. You're not calling me that because I'm doing anything. You're calling me that because it is radical to be both. My existence is radical. I now accept the label of activist and advocate, but at the time I was trying to swim. I wanted to swim and I wanted to stay alive. Those things ended up becoming together in this terms of being openly trans because that was the best thing for me. So there was tons of joy in swimming. I think that was what got me through college because I loved swimming and I wanted to swim as myself. There's a lot of joy there. It's also heavy work and I want to encourage you and anybody else who does this work to make space for that, to grieve when you need to be sad, to feel joyless when you need to. You have to make space for the crappy stuff. People ask how are you so positive, Schuyler? My answer is I don't. I actually don't stay optimistic all the time. Generally speaking I do, but when I'm not, I say gosh this makes sense I'm not optimistic. This fucking sucks. This is hard. Let me do what I need to do to feel better, if that's crying, watching avatar, hanging out with my puppy, whatever it may be. It's important to make space for that joy too.

RB BROOKS:
The next attendees question was: quote” I was wondering, based on how you came out and how your fellow athletes reacted to it, is there a good balance when when it comes to having allyship with perhaps perhaps cis identifying individuals and people in the queer space. As queer people, it’s powerful that we have this union, but is there kind of a balance of sort of like allyship that we need to kind of push ourselves up into a space or do you think we can become powerful enough on our own to be sustainable and you’re able to make change?” end quote

SCHUYLER BAILAR:
It's a great question. Check all of the above is my answer, but you probably don't want just that. My time on the men's team was complicated, I'll say. I speak very generally, highly of my teammates because generally they were accepting of me and my coach was I can't say anything negative about how my coach treated me and that's a huge privilege. But I also was misgendered for most of the first year by most of my teammates and several of them specifically. There were specific ones who continued doing it. I was kicked out of the group by the lead bully, if you will, in my class. I had a difficult time with some of the guys there. I think again generally speaking it was a positive experience. I sayer that -- I'm also being more open here in this space intentionally. I share more of the positiveed when I'm in cis dominated spaces because it acts as peer pressure. If the Harvard guys can be supportive of Schuyler, we should get our act together. You should. That's how I share it. I don't lie. I share more of the positive. I also share the negative. I'm trying to share with you the reason for the narrative. I think that there is value in having allies. I think that when we were in echo chambers, it can be harmful to how we move forward. I know many queer and trans people who refuse to interact with anybody who's not queer or trans. I think that's valid too. It's what works for you. The people who need to be around community can do great work in community. There's need need, a necessity for both. The only thing I'll say is in order for all of us to move forward as a society, you mentioned that word society, I do think we have to have people who will be ambassadors of some kind who will bring people on board. I think that when we divide -- there's value -- a lot of value to affinity groups and people being in spaces where the identity is common. But there's also -- how do I say this best? At the end of the day we are also just humans and we are using 1 percent of who we are in order to distinguish and put these boxes around us. I want people to understand that there's actually so much more expression and space and freedom in our identities that even cis and Het people need to get, need to achieve, achieve is the wrong word. Need to explore.

RB BROOKS:
The next attendee asked quote “I was wondering if you have noticed much difference between transitioning male-to-female and female-to-male and what the difference has been outlash and backlash-wise for the two” end quote

SCHUYLER BAILAR:
Absolutely. They're markedly different. Transitioning and I'll use different language or offer different language. I would say people assigned male at birth and people assigned female at birth. I don't want to tell you how to use words for yourself, but I like to share this. I've seen a shift away from saying male to female. If I say I'm FTM, that would imply at one point I was female. That's not accurate to me. I used that language too and I was like this doesn't feel right. I can use different words. Yes, there's a marked difference. People don't care a whole lot about me. I made a bit of a splash when I started but that was mostly because I think Harvard -- pun, alright, alright. I think part of it honestly was the fact I went to Harvard and people talk about what happens there. It's elitist. Another part it was the first, the fact that it hadn't happened was interesting to people and swimming made it interesting. He's basically naked. I think that's one factor as to why I made a story. Most people were, OK, people weren't that upset. Some people were and people would accuse me of cheating by using testosterone. Most of the cis guys on my team never got checked. Mostly they don't care. The biggest argument against me was that's so unfair to me because they think I'm so disadvantaged as someone assigned female at birth that I couldn't possibly compete against men. He's going to get destroyed. He can't keep up, whatever. Which is actually a very misogynistic belief because it's made up and propaganda. Also used to hurt women or all gender histories. That's one side. The other side is trans women in sport. The backlash. I saw that coming from forever ago because when I started this work I got what about the other way? I'm fine about you, Schuyler, but like, what about the other one? I've been preparing for Leah Thomas for years. That's the answer to the question. It's way worse for trans women unfortunately. The reason is misogyny, the patriarchy, and racism.

Swimming is a great sport for a lot of reasons. I'm biased. It's a great sport. In this case, one reason. It's easy to know who wins and who doesn't. It is a numerical sport. You're either faster or you're not. You don't get to be well, that was a better shaped stroke. You're either fast or you're not. I said you can look at the results, I beat there's numbers there. People like me can beat other men. You look at the fact that there is zero international world or Olympic records set by trans women. Zero. There are no international records that have been set that are Olympic or world championships by trans women. Even Leah Thomas. She is broken no national or NCAA records, no Olympic records. She hasn't been to the Olympics, by the way. And the records she did break were at a tiny invitational in the middle of nowhere, I think New York State. Those don't matter. Anyway, yes. That's the end of the question. [APPLAUSE] .

RB BROOKS:
Another attendee asked: quote “We’ve kind of had some heavy topics but I was wondering this– what are some of your favorite connections you’ve made through your opportunities that you’ve gotten through your fame on Instagram and all of this? What are some of the favorite connections you’ve made?” end quote

SCHUYLER BAILAR:
The first thing -- I appreciate the question. The first thing that came to mind was all the trans people I met before I became anybody that anybody knew. I started my Instagram in the summer of 2014 when I was still in treatment in a mental health center and I acquired a little group of trans masculine folks. I don't know how it happened, but I made a bunch of friends and those are still some of my best friends today. Yesterday I was in Denver and hung out with one of the guys, we went to the pool and went swimming. Pretty much the only people I talked to online, the only people I hang out with these days are trans people and a lot of them I met through my work. I can't pick one. But I -- I'll say one person. I connected -- is anybody wearing a protect trans kids sweater? You should buy one of the sweaters. They're a non-binary transgender artist and have the most -- my favorite merch for protecting trans people. Proceeds to amazing causes. They're one of my best friends and I met them through work too.

RB BROOKS:
The next attendee lost their question for a second and then asked: quote “what might be the easiest way to calm yourself down from seeking out labels, seeking out identity as a means of kind of just figuring– skipping ahead and figuring out who you are rather than just coming to terms with who you are as yourself?” end quote

SCHUYLER BAILAR:
I think you said the answer as you were asking the question. One of the things I've recently delved into is history of gender in the world. Many of you might already know this, but there's a lot more gender diversity and a lot of other societies in the world before colonization, especially Western colonization and a lot of the languages had different words and a lot of different labels for different genders and sexualities. One of the powerful sentences I read, it said the name of several Indigenous words for essentially trans people but it said these people weren't considered trans or non-binary but just another gender. There was no separate putting them aside. It was just part of society. The reason I'm answering your question this way is the more I understand that gender has been constructed the way we see it today as a means of oppression, as a means of power, as a means of dividing societies so that the European White settlers could rule over those people, the more I understand there's no need need to get anywhere with an identity. Even English itself is the language of the oppressor. It means the language historically does not have the words for us to describe ourselves. If the labels don't feel right that's because they aren't. There's a creator, Tye Dur Duran on Instagram and they told me this recently. I am not non-binary. Non-binary is a word I use to say describe myself. I thought that was a powerful way to look at it. These labels, we try to approximate how we feel who we are but they were always not be enough. I think the more we can understand it, the more exploration there is because it's just a word you're using to try to describe yourself. If we can see that as not absolute, not an end goal, just part of the journey I think that makes more space for us just being as opposed to trying to arrive at an identity.

RB BROOKS:
The next attendees question was: quote “we have a local trans high school athlete that has faced a lot of oppression and a lot of push-back. I'm wondering what would you have wanted and what can we do best to help support them through their journey and as a local LGBTQ+ club that's in the area, what would you have wanted to see as a high school going through this in sports?” end quote

SCHUYLER BAILAR:
Yeah. Gosh, that's a hard question. Community is life-saving. The shortest answer is that. Making sure that person has community, whether that be contact with other trans athletes, contact with other queer and trans people, people who aren't queer and trans but support them. As much as they can have contact with that, the better. I think it's really hard specifically for trans athletes because we are both -- it's almost like we're straddle straddling two words. Athletics is queer exclusive and trans exclusive and queer people are kind of anti-sports. I've experienced a lot of people -- I really have had queer people I don't get you, you're a sports person. And they don't want me around. I don't know how to explain it other than that. I've felt sort of not trans enough, not queer enough because I'm an athlete. I've been told that. People use those words directly. You're like a sports person. You are basically part of the enemy, so I don't want to associate with you because you associate with cis men, all these people I don't want to associate with. I believe we have to stop that because trans and queer people can be athletes too. I think it has to start partially from the queer side of things because we can't be pointing at sport saying be queer inclusive -- it feels pervasive. There are two circles that don't overlap and neither circle wants to. That's hard for trans young people because they don't know where to find community. They can't go to queer places because they're not seeing other athletes. I think it's about making sure they do find that space. Because there are those spaces. There are sports gays. There are sports -- you know what I mean. We have to connect with those things. Role models are important as well because that shows possibility, so making them aware of other people like them. You could plug for my stuff because I know my stuff. You can read Obie Is Man Enough, about a middle school student. There are other resources as well. I think it's really about making sure they don't feel alone. The last thing is you have to advocate for them, get in between them and the people telling them they don't belong and fight for them because they will feel that. In the process don't let them read the comments, the articles. I don't think they need that. Whenever I talk to trans young people I say stay off the comment sections. You're not to change someone's mind by having a fight in the comments section.

RB BROOKS:
And our final attendee question before Schuyler’s closing remarks was:
quote “Early in your conversation you mentioned how with the discord between trans bathrooms and gender-neutral bathrooms, how feminism was weaponized against transgender/LGBTQ agendas. Do you feel like the LGBTQ/queer agenda could be weaponized against other social movements?” end quote

SCHUYLER BAILAR: Do I feel like it can be weaponized against other -- I think White people especially are good at that. So yes, I think it can be be. But I think that when it is, it's perverting it. If somebody is using the call for liberation, for clubs, the call for feminism against people, then they're not actually doing any one of those things. Because queer liberation is Black liberation, is women liberation, is all these things together. I think if we ignore that or if we're somehow using it to fight against that, then it's not truth. So can people try? Absolutely. They do all the time. That's why I think there is a lot, and you hit on this earlier, there is a lot of especially White significant gays segmenting the community and using rhetoric against people. Loot of people from older generation as well, mostly White and cis. I think that's sad. I think it comes from a place of pain and it says I experienced this pain, you don't have it the same way I do. You're fucking it up for me. I've heard people say that. Schuyler, you can't say that because it's going to make us not like us. That is not my goal to make white cis people like me. [APPLAUSE] That goes to the palatability politics. There's a balance. I think when people get stuck there and I think the closer you are to privilege the more likely it is for you to get stuck there because only one thing is off, not giving you privilege. You're more likely to say my goal is to fit in. Someone was telling me I've met some straight people who are more queer at heart -- than I've met some cis gay people. That stuck with me. Not because I think anybody who is straight and cis should appropriate the word queer but the concept as fuck the system. Especially white want to be part of the system, to conform. I can't tell what to do, but I think the goal is to disrupt, dis dismantle, get rid of the system, not to conform to it.

RB BROOKS:
Schuyler, this has been phenomenal and I feel like we could spend hours having this conversation, but we have -- there are so many things. It's all connected. Something I've appreciated so much if you've made all these very significant connections between things even if you're not a sports gay, why does this matter in the grand scheme of other movement work and the other things we're doing. I feel to carry us out and wrap us up, what's the lingering take-away and final motivating message that you want to close out for folks tonight? Simple question.

SCHUYLER BAILAR:
Easy one. I think that it's easy in the world we live in right now to be discouraged to feel alone, to feel like your identity is less than in some kind of way. I think that one of the things I've learned is that we can take power from each other. We can find empowerment together. But we also can find it in ourselves. I want you all to remember that no bill, no republican, no stupid person, no propaganda, none of that can take away that you know yourselves. That's a simple statement, but it's actually to me one most powerful things. I know that I am transgender. And I cannot ever go back to not knowing that. There's no a place, there's no backwards backwards. It's impossible for me to go backwards and stop knowing who I am. That is absolutely radical and that is the thing that terrifies the people who are against us. Because they can't actually get us to stop -- they can ban us from the bathrooms, sports, health care, any public space, but they cannot take away the fact that we know ourselves and they can't take that from you. [APPLAUSE] I think that -- I desperately don't want you to forget that because the most insidious, most painful and harmful thing you can do is use their words against yourself. That's called internalized internalized. We make them weapons against our own beings we are doing what they are doing to us. It is hard to fight against that but we have to and we do that by community, by any mental health resources we have access to and by affirming ourselves. When I was in college there was a day when I got kicked out of the rooming group because I'm trans and it was a horrible day. I was upset, went home, starting crying and I didn't know what to do. How can I show up at practice knowing none of my classmates want me to be in this space, didn't they I was a real man. I don't need to repeat what they said. I went home and stuck a big piece of paper on the wall, and I said -- I wrote, this is me, imagining sobbing in my dorm room, big paper on the wall, their words do not define me. I wrote it until I stopped crying. I might sound like I was a little unhinged. I was. There was something powerful in that moment. I was reminding myself that I know myself. Each and every one of you, regardless of whether or not you have labels that feel like they fit, you know yourself and only you get to actually define yourself. I don't want anybody to take that power from you because that is your power. It can become so much more powerful powerful when all of you put that together. Those systems need to be taken down and they will be taken down by you knowing yourself and knowing your power, putting them together.saying fuck you to that. I just don't want you to forget that. [APPLAUSE] .

RB BROOKS:
Once again, Schuyler, thank you so much. Let's do another round of applause for Schuyler.

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R.B. BROOKS:
Our inbox is open for all of your insight, feedback, questions, boycotts, memes and other forms of written correspondence. You can contact us at [e-mail]. This podcast is made possible by the labor and commitment of the Midwest Institute for Sexuality and Gender Diversity staff. Particular shout out to Justin, Andy and Nick for all of your support with editing, promotion and production. Our amazing and queer as fuck cover art was designed by Adrienne McCormick.

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