OutCasting; Transgender identity and issues faced by trans people in sports (Part 4 of 4)

i think her progressing i think that the visibility of trans folks over recent years has increased greatly and with that and with positive media representations of trans folks in general populations understanding of what it means to be trans is growing this is the casting public radio's lgbt q youth program that we don't have to be clear to be here i'm casting is a production of media for the public good is a listener supported independent producer based in new york online ad out casting media dot org hi i'm sam on this edition about casting we continue our discussion of some of the issues faced by transgender people in sports for most people gender is a simple matter their girls or boys or women or men there's no conflict between the gender they feel they are in the biological sex of their bodies but that's not true for everyone some people were born into a girl's body feel themselves to be male and some

people born into a boy's body heal themselves three female speaking very broadly the word transgender has come into common usage to describe a wide range of people who self perceived gender doesn't match the sex of their bodies most of us have never needed a word to describe their gender identity we just take it for granted but just as the visibility of gay and bisexual people has caused other people to start thinking of themselves as heterosexual or straight the growing visibility of transgender people has brought us the word says gender to describe people who are not transgender most of us most of you listening to this program are probably says gender but on this edition of podcasting were talking with chris mosher an athlete who self identifies as a transgender guy chris is a transgender advocates educator coach and every time my men traveling he's the founder of trans athlete dot com a resource for athletes coaches and administrators to foster community of inclusion

this is the last part of a four part series earlier in the series chris talks about going through an identity change with no one to guide him facing trans phobia after being outed and experiencing his newfound privilege of being a white man you can listen to the series on our website out casting media dot org outcast or travis now continues our conversation with chris other than trans athlete dot com what other ways are bringing about change i'm on the board of directors for a nonprofit organization called pro athletes and it is a national network of current and former lgbt student athletes and it is an excellent way that young athletes can connect to each other and young lgbt athletes have the opportunity to network and provide education visibility and support for one another so that's one of the areas that i'm really excited about doing work because i feel like starting with

high school and college athletes certain the movement there is really didn't make change for everyone in the future another ways just being visible and and being out and open about my story you know i understand that because i didn't have the experience of knowing other trans people i really understand how lonely and isolating you can feel to think you're the only person going through an experience ended now that i've had that experience and i feel strong enough to share my story with other people is really important for me to just continue to do that so that theres never another young trans athlete who feels like they can compete because they never saw anybody else out there one thing i got a backtrack a little bit you talked about when you're first trying to learn about what it means to be a trans person

we were looking under the lens of trance athletes are just a trans person i was never looking at bulgaria's and part of it was just understanding in general what it meant to be trans some of the challenges that i would face and what's your steps i would need to take to get there and i did a lot of that work in therapy actually i start to see a therapist to talk about gender specific topics maybe two years our year before i started to transition medically with testosterone and in that year all of those conversations i had were specifically about how i did myself what i was nervous about transition and what challenges i perceived to be out there for me with all their piece of that was that being an athlete was so incredibly important to my identity that i wanted to make sure that i would be a little place still are trying to figure out what being an athlete would look like as a trans person certify did research in both areas

i was much more successful in finding the information about being a trans person i was about being a trans athlete another's trans athlete duck congress when searching for that to discover let's turn our attention to a documentary you peer in just gender is a film about transgender people their lives and the issues they face it was produced and directed by filmmaker named george zuber georgia's a gay man former board member of lambda legal and retired diversity partner at the accounting firm deloitte and he found some what has surprised that he knew very little about transgender issues so he decided to make a film to educate himself and others we are now casting of had a chance to see kris you appear in the film can tell a bit about your story how did you get involved with just under i think that george contacted me through some some way and fahmy i think through the new york times article and esa but be interested in sharing my story i think my lens as an athlete was a unique perspective for for the film

how much does your life changed since you told her story for the camera it was interesting to have recently see the film and see what i had said and i think the root of my experience is very much the same and i talk a little bit about the challenge of identifying and how i identify as a trans guy but don't necessarily identify as after and a lot of that is still the same but how i am able now to speak about my feelings has has evolved so it was interesting to see serve at the historical snapshot of myself i say it's very it's still very accurate just maybe had the language that would use today to describe my experiences would be a little bit different perhaps when you do an interview and see it in the context of the filmmaker's vision can be eye opening in a number of

ways is there a part of the film that particularly affected you i was really struck by the opening segment about a trans person telling their story as a young person and i think we get media snapshots in news stories of what the life of a trans person might be like but many times that's very negative and is portrayed in conjunction with some other piece of the news story like a person was a part of something and then mention that that person's trans am and very rarely have we seen a personal narrative that was that is so powerful from other trans person telling their own story so there were lots of pieces in the phone that i thought were fantastic and they were all the personal stories you know i think back to my experience if i would've seen something like this i would've understood that there's not just one way to be a trans person and that the trans community itself is so incredibly diverse that you

have cheryl these stories i think it's really helpful for folks to see the film i was really surprised by the diversity in age and expression and people that were married and then transitioned really into their life cause mostly trance divine or my agent to see adults to go through this coming out was very surprising for me where do you think society is an acceptance of trans people i think are progressing i think that the visibility of trans folks over recent years has increased greatly and with that and with positive media representations of trans folks and the general populations understanding of what it means to be trans is growing and i feel hopeful every day that every day it will be a little better than the

last and that you're moving forward maybe a young person will have to have the same experiences of discrimination that i faced when i was their age what achievements are you most proud of i'm really proud to be the first trans guy or trans man inducted into the national gay and lesbian sports hall for him that happened in the two dozen fourteen in their second induction and i was the first trans guide to be inducted and for me it's just a really great achievement because i don't feel like i'm done yet and usually four hole for a whole family kind of signifies the end of one's career but i think it is eight powerful moment for me in terms of visibility to reinforce that idea that maybe young people don't need to live without having oh trans

athlete role model and so having that opportunity to be inducted was phenomenal and just with an amazing group of other lgbt folks who have done so much for the movement for inclusive at and for acceptance of lgbt athletes do you have a trans die man athlete to use as a real role model i don't and that was something that i really struggled with when i was coming out of his that i didn't have that role model to look to and i had athletic role models i grew up in chicago and i was a huge michael jordan fan and he served as everyone was of of that time period and i learned a lot of things about character and about respects and determination goal setting all these really important values from sports and from athletes that i looked too but in terms of seeing an athlete who reflected my own self

i didn't have that and so the hope is that now folks you are in my position was a kid you do have someone they can look to in guinea and in other trends athletes were coming out of this is testing public radio's lgbt q youth program produced by media for the public good in new york online at our testing media dot org we're talking about the experience of trans athletes with chris mosher a transgender advocate educator coach and three time iron man triathlon he's the founder of trans athlete dot com a resource for athletes coaches and administrators to foster a committee of inclusion what would you say to youth who feel the way you did growing up i think its so important to understand that you know yourself better than anybody else does so often society and parents and families and schools

tell young people that they don't know themselves and i think that that is a totally false statement that parents don't know kids better than they know themselves teachers and administrators don't know what a person really feels like inside and so for them to understand that it's not ok for other people to negate their identity or to dismiss their feelings about who they know that they really are and then you can be incredibly happy it by following that by following that vision of who you know yourself to be what suggestions do you have for trans people who want to or are active in sports they should just go for it i think that policies are changing every day and policies are changing

because of a group of strong confident folks who are pushing for their rights to play and so by taking the first step by challenging these societal norms that we have in place that say that sports is so incredibly gendered and that there is no room for anyone in between were breaking down barriers and changing landscape of sports as we know it and those folks are so important in pushing the trans movement forward had weekly sports without them being tender it's a very challenging ideas to think about competing in sports in any other way than he'd been gendered and part of that is just that that's the way it's always been that we've known it to be but we know that there is a variety of strengths and weaknesses that every person has and that some people are born with different biological advantages than

other people even within the same sex i say you can have someone who is a seven foot nba player you do they have an advantage over if someone of the same sex who is five five years for each individual sport the answer to that varies and so it's incredibly complex think about competing in sports in any other way then a gendered way but with that we need to consider ways where everyone can come can compete in a way that is safe and comfortable and part of that is making sure that people can get changed in a private space and that's not you know that's not something that's just specifically for trans people there are lots of folks who don't feel comfortable in a locker room situations and that's good for all people to make sure that everyone say income from oil so there and there are little changes like that that could be made but i really know how we

could completely different fashion i disagree with the idea that trans athlete should have to compete against other trends athletes only that something that's coming up right now in sports is that certain sports leagues are talking about making a category of competition strictly for trans people and saying that if we have enough trains people who want to participate will make a separate category for them but i don't think that that is the solution either because we know that the trends experiences different for everyone and for myself i just wanna compete against other people i don't need a special category to do that i won't compete with men take us about a specific instance when he faced discrimination within the lgbt community i was playing in an lgbt bowling league and i was at

the lanes one day for our games and the lane next to me i noticed that they had written in the summer as their name that transfer weeks later as the name of one of their players and i wasn't quite sure what do about it i was really bothered by it but i had this moment of being like i'm not only trans person in here and i mean to sensitive and yeah i think that's a position that trans folks are forced into a lot of love not being able to stand up for their rights because people's tell them that they're being too sensitive or owes just a joke and so i saw it flash up on screen again and walked over to that lane and spend call them out on it and said that i saw that they have this written up on their board and one of them asked me if i want to eat my photo taken in front of it and i was kind of a moment where you know my whole

idea of like it meant to be an inclusive league what thats he actually meant in that situation kind of blew apart you know i thought here i am honestly that says its lgbt inclusive it's a really just an lgbt lead and i'm just there and you know i felt totally unsupported by the russell people are eventually they take a town and after a conversation with them and i pursued it as a beer matter with the league to try to work on you know a little bit of sensitivity with only in helping folks understand my behavior like that is not ok well you know what why do you think there is discrimination within the lgbt community but it's understood that there's a clear goal of equality for all there's no there's no exceptions to that there are a lot of similarities in our movement and i think that is important for us

the lgbt community to move together as one unit but there are also a lot of differences in the struggles that we face and you're just thinking about being an athlete the challenge is that gay and lesbian athletes face in terms of coming out so say in a professional sports league their challenges are will might seem except me or my coaches accept me how will the media and the fans react those are their concerns and our concerns as trans athletes are not only all of those but also will it even deal to play all because the policies and procedures in place are so appreciative of full inclusion for trans athletes i think part of the reason that there's a strong nation he is that some folks feel like they have a pass that because they are also an oppressed group that they have the ability to

say or i reclaim certain language that doesn't really belongs to them and here without understanding how that actually impacts folks who have that identity we've been talking with chris moser or transgender athlete thanks so much for joining us chris thanks for having me and earlier in this program and chris talk about the opening sequence in the film just chanted let's listen to an excerpt of it i knew there were something that didn't quite match up that made me feel different from a very early age i couldn't you put words to it growing up people always comment on how long my eyelashes where they used to work pretty bird was a boy at the time my brother teases me even from others on the school bus i don't understand why even of nowhere else i'm supposed to feel safe at home like other kids

but i don't my mom as a devout evangelists she comes to me one night with a proposition look she said this is either you commit suicide or i'm going to because i can't have a peach that's not going to happen in the house was the same i spent a lot of time outside of my home i grew up singing in the church have a close relationship with god so why in the world would god gave me something that make the world in my family just turn its back on its seventy people started calling the training i don't know what that means that i need a trans person for the first time all the city clinics and i know that i'm the same way that's when i joined the military i go into the navy think it will change

in the navy my one rule friend or so i think and buys me to a party one night when i come in the room i hear the door click and law and won the guy says your day right angles me by my ankles out of the third story window my life literally passes before my eyes i know after being discharged and go home but that doesn't last i come home one day with a week and my mom just cool summer here thinking it's a ripple we talking here mr soni realize it isn't going to come i remember to this day he says get out at nineteen i have nowhere to go and i'm introduced into the street life at a certain outlook for my life wasn't the street i began working as sales are going to endure selling credit card processing to businesses working strict legal commission working my tail

off and it still isn't happy for me the place where i live the guy last to stay there because of cleaning the building and helping out at the bar downstairs to make someone when i reject him come out of a place to live because i feel like i can't catch a break and then someone tells me at this woman in south florida who if you want to you can go down there and escorted into the adult industry of pick your breast implants and other surgeries and twenty one and i go to florida to escort this is not a life for me i find myself now with no family and try to make a family on the streets where mimi calls back home crying and pleading for acceptance i was crying every night i'm going to bomb

changed and i wake up the next morning in a boy's body i have no immunity whatsoever hitler top nastiest that they could look in the face is a lot higher troubled me was the idea that the person who might possibly and their life the tests on happiness they really are almost one hundred percent of us have contemplated suicide at one time or another i attempted suicide twice a terrible thing to have secure soft source center the badly tainted patient was originally psycho sexually that moment in that and character and then the sexual act he feels as if you know this abnormal fueling remain she'll weightless like your mama lee untold three years ago and to the patient's heart if obama really likeable

so goes one of the earliest scientific attempts to assess transgender by richard craft even world renowned psychiatrist and pioneer six allah just in his eighteen eighty six book psychopathic sexual us over the coming century researchers scholars and psychiatrists have attempted to better understand the nature of transgender people media has always portrayed cross dressers in very negative light in the darkness let alone isolated looking bizarre looking and healthy looking like somebody you would ever want to be near those viewers combined with ignorance and fear of the different perpetuated stereotypes and misconceptions about transgender people that continue to this day the term transgender is a relatively new term commonly understood to have been first used by virginia prince an early american activist today the term

including its shortened version of trans it's commonly used in exploring the breath and diversity of people who identify as a gender very gender variant people express their gender differently to varying degrees from culturally conventional roles of man or women based on physical gender as we will see the transgender umbrellas wide endeavors part of the challenge in understanding the transgender umbrella arises because there is a tendency to believe that all people mentally fit into one of two gender groups male and female from the earliest moments of earth we're introduced to this primary a view of the world are increasing there is a greater recognition that biology itself defies the strict binary view of nature including gender changing animals fish and birds because transgender people often express themselves in ways that make others

uncomfortable they are often met with disapproval or worse discomfort with something different leads to stereotypes and misconceptions and the list of stereotypes and misconceptions about transgender people held by the general population is long we've been listening to a short excerpt from the film just gender which looks at the realities of transgender lives it's aimed at schools and corporate diversity programs among other audiences the film is available through keynote lorber films this has been the last part of a four part discussion with tri athlete christmas or on the issues that transgender people face in sports you can listen to the entire series on our website of casting media dot org that's it for this edition about casting public radio's lgbt q youth program where you don't have to be cleared to be here this program has been produced by the casting team including youtube participants the

call us michael kaye sydney david travis andrew michael jamie karen margot joe and me saying they're executive producers marc sofas now testing is a production of media for the public good listener supported independent producer based in new york more information about our testing is available at our testing media dot org you'll find information about the show was in lens for all out missing episodes and the podcast league podcast is also on social media connect with us on twitter tumblr facebook youtube and instagram at how testing media and sam thanks for listening