Original subtitles

- You know, I don't think a transgendered athlete,

male to female, female to male, whatever it may be,

really has any advantage whatsoever.

Because there's so much more to sports than gender,

than your identity.

Nobody gives anything away in sports, you know?

You gotta earn it.

- Sports are such a public display of our physicalities,

it's hard to hide who you are on the playing field.

You know, when you talk about transgender issues,

in terms of sports, they are very much divided

between trans women and trans men.

- I think there's a national conversation happening

right now in a couple of different domains

about these trans individuals that are coming in to compete,

are somehow going to have an unfair

or competitive advantage.

- This issue has been around the Olympic movement forever.

Okay, this is not something that's new.

And then, in peoples' perception, they especially think

in a male to female, that they're gonna dominate,

that they're gonna be better than all of the other girls.

Of course they're gonna be better, they're boys!

The rules that first allowed transgender women

to compete, were enacted in 2004, this is 2016.

And if all these trans women are gonna take over,

why hasn't it happened?

- People don't transition just to dominate women's sports,

and they're seeing them more as someone who is transitioning

for an athletic advantage.

That is not true, that is not happening, and I can tell you

as a trans person, what a trans person experiences

in the rest of their life would never offset athletic glory.

- The hormone strategy for transgender individuals

is really all about testosterone, and so what

does that really mean?

The biggest difference between men and women

vis-a-vis hormones, is testosterone level.

Male testosterone levels are about ten times

female testosterone levels.

So, if we have a transgender woman who goes

from having a male level of testosterone to a female level

of testosterone, her muscles are gonna be shifted,

in an enormous way.

Testosterone restructures several things in your body.

Lung capacity, the shape of your pelvis,

longer limbs if you're in the growing phase of your life.

So when a transgender woman competes,

an important thing to realize is that she may be

the same size as she was because of going through

a male puberty, her muscle mass has shrunk

to female proportions.

Anybody who's participating in athletics will really

be able to notice the difference.

There's a fear that transgender women will dominate sports

because of the larger body size, but that does not

make sense because of the enormous role that muscle plays

with athleticism.

- I'm Chloe Anderson, and I am

a collegiate volleyball player.

Almost immediately, within three months of starting hormones

I could feel major muscle changes.

My arms became weaker, my ability to run became much worse

and I was struggling a lot to try and recalibrate my body,

and when I started playing volleyball, my coordination

started to change, and when I'd go up for my approach,

I noticed there was like, a lag in my coordination,

my serves are definitely not as strong as they used to be.

Hormones have kind of made me really insecure

about my athleticism, because I know where I was

before hormones, and I'll never be there again.

It took a lot of practice and a lot of effort

to even consider going back to volleyball,

but my coach definitely pushed me really hard

to try and always be performing at my best.

It's really hard to describe to people

that literally, your biggest dreams came true,

to play on a women's volleyball team and I want more people

to have that feeling, you know.

- It's very important to note that transgender women

do have advantages, but also have disadvantages,

and that's one thing almost nobody ever thinks about.

Certainly, my interest in sports and transgender women

came about from my own transition.

What I found, was that as a fairly serious distance runner,

that I was remarkably slower with just one year of hormones,

and then I found that there were other trans women runners

that had the exact same experience.

When you look at a transgender woman athlete,

you're looking at a large car with a small engine,

and they are competing against small cars

with small engines.

- Every athlete has some kind of competitive advantage,

and the interesting thing to me, is that when people tend

to talk about level playing fields,

and competitive advantage, they limit it to biology.

But we shouldn't.

- Athletes come in all shapes and sizes already.

And so there are very tall athletes,

and there are very short athletes,

and there are athletes with very long arms,

and there are athletes who can jump very high,

and that has everything to do with their sort

of composition as people, and so, with so much variety,

in people already, it's hard to say, you know,

what gives them an advantage.

- The differences between transgender individuals

and non-transgender individuals are smaller

than just the variety among men and women's bodies

across the planet.

- The question isn't, do transgender women have advantages,

the question is, can transgender women and cisgender women

compete against each other equitably?

- People say, oh, well, we don't have trans athletes

on our teams, we don't need a policy right now,

when someone comes forward, we'll put one in place.

But the reason people aren't coming forward,

is because you don't have a policy.

We have not reached a level playing field,

we have a long way to go.

- Competitive advantage is the thinking that leads

to the idea that we need sex segregated sports,

which is also part of the issue

about why we think we need trans policies.

I don't think we've had a more rigorous and careful

and well thought out conversation about why it is

that some things are considered fair,

and some things are considered unfair,

and some people will say, well, the rules of sport

are arbitrary, but their impact and their effects

are not arbitrary, that has an impact on a life.

- My name is Chris Mosier, my sport is duathlon.

In 2015, I was the first transgender man to make

a men's U.S. national team.

Playing sports and participating in some sort

of fitness activity was always a way that I connected

to my body, and so even before I identified

as a trans person, I can think back to experiences

where I would use weight lifting or running

as a way to feel better in my own skin.

When I was considering transition, I was thinking,

will I even be able to play the sports that I love,

because of the policies that are in place?

The problem was, there were no policies in place,

and so, I wasn't sure if it was possible,

and that really made me pause on my transition.

And so, as a triathlete, to find a place where

I felt comfortable going to swim was

a great challenge for me.

When I had top surgery, and had, I had a double vasectomy,

and so I had then a male appearing chest,

I became much more comfortable with myself and my body,

but even being there, in my own comfort,

I still faced stares from other people,

and trying to figure out which locker room

I would be safe in.

So, I found myself changing in a sort of side tent

on the pool deck, using a special entrance to get in,

and in all honesty, it's probably part of the reason

that I've shifted so much from triathlete, swim bike run,

to duathlete, run bike run.

It takes a very strong athlete and support system

to fight against some of these policies that are in place,

and it's not easy to put yourself out there like that.

For me, it's really important to be out and open

as a transgender athlete, so that other people

can look to me and see that it is possible to compete,

at an elite level, with cisgender men.

I don't need to know that I'll be the best,

I don't expect to win every race.

I just wanna know that I can go out there

and still enjoy being a competitive person

and the way that I was before.

- Renée Richards, I remember when she came out,

and I was fascinated by the story.

- Renée sued in the 70s in a federal court in

the United States in order to be allowed

to play women's tennis.

But, Renée was the first and pretty much the only one

before the 21st century.

- Sport is a very conservative domain, it doesn't matter

what the sport is, and it's some of the last places

where ideas about sex and ideas about gender

get talked about and questioned, and so,

because we have such sex segregated sport,

there has been an interest about how you maintain

the division between men and women,

and who should be allowed to compete in which category,

and that kind of concern animates the particular policies

that we've seen over the last seven decades.

- For trans athletes, this is the first Olympics

where updated regulations will be put into play.

Even though no publicly out trans athletes

have competed in the Olympics, gender politics

in the Olympics date back to World War II.

In the 1936 summer Olympics, German high jumper

Dora Ratjen placed fourth in the women's competition.

20 years later, Ratjen revealed he was designated

male at birth, and the Nazis had forced him

to compete as a woman.

The scandal led international sports governing bodies

to require female athletes to be inspected

to confirm they were indeed female.

Female athletes were required to be visually inspected

by doctors.

The inspections were called "naked parades,"

because the women had to walk around naked

in front of a panel of doctors.

In 1968, the IOC banned the humiliating naked parades

and began chromosome testing.

In 1986, Spanish hurdler Maria Patino

was banned from the Spanish Olympic team

after failing her sex chromatin test.

Eventually, chromatin testing was found

to be ineffective, because it couldn't determine maleness.

The IOC stopped mandatory sex testing,

unless they thought the female athlete looked suspicious.

Gender testing wasn't designed to support transgender

or transexual women athletes.

It was designed so men couldn't compete as women.

It wasn't until 2004 that the IOC opened the door

for transgender athletes.

Under the Stockholm consensus, transgender athletes

could compete in the Athens Olympics,

but there were some invasive and harmful requirements.

All transgender athletes were required

to have completed gender reassignment surgery.

Male to female athletes had to be legally recognized

as female, and undergone two years

of hormone replacement therapy.

Female to male athletes were allowed to compete against

cisgender men, but they had to file a form to cover

their testosterone injections.

In 2015, the IOC decided transgender athletes

could compete without undergoing

gender reassignment surgery.

The IOC has spent decades adapting

its gender verification process.

Trans athletes still face many hurdles,

but the latest rulings are a big headstart

in this new world for elite trans athletes.

The international Olympic committee

is thought of as the gold standard for policies,

and so to have the most elite classification

create a policy that is more trans inclusive,

has a trickle-down effect to the other organizations

that it governs, and also to other outside organizations

that don't have policies yet.

They're going to say, what is the Olympics doing?

Let's look to that policy, and see if we can mirror that.

- The public thinks that the trans female

has a tremendous advantage over all the other girls.

I think the IOC is proving that is not the case.

I like that the IOC has come up with guidelines

on how long ago the transition had to take place,

about what your hormones level have been

for the last couple of years,

and they have found out that if that is the case,

it's no advantage whatsoever.

- I'm not going to the Olympics, duathlon is not

an Olympics sport, and so as, you know, going into

the world championship is the highest level that

I can achieve in my sport, I'm very very happy about that.

But I'm even happier that there's now an opportunity

for young trans athletes to fall in love with their sports,

to put in the practice and the time and the training

that it takes to become an elite athlete,

and then have the opportunity to be both transgender,

themselves, and be a competitive athlete in the Olympics.

I know that now, that the policy has changed,

the door is open, and just having that knowledge

that it's possible, will enable other people

to really dedicate themselves to their training

to reach that level, and so I think that we will

see a trans athlete in the Olympics in the future.

Hopefully near future.

- The biggest challenge for, I think a high school

trans athlete, is acceptance.

It's tough enough to get through high school,

and if you're openly trans and you're out there,

and you wanna play sports, okay, you're putting yourself

even farther out there, but I think what a lot

of young trans athletes have done,

is they've opened up this conversation,

where is my place in life?

- My name is Anry, and I play soccer at Denair High School.

When I started seeing myself more as a female,

was around, I wanna say, seventh and eight grade.

I was starting, like puberty, and all that stuff,

so you kind of get to know who you are at that age.

I started to come out to my community as Anry,

around my freshman year.

I knew that transitioning was something that I wanted to do,

like it's just something I wanted and something

that was gonna make me happy.

I just was so anxious to do anything, you know.

When I started my junior year, that's when like,

my hair started growing out, and I started wearing

dresses and stuff.

I would feel out of place, and I would feel like,

uncomfortable.

I was actually really worried, to know if I was actually

able to play or not on the girls' soccer team.

I just kept coming out to the practices and then,

no one said anything, and then I was told

by my athletic director, I need to get permission.

I actually didn't know that we had to find

an advocate to, for me to be able to play

on the girls' team.

I do like my coach, she's awesome.

She's very neutral, she's more of a, you work hard,

you play, you know.

She is the most accepting person ever.

- And I've always known Anry as a female,

so her coming out just seemed natural.

I don't think anybody's really approached

or been upset just because again, Denair's just been

very tight knit community.

- I've been through it all with her.

The whole way.

When she started transitioning,

it was difficult for me to understand,

but I always be there for her, I never really

saw her different.

She's always been the same person.

- It was more of, the girls who were like,

oh, it's okay, we don't care, come here and you can join us.

If a girl on an opposing team felt like I'm stronger

because I'm physically a male, I would probably

tell them that, it's not even your gender,

it's just body type.

That this is the team I belong to,

and so it's not my fault.

I mean, there's girls that are tough out there, you know.

There was a tough girl I had to work with,

and she was obviously stronger than me.

Being able to wear the girls' uniform actually

made me feel really good, because it's who I am,

I don't feel like Chris does at all, I feel ...

I feel cool I feel like I'm part of the team,

so I've never felt out of place.

When my friends and family use, like, female pronouns,

it makes me feel respected, it makes me feel like

they actually care, they're acknowledging me.

You have to feel wanted, you have to be able

to like, work with them.

This is a team sport, it's so important for us

to have a bond, and that's what we have.

It's nice to have them, like, accept me.

One, two, three,

Coyotes!

- Athletes have tremendous visibility and tremendous power

in this country, especially at the elite and pro level.

It's incredibly important both for society,

but also for trans individuals to see representation

in places like sport, in media.

One way that I think that we create social change

is through visibility.

- Now that I'm in a position where I've made

two U.S. national teams, I've competed

in a world championship, and I have this sort of platform

as a trans athlete, it's really important for me

to use that to start the conversation

and accelerate the conversation on including trans people

in sports.

- I think the world is changing.

You see younger trans people coming out.

They certainly deserve to be able to play sports.

- Everybody's scared, you know, everybody's nervous,

it's just whether you want it or not,

and if you want it, you will get out there.

- Transitioning was such a wonderful thing for

my entire life, and playing athletics on a team that I love

is, you know, right up there,

and pushed my life forward in a positive direction.

- So there's a powerful moment here.

If we can achieve true trans inclusion in sport,

that we might be able to have that in other domains.

- I hope that acceptance on the athletic fields

leads to greater acceptance in all areas of life.

- Athletics are important for all people.

We put our differences aside.

Whether we're spectators of sports, or teammates.

When you're on a court, it doesn't matter

what your teammate's background is, and so it is

a good equalizer for creating social change.