Latest / Miss Understood with Rachel Uchitel / Schuyler Bailar: 1st Trans D1 NCAA Men's Athlete and LGBTQIA+ Advocate! Celebrating PRIDE!

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Schuyler Bailar: 1st Trans D1 NCAA Men's Athlete and LGBTQIA+ Advocate! Celebrating PRIDE! · Miss Understood with Rachel Uchitel

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Speaker 1: real conversations in a new language today. Welcome back to Misunderstood.
1:30
Speaker 1: This is your host, Rachel Yucatel. In 2014, our next
1:33
Speaker 1: guest was one of the top high school female swimmers
1:36
Speaker 1: in the country and was recruited to women's swim team
1:39
Speaker 1: at Harvard. After a gap year of self-exploration, Skylar Baylar
1:43
Speaker 1: came out as transgender. He's the first publicly documented NCAA
1:47
Speaker 1: Division I transgender man to compete in any sport. Skylar
1:51
Speaker 1: is an internationally celebrated inspirational speaker, author, and advocate for
1:55
Speaker 1: trans inclusion, radical body acceptance, and mental health awareness. He's
2:00
Speaker 1: here to educate us on the topic to help eradicate
2:02
Speaker 1: ignorance and hate. I'm so excited for this episode. I
2:05
Speaker 1: hope you guys sit back and really listen and have
2:09
Speaker 1: all your questions answered. Skylar, thank you so much for
2:15
Speaker 1: joining me. It's such an honor to have you here.
2:17
Speaker 2: I'm really excited to be on your podcast and I'm
2:20
Speaker 2: excited to chat with you today. Thanks for having me, Rachel.
2:23
Speaker 1: Basically, I mean, we talked a little bit about this before,
2:25
Speaker 1: but I actually wanted people to hear this. I think
2:28
Speaker 1: it's important for my listeners and any listeners in general
2:31
Speaker 1: to know that it's okay if you're not educated in
2:34
Speaker 1: this topic. That's exactly why we're doing this conversation today.
2:38
Speaker 1: I'm not somebody who is really educated in it besides
2:42
Speaker 1: what I read in the news and a lot of
2:44
Speaker 1: what you see on TikTok or on Instagram and social media.
2:47
Speaker 1: So it's so... exciting to have you here because I
2:51
Speaker 1: think that education is the thing that can actually get
2:55
Speaker 1: rid of the hate and the misunderstanding. And a lot
2:58
Speaker 1: of the ignorance is what scares people, I think. And
3:02
Speaker 1: I mean, that's just my opinion. And I think that
3:04
Speaker 1: it's really important for people to be able to make
3:07
Speaker 1: educated decisions based on facts instead of things that scare them.
3:11
Speaker 1: And you are living proof that, you know, people are
3:15
Speaker 1: going through so many things that you don't know about.
3:18
Speaker 1: And those things that they're going through are their choices.
3:21
Speaker 1: And it's for something that is for your mental health
3:24
Speaker 1: to get better for you to be happy. And it's
3:27
Speaker 1: I almost feel like it's none of people's business to
3:30
Speaker 1: like put their own emotions and feelings on that, but
3:33
Speaker 1: for them to really just understand it and let people
3:36
Speaker 1: like you or anyone that's going through something, be able
3:38
Speaker 1: to have the freedom to be who they want to be.
3:41
Speaker 1: So anyways, I just wanted to say, like, I think
3:43
Speaker 1: this is a really interesting topic for even people that
3:46
Speaker 1: have no, nothing close to them that even resembles this,
3:50
Speaker 1: but it's something that everyone should hear.
3:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. And one of the things that you said
3:55
Speaker 2: I think is really important, you said you don't know
3:57
Speaker 2: a lot about this topic, this topic being trans people,
4:00
Speaker 2: except for what you've read in the news or seen
4:01
Speaker 2: on TikTok, neither of which are usually rooted in people's
4:05
Speaker 2: humanity or even sometimes in facts, right? A lot of
4:09
Speaker 2: times the news is very sensationalized. Sometimes it misses really
4:12
Speaker 2: important points. And a lot of times right now we're
4:14
Speaker 2: seeing a lot of really sensationalized propaganda about queer and
4:18
Speaker 2: trans people, especially trans people. So the fact that most
4:21
Speaker 2: of the country is learning from the news about who
4:23
Speaker 2: we are instead of directly from us, right, I think
4:26
Speaker 2: is a really big problem. So that's one of the
4:28
Speaker 2: reasons I'm really grateful that you pulled me on this
4:29
Speaker 2: podcast today. Yeah.
4:31
Speaker 1: So before we get into sort of the education of
4:34
Speaker 1: the topic, I want to hear from you about your
4:37
Speaker 1: story and how you got to where you are today.
4:39
Speaker 1: It's such an amazing story. So tell people like where
4:42
Speaker 1: you're from and what your childhood was like.
4:44
Speaker 2: Okay, sure. So I grew up right outside of Washington, D.C.
4:49
Speaker 2: I was a very active athletic kid. I was a
4:52
Speaker 2: very curious kid. I was told, you know, the toddlers
4:56
Speaker 2: go through a stage of asking why all the time.
4:58
Speaker 2: Why this? Why that? Well, I really never left that stage.
5:01
Speaker 2: And especially when I was a kid, I was very,
5:03
Speaker 2: very annoying, I would say, with that why. So I
5:06
Speaker 2: was a very curious kid. I did a lot of sports, lacrosse, football, soccer, basketball.
5:12
Speaker 2: And then I landed on swimming. And swimming was something
5:14
Speaker 2: that I just always felt at home doing, especially just
5:18
Speaker 2: being underwater. I loved the pool. And so that became
5:21
Speaker 2: a really big passion of mine. And I ended up
5:23
Speaker 2: getting pretty good at it. So a lot of my childhood,
5:25
Speaker 2: probably from six years old and onwards was consumed with
5:29
Speaker 2: being underwater, consumed with swimming. I got good enough to
5:32
Speaker 2: get recruited in college by doing so. And that is
5:37
Speaker 2: a big part of my journey. I'm not sure if
5:39
Speaker 2: you want me to dive into specifics or if you
5:41
Speaker 2: want to ask me questions about that process. I'll get there.
5:43
Speaker 1: I'll ask you about it. Just before you get there,
5:46
Speaker 1: what was it like with you sort of mentally inside
5:49
Speaker 1: your head? Did you feel like, how did you feel? Mm-hmm.
5:53
Speaker 2: You know, like I said, I was really consumed with
5:56
Speaker 2: sports for a lot of my childhood, but I think
5:59
Speaker 2: that I also was really alone. And it was an
6:02
Speaker 2: interesting dichotomy because I think a lot of people who
6:04
Speaker 2: play sports have connections, right? Because they're with a team
6:07
Speaker 2: and they're with a bunch of people. And sometimes athletes
6:09
Speaker 2: are even considered cool. So they have like social creds.
6:12
Speaker 2: Swimming is not really one of those sports. I don't
6:13
Speaker 2: think it's like a cool kid sport. It's also very lonely, right?
6:16
Speaker 2: You're underwater in your own bubble most of the time.
6:19
Speaker 2: So I was a very lonely kid and I was very,
6:22
Speaker 2: I think, you know, I describe myself as athletic and
6:24
Speaker 2: curious and active. Other people would have described me as
6:27
Speaker 2: nerdy and weird. I was incredibly invested in school and
6:32
Speaker 2: I also didn't care a whole lot about what other
6:33
Speaker 2: people thought. I dressed myself the way I felt comfortable
6:37
Speaker 2: despite the fact that I was assigned female at birth.
6:39
Speaker 2: So everybody said, you're a girl. I never dressed like
6:43
Speaker 2: the other girls. So I dressed only in boys clothes.
6:45
Speaker 2: I played boys lacrosse, boys baseball, boys soccer. And I was,
6:49
Speaker 2: I struggled socially, right? I enjoyed being on those teams.
6:52
Speaker 2: I enjoyed playing the sports that I did, but I
6:54
Speaker 2: really struggled socially because people were mean to me. People
6:57
Speaker 2: would bully me. They bully me about my clothing.
6:59
Speaker 1: Yeah. So I was going to ask how people reacted
7:02
Speaker 1: to that. Was it kids your age? Was it kids,
7:05
Speaker 1: you know, older kids?
7:06
Speaker 2: It was everybody.
7:06
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
7:08
Speaker 2: It was.
7:09
Speaker 1: Or what was the, what was the essence of the bully?
7:12
Speaker 2: Yeah. So my parents let me wear the clothes that
7:15
Speaker 2: I wanted to wear, which I think was, was great.
7:17
Speaker 2: You know, they were, they were lenient in that sense.
7:20
Speaker 2: And they were just like, I don't care what you wear,
7:21
Speaker 2: wear the clothes that you want to wear that make
7:23
Speaker 2: you feel comfortable. So I wore boys clothes. But at
7:26
Speaker 2: school I was bullied a lot because kids would be like, well,
7:29
Speaker 2: you're not a real girl. Why are you dressing that way?
7:31
Speaker 2: Why are you acting that way? Bathrooms were really, really stressful.
7:35
Speaker 2: The girls would throw me out of the bathroom because
7:36
Speaker 2: they said I wasn't, you know, enough of a girl.
7:39
Speaker 2: Teachers would make comments about me. my clothing, my hair,
7:43
Speaker 2: my body, and, you know, ridicule me for not being,
7:47
Speaker 2: you know, what they considered girl enough, quote unquote. And
7:50
Speaker 2: then that happened in public too. So it happened, you know,
7:52
Speaker 2: at locker rooms and I don't know, at other sports teams,
7:56
Speaker 2: sports events. It happened at the airport. It was really
7:58
Speaker 2: stressful at the airport. And people at the airport would be,
8:01
Speaker 2: you know, grown women in the women's bathroom yelling at
8:03
Speaker 2: my mother because I was in the bathroom. And my
8:07
Speaker 2: mother would have to defend and say, no, this is
8:09
Speaker 2: my daughter. Because at the time I didn't have the
8:11
Speaker 2: language to explain who I was. I thought I was,
8:14
Speaker 2: you know, just a girl who liked boys things. Right.
8:17
Speaker 1: So, and I apologize if this is an inappropriate question,
8:22
Speaker 1: but I think a lot of people don't understand the
8:24
Speaker 1: difference between wanting to wear boy stuff and then the
8:28
Speaker 1: sexual identity of it. So for example, like my daughter
8:31
Speaker 1: is 10 now, but when she was in fifth grade,
8:33
Speaker 1: when she teaches sexuality now and they teach about LGBTQ
8:41
Speaker 1: in general. And, you know, a lot of people have
8:44
Speaker 1: a problem with it because they don't think that children
8:46
Speaker 1: at that age should be learning about sexuality. But so
8:48
Speaker 1: this is a two part question. Was it a sexuality
8:51
Speaker 1: thing for you or just not feeling comfortable in your skin?
8:53
Speaker 1: Like what were you feeling?
8:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not a sexuality thing. At least for me,
8:58
Speaker 2: it wasn't. It was just about comfort with my gender itself.
9:01
Speaker 2: I I didn't feel that I was I was the
9:04
Speaker 2: gender I was assigned. I didn't feel that I was
9:06
Speaker 2: a girl I didn't identify with the other girls. I
9:09
Speaker 2: felt so much more comfortable being with the other boys,
9:12
Speaker 2: dressing myself like the other boys, just knowing that I
9:15
Speaker 2: was more aligned with the other boys. And it's interesting
9:19
Speaker 2: when I talk about it now, because I can give
9:20
Speaker 2: you all these sort of intellectualized thoughts about what was
9:23
Speaker 2: happening for me then. But at the time, I just
9:25
Speaker 2: knew that wearing a dress felt like the most horrible
9:28
Speaker 2: thing in the world. It felt like so far from
9:30
Speaker 2: who I was. It felt like I was somehow betraying myself.
9:34
Speaker 2: And I just remember having such a clear feeling that
9:38
Speaker 2: being a girl the way everybody else expected me to
9:40
Speaker 2: be was wrong. And to your note about sexuality and
9:43
Speaker 2: learning in schools, I mean, I think, you know, my
9:45
Speaker 2: school taught us about queer and trans people to a
9:48
Speaker 2: very small degree, not much about trans people. This is
9:50
Speaker 2: also like, you know, 20 years ago. um we were
9:53
Speaker 2: learning about the fact that gay people existed um and
9:57
Speaker 2: i think it's you know you said that a lot
9:58
Speaker 2: of people do have issues with teaching about sexuality in
10:01
Speaker 2: schools um and i just want to make a couple
10:03
Speaker 2: quick notes the first is that we don't actually have
10:06
Speaker 2: a problem talking about sexuality in schools unless it's about
10:08
Speaker 2: gay and and queer people right we talk about mom
10:11
Speaker 2: and dad that is inherent sexuality We talk about somebody
10:15
Speaker 2: getting married. That's also in reference to sexuality. So it's
10:19
Speaker 2: not a problem unless it's queer and trans. And even
10:21
Speaker 2: when it's queer and trans, the teaching about sexuality is
10:24
Speaker 2: just teaching that queer and trans people exist, right? It's
10:26
Speaker 2: not about trying to sexualize children. And I think that's
10:29
Speaker 2: an important note.
10:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. Is there science that backs up when gender
10:36
Speaker 1: identity can actually start and kids can actually feel it
10:38
Speaker 1: or know it?
10:39
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, yes, major medical organizations say that gender actually
10:44
Speaker 2: solidifies around the age of three to five years old.
10:47
Speaker 2: So basically, as soon as a kid can talk, right. Itching, burning, soreness.
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11:09
Speaker 2: Around the age that they're starting school, kindergarten-ish age, kids
11:12
Speaker 2: are able to declare their gender identity and they seem
11:15
Speaker 2: to have a solid form of their gender identity.
11:17
Speaker 1: Amazing. Okay. So then go on with your story. You
11:21
Speaker 1: obviously got to a point in high school where you
11:23
Speaker 1: were swimming. You were one of the best in the
11:25
Speaker 1: country enough so that you were being recruited by schools.
11:27
Speaker 1: You were recruited by Harvard and decided to go there, right?
11:30
Speaker 1: That's amazing. Go ahead. And what were you going to say?
11:34
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I was just going to say at the
11:36
Speaker 2: time I was doing all the things everybody said that
11:38
Speaker 2: I was supposed to do. You know, I was doing
11:40
Speaker 2: the good grades. I was doing the good athletic performance,
11:44
Speaker 2: but I was really, really miserable. And I had the reason,
11:48
Speaker 2: one of the primary reasons I was so miserable was
11:50
Speaker 2: when I started high school, I decided to throw away
11:52
Speaker 2: all of my boy stuff. Basically, I was like, okay,
11:55
Speaker 2: I'm done being bullied. I'm done being thrown out of
11:58
Speaker 2: the bathrooms. I'm done feeling like I never belong anywhere.
12:01
Speaker 2: I want to feel like I belong somewhere. And it
12:04
Speaker 2: seems like this gender thing is the primary reason people
12:07
Speaker 2: don't think that I belong. Maybe if I become this woman,
12:10
Speaker 2: everybody says I'm supposed to be, then I'll be okay.
12:13
Speaker 2: And so I did, I changed my clothes. I changed
12:15
Speaker 2: the way I looked. I changed my hair. I changed
12:18
Speaker 2: how I presented myself to the world. I tried to like,
12:21
Speaker 2: I was so afraid people would find old pictures of
12:23
Speaker 2: me because I wanted to really be separate from this
12:25
Speaker 2: sort of boyish version of me in middle school. And
12:28
Speaker 2: it got all the affirmation that I was looking for.
12:30
Speaker 2: Everybody's like, oh my God, like you're so beautiful. You're
12:32
Speaker 2: so whatever you're, Finally, you know, you're the woman you're
12:34
Speaker 2: supposed to be. But I was so miserable. And the
12:37
Speaker 2: closer I got to being this, quote, ideal woman that
12:41
Speaker 2: everybody wanted me to be, the further I dove into
12:44
Speaker 2: mental illness, specifically an eating disorder and depression. I was
12:48
Speaker 2: really struggling with my mental health at the time. And
12:51
Speaker 2: it took a toll on me. It took a big
12:52
Speaker 2: toll on me, especially athletically, even though I was performing well.
12:55
Speaker 2: It was a really tough time in my life.
12:57
Speaker 1: Were you able to let anybody close to you? Were
12:59
Speaker 1: you able to have any relationships with people, a girlfriend,
13:02
Speaker 1: a boyfriend, whatever you chose to have?
13:06
Speaker 2: I did. Cause I, I came out as, as gay
13:08
Speaker 2: before I made this time in high school. I didn't
13:10
Speaker 2: know that I was trans. So I came out as gay.
13:12
Speaker 2: I thought I knew I liked girls and I thought, okay,
13:14
Speaker 2: you know, maybe that's the thing that's different about me. Um,
13:18
Speaker 2: and so I'd come out as gay. I was dating
13:20
Speaker 2: a girl I liked at the time. Um, but I
13:23
Speaker 2: was still so miserable, honestly. It's hard to look back
13:26
Speaker 2: on that time. I was so disconnected with myself in
13:29
Speaker 2: so many ways. And I think the fact that everything
13:32
Speaker 2: seemed to be going well for me almost made it
13:34
Speaker 2: worse because I had all these things everybody said that
13:37
Speaker 2: I was supposed to want, but I still was miserable.
13:39
Speaker 2: In fact, the more I think I focused on the successes,
13:43
Speaker 2: the external successes, the farther I got from my own fulfillment.
13:47
Speaker 1: And were you not aware of what a transgender was like,
13:51
Speaker 1: how come that didn't strike to you as like, maybe
13:53
Speaker 1: this is me?
13:55
Speaker 2: That's a really good question that I wish I'd asked
13:57
Speaker 2: myself then, you know, um, quick note on language. So we,
14:00
Speaker 2: we don't say a transgender, we'll say a transgender person
14:03
Speaker 2: just to make sure not to sort of like remove
14:05
Speaker 2: that humanity. So just a quick note on the words. Um,
14:08
Speaker 2: I didn't, I don't know, you know, I, I hadn't
14:10
Speaker 2: been aware of trans people, I think in the, to
14:13
Speaker 2: the depths that I, that I, well, definitely not to the,
14:15
Speaker 2: to how I know them now. Um, but I hadn't
14:17
Speaker 2: been presented with the concept that your gender identity could
14:20
Speaker 2: differ from what you were assigned at birth and have
14:22
Speaker 2: that be a real identity. I think I thought that
14:25
Speaker 2: people– I had been taught that there were people out
14:28
Speaker 2: there who got, quote, sex changes. We don't call anything
14:32
Speaker 2: in terms of gender affirmation these days sex changes anymore.
14:34
Speaker 2: But I thought that the people just sort of chose
14:36
Speaker 2: to do that, and that was that. I didn't understand
14:38
Speaker 2: it was this deep-seated incongruence of identity. And I think
14:42
Speaker 2: it took me a long time to really sit down,
14:44
Speaker 2: slow down, and figure that out. And it didn't take
14:47
Speaker 2: until I went to actually treatment for my mental health
14:49
Speaker 2: issues until I figured that out. Yeah.
14:52
Speaker 1: So talk about that. What was the point that you
14:53
Speaker 1: really realized and connected within yourself?
14:57
Speaker 2: So I had been recruited to Harvard the beginning of
15:01
Speaker 2: my senior year. I was committed to swim for Harvard
15:04
Speaker 2: the next year. I was all set and ready to go.
15:05
Speaker 2: Everything was lined up. But that year, I just sort
15:08
Speaker 2: of dove deeper and deeper into my eating disorder and depression.
15:13
Speaker 2: And so when that year ended, my therapist said, you
15:15
Speaker 2: really can't go to Harvard this fall. You have to
15:18
Speaker 2: figure out your mental health. At this point, I had
15:20
Speaker 2: no idea that I was trans still. I just knew
15:22
Speaker 2: I was miserable. And so I did. I took a
15:24
Speaker 2: gap year between high school and college. I went to
15:27
Speaker 2: a residential treatment center and everything basically came to a stop.
15:30
Speaker 2: I wasn't allowed to swim. I wasn't allowed to exercise.
15:32
Speaker 2: I was in a different state from my family and
15:35
Speaker 2: my friends. I had no school. There was nothing to
15:37
Speaker 2: distract me.
15:39
Speaker 1: Did that give you anxiety or did that help you?
15:42
Speaker 2: Both. Both. I think it was anxiety-inducing in that everything
15:47
Speaker 2: was new. It was helpful because a lot of those
15:50
Speaker 2: things that I just named were ways that I was
15:52
Speaker 2: distracting from being able to see myself. I think I
15:56
Speaker 2: had been using athletics, using academics, using social interactions as
16:00
Speaker 2: a way of numbing myself to who I really was
16:04
Speaker 2: because going towards that was so scary. At treatment, I
16:08
Speaker 2: was able to really dive into myself, learn about who
16:13
Speaker 2: I was. I had a great therapist who, honestly, the
16:15
Speaker 2: work that we did together was life-saving because she would
16:18
Speaker 2: really encourage me to think about who I am and
16:20
Speaker 2: ask me, what do I want in the world? Not
16:23
Speaker 2: what is successful. What does Skylar actually want? What does
16:25
Speaker 2: Skylar actually need? And from there, I was able to
16:28
Speaker 2: realize that I'm transgender.
16:30
Speaker 1: And I know you had a moment where you figured
16:32
Speaker 1: this out and were able to communicate this with your father.
16:35
Speaker 1: Tell us about that time.
16:37
Speaker 2: Yeah. So it was like a couple, maybe it was
16:40
Speaker 2: like four or five months after, maybe three months after
16:44
Speaker 2: I realized that I'm trans, I was at a workshop. Basically,
16:49
Speaker 2: there's a place in Miami, Florida, where I was going
16:51
Speaker 2: to treatment called the Yes Institute, and they teach about gender.
16:55
Speaker 2: And so I'd gone to a workshop on the advice
16:57
Speaker 2: of my therapist and spent the whole day in tears. Truly,
17:01
Speaker 2: I was crying the whole day because I had met
17:03
Speaker 2: another trans person for the first time And at that moment,
17:06
Speaker 2: it was undeniable that this was a part of who
17:08
Speaker 2: I was. But I will say that I was crying
17:11
Speaker 2: because I was scared. I was so afraid. I was like,
17:14
Speaker 2: what am I going to do with this identity? I
17:16
Speaker 2: have to tell people. What am I going to do
17:18
Speaker 2: about swimming? What am I going to do about my friends?
17:20
Speaker 2: Am I going to lose everything? I was really, really afraid.
17:22
Speaker 2: And I think that goes to earlier points that we
17:25
Speaker 2: were talking about, about just how difficult sometimes it is
17:29
Speaker 2: to share these identities because of the amount of misunderstanding
17:32
Speaker 2: there is in the world. And so I was really afraid.
17:34
Speaker 2: I wasn't like, woohoo, I figured it out. This is
17:36
Speaker 2: the thing, right? I wish I had had that kind
17:39
Speaker 2: of elation because it really does explain a lot of
17:41
Speaker 2: my childhood, but instead I was afraid. My dad picked
17:44
Speaker 2: me up from that workshop and I, he like texted me,
17:48
Speaker 2: I'm here. I ran outside still in tears, sobbing. And
17:53
Speaker 2: he just gave me a big hug. And he, we
17:56
Speaker 2: stood like that for, I don't know, maybe a minute,
17:58
Speaker 2: maybe 10. It's hard to tell when you're in that
18:00
Speaker 2: kind of emotion. Yeah. and he eventually asked me what
18:03
Speaker 2: was wrong. And I said, through my tears, dad, I'm transgender.
18:07
Speaker 2: And I'm, I'm so scared.
18:09
Speaker 1: And what did I feel like to tell him finally?
18:11
Speaker 2: I don't remember. I just remember feeling scared. I think,
18:18
Speaker 2: so I guess that's the only thing is I felt scared.
18:20
Speaker 2: I felt, um, I, I need, it was like bursting
18:23
Speaker 2: out of me. I had to tell him at that moment. I,
18:27
Speaker 2: I think I really.
18:28
Speaker 1: You were scared. I'm sorry to interrupt you that he
18:30
Speaker 1: wouldn't accept you, that he wouldn't understand. Like what was
18:33
Speaker 1: the fear with your dad?
18:35
Speaker 2: I was less afraid about his reaction. Actually. I don't
18:38
Speaker 2: remember ever being specifically afraid of his reaction. I felt
18:42
Speaker 2: afraid of what I was going to do with my life. And,
18:46
Speaker 2: and I, and I, it was a whole task of,
18:48
Speaker 2: of what do I do with my life? I think
18:50
Speaker 2: I was fairly certain that I would meet him. He
18:52
Speaker 2: would meet me with love at the very least. If
18:55
Speaker 2: not understanding or at least trying to understand because my
18:57
Speaker 2: dad and I have always had a really good relationship.
19:00
Speaker 2: So I was less afraid of him. I was more
19:01
Speaker 2: afraid of like the world. So, yeah.
19:05
Speaker 1: So he met you with acceptance and love and seems
19:09
Speaker 1: like he always has sense. That's amazing because I think
19:11
Speaker 1: a lot of people don't have that support.
19:13
Speaker 2: Absolutely. I feel very lucky to have his response and
19:16
Speaker 2: his reaction. We have definitely had our bouts of fighting
19:19
Speaker 2: and screaming at each other and figuring things out. But
19:22
Speaker 2: that love has been a through line for my whole life.
19:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's really amazing. So then talk about what happened
19:29
Speaker 1: when you went back to school. What was that like
19:31
Speaker 1: to then go back and you had this spot on
19:34
Speaker 1: the women's swim team? And, you know, what did you
19:37
Speaker 1: decide to do from there?
19:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I didn't immediately go back to school actually.
19:41
Speaker 2: So when I told my dad it was the summer
19:43
Speaker 2: of 2014 and I wouldn't start school till the following
19:47
Speaker 2: August of 2015 because of my gap year. So I
19:50
Speaker 2: basically had another year to figure out what I was
19:52
Speaker 2: gonna do with my identity and my sport and my life.
19:56
Speaker 2: And so throughout that year, I basically went back and forth.
19:59
Speaker 2: One week I was like, I'm gonna swim. The next
20:01
Speaker 2: week I'd be like, I'm not gonna swim. And it
20:03
Speaker 2: probably was like that for about six months until the
20:06
Speaker 2: men's coach actually at Harvard said, why don't you swim
20:08
Speaker 2: for me? He said, you could swim for the men's team.
20:10
Speaker 2: And I was like, oh my God, now what? And
20:15
Speaker 2: that was an amazing proposition, right? A very forward thinking,
20:19
Speaker 2: very progressive.
20:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, that had never happened before, correct?
20:23
Speaker 2: No, not in division one sports. No, it had never
20:26
Speaker 2: happened before to have a transgender man compete on a
20:29
Speaker 2: men's sports team in division one sports. It never happened before,
20:32
Speaker 2: but he said, let's do it. And there were the
20:34
Speaker 2: rules in place. And actually those rules had been in
20:36
Speaker 2: place for 10 years. Um, since 2000, um, well now
20:40
Speaker 2: they've been in place for 10 years. I'm sorry. At
20:41
Speaker 2: the time they'd been in place for four years since,
20:42
Speaker 2: since 2011. Um, and he said, yeah, why don't you
20:45
Speaker 2: swim for the men's team? If you identify as a man,
20:47
Speaker 2: you are here at Harvard. I coach the men's swim
20:49
Speaker 2: team at Harvard. No brainer. He literally was like that
20:53
Speaker 2: simple about it, which is again, very incredible.
20:56
Speaker 1: And how did guys on the team feel?
21:00
Speaker 2: Um, I'm told itching, burning soreness.
21:04
Speaker 3: When you know it's thrush, you want it gone. For
21:07
Speaker 3: the most part, there was little....
21:24
Speaker 2: There was a lot of, gosh, I've never seen this before, right?
21:28
Speaker 2: As you might expect, I think honest, right? They had
21:30
Speaker 2: never done this before. A lot of them had never
21:32
Speaker 2: heard of a trans person. I think people, I'm told
21:35
Speaker 2: that people were nervous about what are we going to
21:37
Speaker 2: do about the locker rooms? Where is Skylar going to change?
21:39
Speaker 2: But most people, my coach, Kevin told me this, most
21:42
Speaker 2: people were mainly concerned about will Skylar be able to
21:45
Speaker 2: keep up? Will he reduce our like athletic performance? Will
21:49
Speaker 2: he reduce our, you know, competitive performance? I don't know,
21:53
Speaker 2: efficacy and that kind of stuff. So mostly though, it
21:58
Speaker 2: was this, I don't know, will he fit in kind
22:01
Speaker 2: of question. Yeah. Yeah.
22:03
Speaker 1: So, and what was it like to go back to school?
22:06
Speaker 1: Had you made any physical changes to yourself at that point?
22:10
Speaker 2: Yeah. So I decided to get top surgery, which is
22:13
Speaker 2: a mastectomy, a masculinization of chest is chest reconstructive surgery. um,
22:18
Speaker 2: in March of 2015. And that was my first physical, well,
22:22
Speaker 2: first medical step. I had, you know, gotten my haircut
22:24
Speaker 2: and changed my clothes and that kind of stuff. But, um,
22:27
Speaker 2: top surgery is the first medical step that I took, um, life-saving.
22:30
Speaker 2: I woke up from surgery bawling with happiness because I
22:33
Speaker 2: finally felt like I was, I was more aligned with myself. Um, and, um, yeah,
22:39
Speaker 2: and that was a, that experience and as well as testosterone, actually,
22:43
Speaker 2: I began before, uh, before I started on the men's team.
22:46
Speaker 2: But actually, I wanted to say it took me a
22:48
Speaker 2: long time actually to decide to even swim for the
22:50
Speaker 2: men's team. And I think I didn't immediately accept the proposition.
22:54
Speaker 2: I actually said no. The first thing I said was no,
22:57
Speaker 2: I can't swim for the men's team. I'm too scared.
22:59
Speaker 2: I feel too alone. And I'm not ready to give
23:02
Speaker 2: up the success I've worked towards on the women's team.
23:05
Speaker 2: And I share that because a lot of people think
23:07
Speaker 2: that trans people transition in order to play sports. But
23:11
Speaker 2: the reality is that sports can often pose a huge
23:14
Speaker 2: barrier to to trans people and sports because there's so
23:18
Speaker 2: much complexity to being a trans person in sports that
23:21
Speaker 2: most of us would contemplate quitting our sport because we
23:25
Speaker 2: want to be able to be ourselves and not deal
23:27
Speaker 2: with sports before we would, you know, do a lot
23:29
Speaker 2: of other things. So I actually said, no, I wanted
23:32
Speaker 2: to stay on the women's team. I was going to
23:33
Speaker 2: delay my transition. I was going to delay my authenticity
23:37
Speaker 2: because I was so, I was trying to be this
23:40
Speaker 2: woman that people wanted me to be still, even when
23:42
Speaker 2: I knew that I wasn't. Um, and it took me
23:45
Speaker 2: a lot of self work to really let that go
23:47
Speaker 2: and say, I need to take this leap of faith
23:48
Speaker 2: for me, for my, my happiness. Yeah.
23:51
Speaker 1: I mean, that must've been a huge decision when you're
23:54
Speaker 1: used to winning, being the best at something. And then,
23:56
Speaker 1: you know, you may not be able to physically keep up, uh,
24:00
Speaker 1: with these boys or whatever these men, um, at the time.
24:04
Speaker 1: So what was it like during your first swim?
24:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, my first time on the men's team was
24:11
Speaker 2: frightening to say the least, but I think it was
24:15
Speaker 2: a lot. What's the right word I'm looking for? It
24:18
Speaker 2: was emboldening as well. You know, I think that one
24:22
Speaker 2: of the things that people assume about me and about
24:24
Speaker 2: transgender men like me. is that we can't possibly keep
24:28
Speaker 2: up with or beat cis men. And that's just not true.
24:32
Speaker 2: And I actually spent a long time before I transitioned.
24:35
Speaker 2: So when I was still competing in the women's category,
24:38
Speaker 2: being better than a lot of the men on my
24:39
Speaker 2: team before I transitioned. And that's actually one of the
24:41
Speaker 2: reasons that I was so good is I was able
24:43
Speaker 2: to beat a lot of the guys. And we would
24:46
Speaker 2: have these practices all the time where it was like,
24:48
Speaker 2: if me or my friend One of my teammates, if
24:52
Speaker 2: one of us beat one of the guys in a
24:54
Speaker 2: race at the end of practice, then the girls would
24:55
Speaker 2: get out early and the boys would have to keep
24:57
Speaker 2: doing the set. And that happened frequently, right? We would
25:00
Speaker 2: beat them frequently. So the belief that what I'm trying
25:03
Speaker 2: to highlight, by the way, is the belief that anybody
25:05
Speaker 2: assigned to female at birth like me is automatically going
25:08
Speaker 2: to be worse than anybody assigned to male at birth
25:11
Speaker 2: is not true, right? We actually do need to train
25:15
Speaker 2: to be good at things. So I actually ended up
25:18
Speaker 2: being able to keep up with the guys. Wow. scored
25:21
Speaker 2: points the first year. In the end of my four
25:24
Speaker 2: years there, I ended up actually beating 87% and 85%
25:28
Speaker 2: of men in my two best events, the 100 Breast,
25:30
Speaker 2: 100 Butterfly, in all of the NCAA. So cis men
25:36
Speaker 2: do not always beat trans men. Trans men are capable, actually,
25:40
Speaker 2: of winning against cis men, which is pretty exciting.
25:42
Speaker 1: That is so exciting. So This ended up being the
25:46
Speaker 1: first time people saw you swim though, right? You never
25:48
Speaker 1: swam with the women's team because you took the gap year, correct?
25:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd never swam on the Harvard women's team. Yeah,
25:53
Speaker 2: I took the gap year and then just started Harvard
25:56
Speaker 2: on the men's team and all four years on the
25:57
Speaker 2: men's team.
25:58
Speaker 1: So what was that like? I mean, maybe this is
26:00
Speaker 1: a stupid question, but what was it like all of
26:01
Speaker 1: a sudden getting into a Speedo for the first time, right?
26:04
Speaker 1: And then swimming with a bunch of guys, but like,
26:06
Speaker 1: was that empowering? Was it scary? You had a new body, right?
26:10
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think it's all of the above. Um,
26:14
Speaker 2: I think the, the new body bit is like, I had,
26:17
Speaker 2: I think my, I don't know how to say this,
26:19
Speaker 2: but the new body is not, that's not inherently wrong necessarily.
26:22
Speaker 2: But I think for me, what it really felt like
26:24
Speaker 2: was it felt aligned, right? It felt more like my
26:27
Speaker 2: own actually. Um, and there were, there was newness absolutely.
26:31
Speaker 2: And that my, my, my dynamics were different. Like truly
26:33
Speaker 2: my hydrodynamics were different because I didn't have as much
26:36
Speaker 2: you know, fat on my chest, to be quite honest
26:38
Speaker 2: with that, that's it. It changes the way your body
26:40
Speaker 2: sits in the water because of the way that fat
26:42
Speaker 2: floats and whatever. So I definitely had some getting used to, um,
26:45
Speaker 2: to be done, but I didn't wear a speedo the
26:48
Speaker 2: first day of practice. I actually wore what we call jammers.
26:50
Speaker 2: So those are the swimsuits that go from your knees
26:52
Speaker 2: to your hips, as opposed to just the tiny little triangle, um,
26:55
Speaker 2: I was too afraid to wear the Speedo actually for
26:58
Speaker 2: the first probably like month or so of practice on
27:00
Speaker 2: the men's team. I was the only guy wearing jammers.
27:05
Speaker 2: And it was like, I can't remember what was the reason,
27:07
Speaker 2: but there was one day I was at home in
27:10
Speaker 2: my dorm room trying on the Speedo over and over.
27:13
Speaker 2: I kept putting it on, taking it off, putting it on,
27:15
Speaker 2: taking it off. And I was like, I just got
27:16
Speaker 2: to do it. I have to do it. I have
27:17
Speaker 2: to show up to practice in this. And so the
27:19
Speaker 2: next day I did. And one of my friends on
27:22
Speaker 2: the team came over to me, gave me a fist
27:23
Speaker 2: bump and he was like, nice suit looks, looks good.
27:25
Speaker 2: And there's that. And then I haven't really stopped wearing
27:28
Speaker 2: it since. Yeah.
27:29
Speaker 1: Amazing. And so, you know, what was it like at school?
27:33
Speaker 1: Did people know what was going on? Did they know
27:35
Speaker 1: this was a big deal for Harvard and obviously a
27:37
Speaker 1: big deal for you? I mean, would people come and
27:39
Speaker 1: watch to see you?
27:41
Speaker 2: So people, my story was shared in the Crimson, which
27:46
Speaker 2: is the Harvard newsletter newspaper. And so there were a
27:49
Speaker 2: handful of people who paid attention and read it. Um,
27:53
Speaker 2: and so I would every once in a while, you know,
27:54
Speaker 2: have people come up to me and be like, Hey,
27:55
Speaker 2: I read about you in the newspaper. And, um, 99.9%
27:59
Speaker 2: of the response I got from people coming up to
28:01
Speaker 2: talk to me was positive. It was like, this is
28:03
Speaker 2: really cool or congrats or, you know, thanks for sharing
28:06
Speaker 2: your story. Um, that was consistent through college for the
28:10
Speaker 2: most part. I think every once in a while there were,
28:12
Speaker 2: there were people probably that didn't vibe with me, but, um,
28:16
Speaker 2: I didn't spend a lot of time with them.
28:18
Speaker 1: So yeah, that was my next question. How did you
28:22
Speaker 1: then feel or how did people react to you after this?
28:25
Speaker 1: And was it so much better than when you were
28:27
Speaker 1: a child or was it similar? I mean, you said
28:31
Speaker 1: you struggled with eating disorders. Did that get completely cured
28:34
Speaker 1: because now you figured out what the cause and the
28:37
Speaker 1: root may have been?
28:41
Speaker 2: I'll answer your question sort of in two parts. The
28:43
Speaker 2: first is that I would consider myself recovered from my
28:46
Speaker 2: eating disorder. I haven't engaged in eating disorder behavior since
28:49
Speaker 2: I left, well, since before I entered the treatment center, actually.
28:52
Speaker 2: So the treatment itself was very effective. I do a
28:55
Speaker 2: lot of work within eating disorder advocacy and recovery spaces.
28:58
Speaker 2: And I like to remind people that recovery from an
29:00
Speaker 2: eating disorder is absolutely possible. Um, and, and I don't
29:04
Speaker 2: think it was only because I figured out that I
29:05
Speaker 2: was trans transness was a huge part of it. Cause
29:08
Speaker 2: it helped me kind of put, put together the pieces
29:11
Speaker 2: about my childhood. Um, but it was also the work
29:14
Speaker 2: that I did in that treatment center about my childhood,
29:16
Speaker 2: about my relationship with my parents, about my relationship to
29:19
Speaker 2: food and control. And there was a lot that was there, right?
29:22
Speaker 2: I'm a people pleaser. I'm a perfectionist. So I had
29:25
Speaker 2: a lot of things to unpack, not just my transness. Um,
29:29
Speaker 2: You asked an interesting question, though. Was my experience in
29:32
Speaker 2: college that you said similar to being when I was
29:35
Speaker 2: a kid and sort of the bullying experience? Yes and no.
29:39
Speaker 2: so in many ways it was different I had I've
29:42
Speaker 2: never been thrown out of the men's bathroom before in
29:44
Speaker 2: my life which is a big statement if I go
29:46
Speaker 2: to Florida maybe that will be a different story but
29:49
Speaker 2: I had so much more peace in the men's bathrooms
29:52
Speaker 2: in college than I ever had had in the woman's
29:54
Speaker 2: bathroom before and a lot because I felt comfortable. I
29:57
Speaker 2: think I finally felt like I was in the bathroom
29:59
Speaker 2: that I was supposed to be in. Mostly people gendered
30:03
Speaker 2: me correctly at school and I kind of got around
30:06
Speaker 2: in my daily life academically totally fine. But there was
30:11
Speaker 2: still difficulty, especially my first year on the team. There
30:16
Speaker 2: were guys who didn't want me there. And a lot
30:18
Speaker 2: of the guys had been really great, like I said,
30:20
Speaker 2: but the freshmen were I think struggled the most because
30:23
Speaker 2: they were the newest, right? To me, they were the
30:25
Speaker 2: newest to themselves as well, right? They're the youngest. So
30:28
Speaker 2: I think that we had some bumps there. I was
30:30
Speaker 2: misgendered by them, not specifically freshmen, but some guys on
30:34
Speaker 2: the team. And that was really hard. It was really
30:37
Speaker 2: hard because it actually felt more difficult than elsewhere because
30:40
Speaker 2: we were on a men's team. So being misgendered, being
30:42
Speaker 2: called a girl on the men's team felt even more
30:45
Speaker 2: like I didn't belong. And so it was difficult for
30:48
Speaker 2: me to figure out how to navigate that. I think
30:50
Speaker 2: especially alone, I didn't have a whole lot of people
30:53
Speaker 2: to look up to. I didn't have somebody I can
30:56
Speaker 2: call and be like, hey, I know you've gone through this,
30:58
Speaker 2: help me. I didn't even really know any other trans
31:01
Speaker 2: people for the most part, especially not in sports, at school.
31:05
Speaker 2: So I often navigated things by myself. Even though I
31:08
Speaker 2: had the support from my coaches, it wasn't the same
31:11
Speaker 2: as having somebody who could be a role model. Itching, burning, soreness.
31:15
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31:18
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31:22
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31:32
Speaker 2: For me.
31:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. So, okay, now that we're at this point,
31:36
Speaker 1: we've kind of gotten through this story. I think it's,
31:38
Speaker 1: I want to ask a lot of questions about the
31:40
Speaker 1: education of children. You then became someone who, you know,
31:45
Speaker 1: educates people, brings light to things. You, you, you know,
31:49
Speaker 1: are a huge, huge person on social media. Your Instagram
31:54
Speaker 1: is so informative and interesting. And the way you kind
31:57
Speaker 1: of do those clips are fantastic, frankly. I mean, for
32:01
Speaker 1: lack of a better word, they really are because, and
32:03
Speaker 1: I think people should go to your Instagram. What is
32:05
Speaker 1: your Instagram? Tell people.
32:07
Speaker 2: Pink, pink, manta ray, pink, like the color of manta ray,
32:09
Speaker 2: like the animal.
32:10
Speaker 1: Yeah. Does that mean something special to you, by the way?
32:14
Speaker 2: I have a tattoo that says, I believe in pink
32:17
Speaker 2: on my wrist. It's actually an Audrey Hepburn quote. And
32:19
Speaker 2: it's sort of like, I think it's like believing in
32:21
Speaker 2: fairy tales and childhood and sort of the wonderment of childhood.
32:25
Speaker 2: And when I was 18, I got this tattoo as
32:27
Speaker 2: a reminder to not become jaded towards life. I saw
32:30
Speaker 2: so many adults sort of like, I feel like they
32:32
Speaker 2: just get jaded with life. And I didn't want to
32:34
Speaker 2: be an adult that did that. I wanted to always
32:36
Speaker 2: be in love with life. Um, and so it was
32:39
Speaker 2: a reminder of that. And then manta rays are just
32:41
Speaker 2: my favorite animal.
32:42
Speaker 1: I love that. Okay. So, um, but okay. So we
32:45
Speaker 1: were talking about athletics in general for a second. Let's
32:48
Speaker 1: just stick with that for a second. So the world
32:51
Speaker 1: athletics band bands, trans women from female events, right. Still correct.
32:56
Speaker 1: What are your thoughts on that? And then, well, take
32:59
Speaker 1: me into that first. What are your thoughts on that?
33:01
Speaker 2: Sure. Yeah. So world athletics actually followed world aquatics, which
33:04
Speaker 2: is formerly known as FINA. And both these bands are
33:08
Speaker 2: pretty much the same with slight differences that says that
33:12
Speaker 2: if you haven't transitioned before the age of 12, before
33:16
Speaker 2: Tanner stage two of puberty, which is when hormones begin
33:19
Speaker 2: to be released in one's body during puberty, typically, if
33:24
Speaker 2: you haven't transitioned before, then you cannot compete in the
33:26
Speaker 2: women's category. So we see this as a categorical ban
33:30
Speaker 2: because it's very difficult for anybody to transition before that
33:33
Speaker 2: age for many different reasons. Primarily because in the United States,
33:37
Speaker 2: we are seeing multiple states banning transition before 18, right?
33:40
Speaker 2: So it's sort of a lose-lose impossible situation. And even
33:43
Speaker 2: in states that do allow kids to transition and allow
33:46
Speaker 2: puberty blockers and such before the age of 18, usually
33:50
Speaker 2: don't do so before Tanner stage two of puberty. So
33:54
Speaker 2: it's really impossible. It is a categorical ban, world athletics
33:58
Speaker 2: ban on trans women. So that's one response. It's just
34:02
Speaker 2: that I think it's really... horrible. I think it's really discriminatory.
34:07
Speaker 2: It also assumes advantage. And the IOC, which is the
34:11
Speaker 2: International Olympic Committee, when they updated their rules a year
34:13
Speaker 2: and a half ago, they said, we can't actually have
34:16
Speaker 2: presumption of advantage. You need to actually prove the advantage.
34:19
Speaker 2: You need to have an evidence-based approach, which when I
34:22
Speaker 2: say that, I'm like, of course, we need an evidence-based approach.
34:24
Speaker 2: Why would we ever not have an evidence-based approach? But
34:28
Speaker 2: we have numerous organizing bodies like World Athletics, like World Aquatic's,
34:33
Speaker 2: not actually proposing things with real science behind them. They're
34:38
Speaker 2: just saying categorically no trans women.
34:40
Speaker 1: But like, aren't they making a lot of a big
34:43
Speaker 1: deal in these bills that they're trying to get passed
34:45
Speaker 1: or having been passed about, you know, people are screaming about, oh,
34:49
Speaker 1: let's not cut off our kids' genitals, you know, such
34:52
Speaker 1: an early age. And talk about that. Like, that's not
34:55
Speaker 1: what it's all about, is it?
34:57
Speaker 2: Right? No, no, no, absolutely. I'm really glad you brought
35:00
Speaker 2: this up. So there is a common narrative of like,
35:03
Speaker 2: I don't want my kids' genitals cut off at, you know,
35:05
Speaker 2: when they're a toddler. Stop cutting off the genitals of toddlers.
35:09
Speaker 2: People are not doing that. No toddlers are having their
35:11
Speaker 2: genitals cut off except for intersex children. And that's not
35:15
Speaker 2: done with their consent. So let me get to that
35:16
Speaker 2: in a second. But with trans children, for transgender children,
35:20
Speaker 2: let's say we've got a six-year-old who says, hey, I'm transgender.
35:23
Speaker 2: No genital surgery is happening. Zero. At six years old,
35:26
Speaker 2: actually no surgery, no medical interventions are happening at all.
35:30
Speaker 2: The only thing that happens is the affirmation of name, pronouns,
35:32
Speaker 2: maybe a hairstyle change, maybe some clothing changes. That's it.
35:36
Speaker 2: And no medical changes will even begin to be conceptualized
35:39
Speaker 2: until the kid is around 9 or 10, when puberty
35:42
Speaker 2: blockers might become a conversation. Not an intervention yet, but
35:46
Speaker 2: just a conversation. And then around age 11 or 12,
35:49
Speaker 2: then maybe there will be puberty blockers, again, if they're allowed.
35:53
Speaker 2: And then after that, around 13, 14, 15, then cross
35:56
Speaker 2: hormones might be administered. Cross hormones being the hormone that
35:59
Speaker 2: wouldn't natally be introduced into the body. So for me,
36:02
Speaker 2: as somebody who was assigned female birth, cross hormones would
36:05
Speaker 2: be testosterone, for somebody signed male at birth, cross hormones
36:07
Speaker 2: would be a form of estrogen. But there's no surgery. Note,
36:10
Speaker 2: I have not said surgery at all. So nobody is
36:14
Speaker 2: cutting off the genitals of toddlers. And for the extent
36:18
Speaker 2: of my knowledge, nobody's really cutting off the genitals of
36:21
Speaker 2: any minor. In order for any minor to get any
36:24
Speaker 2: kind of gender affirmation surgery, which is almost always chest surgery,
36:28
Speaker 2: by the way, not genital, but any type of surgery,
36:31
Speaker 2: they have to go through extensive medical board reviews, ethical
36:34
Speaker 2: board reviews, have parental consent, and usually have to have
36:37
Speaker 2: been presenting in their affirmed gender for a decade, since
36:42
Speaker 2: they were like five. So this isn't happening. We're not
36:45
Speaker 2: just doling out gender affirming surgeries to toddlers. They're very
36:50
Speaker 2: intense processes to have 15 or 16-year-olds maybe get surgery. Right.
36:55
Speaker 1: So talk about puberty blockers, like you just said. Are
36:59
Speaker 1: they safe? What does that mean? Because I think that's
37:02
Speaker 1: been such a big conversation.
37:03
Speaker 2: Yeah.
37:04
Speaker 1: In people that are talking about people who are assigned
37:09
Speaker 1: female at birth, no, male at birth, excuse me, and
37:12
Speaker 1: then become female and then want to compete. For example,
37:15
Speaker 1: they are in an uproar because they think it's completely unfair,
37:20
Speaker 1: which almost seems like more of a conversation than somebody
37:22
Speaker 1: like you that was assigned female and then became male.
37:28
Speaker 1: And that doesn't seem as like threatening to people in sports, right?
37:31
Speaker 1: So what does it have to do with the puberty,
37:33
Speaker 1: the stage when puberty happens that they're talking about?
37:37
Speaker 2: They say that it does, but does it? Not exactly, right?
37:41
Speaker 2: So people do argue that for people assigned male at birth,
37:47
Speaker 2: and I wouldn't say become, I would just say identify
37:50
Speaker 2: as or are girls just instead of the concept that
37:54
Speaker 2: people necessarily change. So somebody assigned male at birth who
37:58
Speaker 2: might want to compete in the girls category, people are
38:01
Speaker 2: saying that A, there's some sort of presumed, and I
38:05
Speaker 2: mean presumed, advantage when somebody has gone through what we
38:08
Speaker 2: call testosterone-driven puberty or most people would call male puberty
38:13
Speaker 2: because of the effects of the hormones. I think what
38:15
Speaker 2: people are forgetting a number of things. One, in elite-level sports,
38:18
Speaker 2: you need to go through testosterone suppression in order to
38:20
Speaker 2: compete in the women's category. You can't just waltz into
38:23
Speaker 2: the women's category as somebody who's assigned– excuse me, assigned
38:27
Speaker 2: to male at birth and say, here I am, you
38:29
Speaker 2: have to go through many checks, like I mentioned before.
38:31
Speaker 2: And sometimes you're just not allowed to compete at all.
38:32
Speaker 2: But when we're talking about kids, people forget we're talking
38:35
Speaker 2: about children. We're talking about kids who just want to
38:37
Speaker 2: play sports with their friends and investigating the bodies, the
38:40
Speaker 2: genitals of kids, which many states are proposing, right? Genital
38:44
Speaker 2: exams for children to play sports. That's so invasive. And
38:47
Speaker 2: that's so unnecessary for some kid to just play sports
38:50
Speaker 2: with their friends. If they get to an elite level,
38:51
Speaker 2: let the elite level governing bodies deal with the regulations
38:55
Speaker 2: about fairness. But everybody's crying about fairness, and there's so
38:58
Speaker 2: many other barriers to women and girls' sports, especially girls' sports,
39:02
Speaker 2: by the way, that have to do with fairness that
39:04
Speaker 2: have nothing to do with trans people. We've actually seen
39:07
Speaker 2: that in states with inclusive policies, more girls play sports,
39:10
Speaker 2: and that with exclusive policies, so policies that exclude transgender girls,
39:14
Speaker 2: we have a reduction of girls playing sports, all girls.
39:17
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
39:18
Speaker 2: Yeah.
39:19
Speaker 1: So what do you think the real fear is that
39:23
Speaker 1: people can't get over when talking about trans in sports?
39:27
Speaker 2: I think there's a number of things. First, they're being
39:29
Speaker 2: lied to. right? And I think that's really, really key.
39:32
Speaker 2: People are being lied to. They think that trans women
39:34
Speaker 2: are dominating women's sports. And that's just not true. You
39:37
Speaker 2: couldn't name more than three people who are trans women
39:40
Speaker 2: who have won international or national competitions, I would bet. Um,
39:43
Speaker 2: there's about 20 of them total in the history of
39:45
Speaker 2: recorded sports, which is a massively small percentage of all
39:48
Speaker 2: women who ever won international national competitions. But most people
39:52
Speaker 2: can't name one, much less three people. So this concept
39:55
Speaker 2: of domination is, is one that's used to fear monger
39:58
Speaker 2: and push lies about trans people. Um, that just, like
40:01
Speaker 2: I said, just aren't true. The next thing is people
40:04
Speaker 2: are afraid that men are going to pretend to be
40:06
Speaker 2: women in order to win women's sports. So like, what about,
40:08
Speaker 2: you know, fine trans women are fine, but what about
40:10
Speaker 2: men who are going to pretend. This has never happened.
40:13
Speaker 2: It never happened. Trans women have been allowed in women's
40:16
Speaker 2: sports for decades in the Olympics, decades in state sports,
40:20
Speaker 2: over a decade in the NCAA and in college sports.
40:23
Speaker 2: And we've never seen that happen, this pretending concept. The
40:26
Speaker 2: other thing is that, again, you cannot just waltz into
40:28
Speaker 2: the women's sports category if you are assigned male birth
40:31
Speaker 2: and want to compete at the elite levels. You actually
40:34
Speaker 2: have to, quote, pretend, if we want to go with
40:36
Speaker 2: this narrative, you have to, quote, pretend for one to
40:38
Speaker 2: three years. And this, quote, pretending is includes also going
40:42
Speaker 2: through hormone suppression. In some sports, you are still required
40:46
Speaker 2: to have genital surgery in order to compete. So this
40:48
Speaker 2: whole pretending thing, what man who's trying to boost his
40:51
Speaker 2: ego is going to do this in order, like, I just,
40:54
Speaker 2: I can't see a world in which that would happen.
40:56
Speaker 2: So that's another reason. And then the last reason is
40:59
Speaker 2: really the fear of, it's kind of similar to the
41:02
Speaker 2: second one, but it's the fear of patriarchy. It's the
41:04
Speaker 2: fear of men who are going to abuse power to
41:06
Speaker 2: hurt women. And this is we've seen this perpetrated against
41:09
Speaker 2: trans people in so many different arenas, specifically about sports
41:12
Speaker 2: and then also about bathrooms where people are saying, but
41:15
Speaker 2: men are going to hurt women. Well, if men who
41:17
Speaker 2: are going to hurt women are the problem, we should
41:19
Speaker 2: actually deal with those men and not punish trans women
41:22
Speaker 2: as a result. Yeah.
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41:44
Speaker 1: So you've corrected me a couple times because I'm not
41:47
Speaker 1: really sure on what to say. What are the things
41:49
Speaker 1: you should never say to a trans person?
41:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, so the first one I always hope is
41:56
Speaker 2: obvious to people, but I'm going to say it anyways
41:58
Speaker 2: because some people will still ask me this. We should
42:00
Speaker 2: never ask trans people about their medical history, specifically about
42:04
Speaker 2: their surgeries, specifically about their genitals. So people will often
42:08
Speaker 2: be like, well, Skylar, so I know you've gotten top
42:10
Speaker 2: surgery because maybe I've said it. Well, they're like, well,
42:12
Speaker 2: have you gotten the other surgery? And I, as an educator,
42:16
Speaker 2: will answer the question because I'm an educator. That's what
42:18
Speaker 2: I do for work. I am paid to do this
42:20
Speaker 2: work for the most part. And so that's what I do.
42:23
Speaker 2: But most people actually, regardless of whether or not they're trans,
42:26
Speaker 2: don't like to talk about their genitals with random strangers.
42:28
Speaker 2: And if you do not walk up to any other
42:30
Speaker 2: random stranger and ask them to tell you what their
42:33
Speaker 2: genitals look like, you absolutely should not do that to
42:35
Speaker 2: trans people. Now, if you go up to random strangers
42:37
Speaker 2: and ask them about their genitals, then that is a
42:38
Speaker 2: you problem and you might need to do some priority reassessing. Right. Okay.
42:41
Speaker 1: That makes a lot of sense. That's the first one.
42:44
Speaker 2: Okay.
42:45
Speaker 1: What are some more that we should know about?
42:47
Speaker 2: Yeah. The second one I would say is the assumption
42:50
Speaker 2: that being trans is a choice. A lot of people
42:53
Speaker 2: think that I've chosen to do this. That's one of
42:55
Speaker 2: the reasons that I edited the word of sort of like,
42:58
Speaker 2: changed into, became male, as you said. Again, I wasn't offended,
43:03
Speaker 2: as you said, that I just wanted to note, a
43:05
Speaker 2: lot of us don't feel that we have chosen to
43:08
Speaker 2: change gender necessarily, but rather that we're finding the language
43:12
Speaker 2: or the courage or the resources to affirm who we've
43:15
Speaker 2: always been. So as I explained about my childhood, I
43:18
Speaker 2: feel like I've always known this about myself. I just
43:20
Speaker 2: didn't have the words to be able to say it.
43:22
Speaker 2: And that distinction is really important in also reinforcing that
43:27
Speaker 2: Who I am is not a choice. It's a choice
43:29
Speaker 2: to share it, right? It's a choice to affirm it.
43:31
Speaker 2: It's a choice to live as the way that I am.
43:33
Speaker 2: But it's not a choice to be transgender. Yeah.
43:37
Speaker 1: And actually, that brings up a good point. What would
43:39
Speaker 1: you say to parents who are dealing with children who
43:43
Speaker 1: are starting to talk like this or show that they
43:46
Speaker 1: feel uncomfortable in their body? How would you give advice
43:49
Speaker 1: to parents that are going through this?
43:52
Speaker 2: I strongly encourage parents to give their kids space to explore.
43:56
Speaker 2: And exploration doesn't necessarily mean, because I know a lot
43:59
Speaker 2: of people are afraid of this, taking them to the
44:00
Speaker 2: doctor immediately, being like, we need surgery, we need hormones.
44:03
Speaker 2: That actually is not what I would recommend. The first
44:06
Speaker 2: thing you need to do is say, hey, what do
44:07
Speaker 2: you need? What would make you feel more comfortable? How
44:10
Speaker 2: can we make more space for you to explore who
44:12
Speaker 2: you are? You want to go by a different name?
44:14
Speaker 2: You want to go by different pronouns? You want to
44:15
Speaker 2: wear different clothes? Okay, right? None of those things are, quote,
44:19
Speaker 2: irreversible changes that everybody is afraid of. It's just allowing
44:23
Speaker 2: the kids to explore. And I think the other thing
44:25
Speaker 2: is introducing kids to people like them, right? Let them
44:28
Speaker 2: have access to other trans and queer people so that
44:30
Speaker 2: they can see themselves. I have felt so alone my
44:34
Speaker 2: whole life because I didn't have other people like me
44:36
Speaker 2: to look to, not necessarily for fault because of my
44:39
Speaker 2: parents not being able to connect me just because the
44:42
Speaker 2: conversation wasn't happening 20 years ago in the way that
44:45
Speaker 2: it is now. But now there are those resources. So
44:47
Speaker 2: connect your kids with people. If it turns out that
44:50
Speaker 2: they're not trans, that's fine. then they've learned a little
44:53
Speaker 2: bit about themselves. They have learned intentionality about their gender,
44:57
Speaker 2: which most people who aren't trans don't do, right? Most
45:00
Speaker 2: people who aren't trans don't ask themselves, why am I
45:02
Speaker 2: a woman? Why am I a man? And those can
45:04
Speaker 2: be really, really illuminating endeavors to ask yourself.
45:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. Tell us a little bit about what's going
45:12
Speaker 1: on with the government getting involved and whether or not
45:16
Speaker 1: trans people should be considered people that are deserving of
45:20
Speaker 1: health care and things like this. Can we talk about
45:23
Speaker 1: that a little bit from your perspective?
45:26
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I think you said it perfectly, Rachel. I mean,
45:29
Speaker 2: it is the government getting involved in body autonomy. It's
45:33
Speaker 2: the government trying to dictate who is allowed to have
45:36
Speaker 2: body autonomy and who isn't. And this is bigger than
45:39
Speaker 2: trans people, by the way, right? We saw the Dobbs
45:42
Speaker 2: decision with the removing of body autonomy for anybody who
45:44
Speaker 2: can get pregnant, largely cisgender women, right? And I think
45:48
Speaker 2: that that was a big wake up call for a
45:50
Speaker 2: lot of the people in this country who weren't paying
45:52
Speaker 2: attention to the attacks on trans rights, but were paying
45:56
Speaker 2: attention once Dobbs was released. I think that the government
46:02
Speaker 2: has no place saying that they know more about medicine
46:06
Speaker 2: than doctors do. I think that's a really central point
46:09
Speaker 2: that I want to make is that having a law degree,
46:12
Speaker 2: maybe you're a lawyer, being able to be a representative
46:15
Speaker 2: or a senator or even a governor, that doesn't actually
46:18
Speaker 2: give you inherently any medical degrees, medical doctorates, medical licenses,
46:23
Speaker 2: even any medical education. And yet we have these lawmakers,
46:27
Speaker 2: especially the governor of Florida and the governor of Texas,
46:29
Speaker 2: who are saying that they know more about medicine than
46:33
Speaker 2: doctors do. And every single major medical, psychological, and psychiatric
46:36
Speaker 2: association affirms that providing gender-affirming healthcare for trans people is
46:41
Speaker 2: not only appropriate, medically necessary, but also can be life-saving.
46:45
Speaker 2: And so I think that these bans on gender-affirming care
46:48
Speaker 2: for youth and even for adults, because we're seeing it
46:50
Speaker 2: on adults as well, are inhumane. I think they are discriminatory.
46:54
Speaker 2: I think they are wrong. I think they're absolutely ridiculous.
46:57
Speaker 2: And I think they're an abuse of power. Yeah.
47:00
Speaker 1: What would you say to people who are not trans
47:04
Speaker 1: and don't obviously understand a lot about this and basically
47:07
Speaker 1: can be as simple as straight people, right? But they
47:10
Speaker 1: want to support you. They want to know more. Like,
47:12
Speaker 1: how would you educate these kind of people into, you know,
47:16
Speaker 1: helping with this?
47:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good, good question. I mean, I think
47:21
Speaker 2: that the first thing is I want to, I'll do
47:23
Speaker 2: a little shameless self plug. I've written a book actually,
47:26
Speaker 2: it's called he, she, they, how we talk about gender
47:28
Speaker 2: and why it matters. And that's a great place to start.
47:31
Speaker 2: I think that a lot of times, again, people are
47:33
Speaker 2: learning about trans people from the news and they're not
47:35
Speaker 2: learning directly from trans people. And I think it's so important,
47:38
Speaker 2: especially when this is an issue rooted in humanity that
47:42
Speaker 2: has been so polarized and politicized. I think it's important
47:45
Speaker 2: to learn from us. And so I, you know, I
47:47
Speaker 2: work with hundreds of trans people. I am a trans
47:50
Speaker 2: person myself, and I poured all of that into a
47:52
Speaker 2: book to really teach anybody, especially the people who have
47:55
Speaker 2: no contact with transness, who don't understand at all, the language,
47:59
Speaker 2: the humanity, the story. And it's done through my narrative
48:02
Speaker 2: as well to make sure that people are situated in humanity.
48:06
Speaker 2: So buy my book is a way to start. But
48:10
Speaker 2: the other thing is, I think one of the things
48:12
Speaker 2: that I'm trying to figure out how to say this best,
48:15
Speaker 2: but I think you actually said it at the beginning
48:17
Speaker 2: where people don't always know all the language and they're
48:19
Speaker 2: afraid of engaging in the conversation because they don't want
48:22
Speaker 2: to be wrong. They don't want to be canceled. They
48:24
Speaker 2: don't want to offend. And all of those are actually
48:26
Speaker 2: really good intentions And I think we should still step
48:29
Speaker 2: into this anyways, because it's not actually just about trans people.
48:32
Speaker 2: As I named, we're seeing attacks alongside the hundreds of
48:36
Speaker 2: anti-trans bills. We're also seeing attacks on abortion, which again,
48:40
Speaker 2: largely affects cisgender women. We're also seeing attacks on voting rights,
48:43
Speaker 2: which disproportionately affects black and brown people. We're seeing rising
48:49
Speaker 2: rates of violence against indigenous women. So this is about
48:53
Speaker 2: a lot of different kinds of people. We're also, by
48:55
Speaker 2: the way, because cis white men, so... Men who are
48:59
Speaker 2: not transgender, who are also white, actually purport the highest
49:02
Speaker 2: rates of suicide, especially middle-aged white men. Highest rate of
49:06
Speaker 2: suicide in the country. Why am I bringing that up?
49:08
Speaker 2: Men's mental health is lower than it has ever been before.
49:11
Speaker 2: Men have like six times less friends than they ever have.
49:14
Speaker 2: If you have less friends, you're more likely to commit
49:16
Speaker 2: suicide as well. The whole country is in jeopardy, right? now.
49:20
Speaker 2: And I think every single group, including the quote, dominant
49:23
Speaker 2: groups like white men are suffering, are in pain because
49:28
Speaker 2: people are not actually paying attention to their own humanity.
49:31
Speaker 2: And there are then dismissing the humanity of other people.
49:34
Speaker 2: So I think it's actually really key, and this is
49:36
Speaker 2: what I try to explain to people in a myriad
49:38
Speaker 2: of different ways, that all of the stuff I talk
49:40
Speaker 2: about with regards to trans liberation actually affects everybody because
49:44
Speaker 2: everybody has an experience with gender and everybody can step
49:48
Speaker 2: into that experience and either be liberated or they can
49:51
Speaker 2: put themselves in a cage with gender.
49:53
Speaker 3: Right, right.
49:55
Speaker 1: What are your thoughts on people who are, let's say,
49:58
Speaker 1: older or really set in their ways and their thoughts
50:00
Speaker 1: are just so wrong? You know what I mean? Like
50:03
Speaker 1: you hear about these white old people that just are
50:06
Speaker 1: so scared of new things, new ideas. And they're almost like, oh,
50:11
Speaker 1: my God, I won't go around a trans person or
50:13
Speaker 1: a gay person because I'll catch it or someone will,
50:15
Speaker 1: you know, stupid things like that. Like, what would you say?
50:19
Speaker 2: Well, I do want to say that you cannot catch
50:21
Speaker 2: being trans or gay. Um, but sometimes that doesn't persuade people.
50:25
Speaker 2: So when it doesn't, what I, what I usually try
50:27
Speaker 2: to tell people is actually, you've probably been next to
50:30
Speaker 2: queer and trans people before and been fine. You've survived
50:33
Speaker 2: because there's a lot more of us out there than
50:34
Speaker 2: you probably think. So one is just data by telling
50:37
Speaker 2: them you actually have been around us and you've been fine.
50:40
Speaker 2: I mean, if I'm talking to them, then they're around
50:42
Speaker 2: me and they're, they're fine. Um, but I think so
50:46
Speaker 2: age is often used as an excuse or sometimes an explanation,
50:50
Speaker 2: but most often an excuse as to why somebody won't shift.
50:53
Speaker 2: And I actually, my grandparents are almost 90 and they
50:56
Speaker 2: are the most supportive people of me in the world.
50:58
Speaker 2: And by the way, they're also Catholic. They're also immigrants.
51:01
Speaker 2: They also, I think, tend to be more conservative than,
51:05
Speaker 2: I don't know, the average person. And so all of
51:08
Speaker 2: that to me is like, if they can do that, right? Korean, Catholic, immigrants,
51:13
Speaker 2: I think anybody can. Anybody will? No, right? Not everybody will,
51:18
Speaker 2: but we can. And I think I think that that's
51:21
Speaker 2: a reminder. I think people can use age as a
51:24
Speaker 2: reason not to adjust, but they can also use it.
51:26
Speaker 2: And this is what I encourage people to do as
51:29
Speaker 2: a reason to be like, why is any of this
51:31
Speaker 2: actually important? Actually, the only thing that's important is human
51:34
Speaker 2: connectedness and love because it's the only thing I can
51:36
Speaker 2: actually leave behind. And so sometimes I try to have
51:39
Speaker 2: people remember that too. And it's hard. It's hard. Sometimes
51:42
Speaker 2: we have to let people be stuck in their ways
51:44
Speaker 2: and we have to move on without them.
51:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. So I guess succinctly, what would you say
51:49
Speaker 1: is the most misunderstood thing about trans queer people that
51:54
Speaker 1: you want to, you know, put out there?
51:58
Speaker 2: Trans people are largely misunderstood as some kind of threat
52:02
Speaker 2: and trans people and transness are not a threat. Transphobia, bigotry, racism, patriarchy.
52:10
Speaker 2: Those are threats. Yeah.
52:13
Speaker 1: And what can like people do to learn more besides
52:17
Speaker 1: reading your book? Like how can they get educated? How
52:19
Speaker 1: can they get involved?
52:21
Speaker 2: If you are reading about trans people on the news,
52:24
Speaker 2: then you also can access trans people's Instagrams. You can
52:28
Speaker 2: access trans people's TikToks. You can access trans people's Twitter accounts.
52:32
Speaker 2: So listen to us, right? If you're going to actually
52:35
Speaker 2: learn about us from online sources, then learn about us
52:38
Speaker 2: from directly from us. I think it's a really easy
52:40
Speaker 2: way to do it. Instead of reading an article about
52:42
Speaker 2: trans people online, read an Instagram post from somebody who's trans.
52:47
Speaker 2: There's a lot of us online. There's lots of us
52:48
Speaker 2: to follow. If you go to my website, pinkmanoray.com slash follow,
52:51
Speaker 2: there's a whole list of people I recommend following. But
52:53
Speaker 2: you can also just, you know, look it up on
52:55
Speaker 2: your own.
52:56
Speaker 1: And Pride Month is coming up here. I mean, there's
52:58
Speaker 1: all sorts of ways for people to get involved and
53:01
Speaker 1: see and learn. What are you doing for Pride Month?
53:03
Speaker 2: Anything? Yeah, I'm going to be in several different places. Provincetown,
53:09
Speaker 2: there's a men of color weekend, which I'm really excited
53:11
Speaker 2: about that I'm going to go to. But I would
53:13
Speaker 2: encourage people because I don't know where the audience is
53:16
Speaker 2: coming in from. I have actually workshops that anybody can
53:19
Speaker 2: come in from anywhere. I have three workshops that I'll
53:22
Speaker 2: be hosting in June, which I'm really excited about. Trans
53:25
Speaker 2: activism and you, which is about the anti-trans landscape legislatively
53:29
Speaker 2: and how we can respond to it. I've got trans action.
53:32
Speaker 2: which is a workshop about daily allyship. How can you
53:35
Speaker 2: understand how to be an ally on a sort of
53:37
Speaker 2: daily basis to trans people? That's, I think, a really
53:40
Speaker 2: sort of like basic starting point. And lastly, I have
53:43
Speaker 2: actually got one about rainbow washing, which is a bit
53:45
Speaker 2: of more of advanced term, but it's about basically companies
53:48
Speaker 2: that will put rainbows on everything, but not actually support
53:51
Speaker 2: trans and queer people and what that means.
53:54
Speaker 1: How are you feeling now in life?
53:57
Speaker 2: Oof, that's a great question. I don't know if it
53:59
Speaker 2: has a simple answer. I mean- Overall, I'm very pleased
54:03
Speaker 2: with where I am in my life. I have a
54:05
Speaker 2: lovely partner. I have a puppy that's really cute. I
54:09
Speaker 2: live in a home that I love, in a city
54:13
Speaker 2: that I like. So in many ways, I feel very,
54:17
Speaker 2: very grateful and very lucky. But I also am living
54:19
Speaker 2: in this world with hundreds of anti-trans bills trying to
54:22
Speaker 2: criminalize everything about myself. And so there's a conflict there Um,
54:28
Speaker 2: but I, I guess the succinct way to say it
54:30
Speaker 2: is that I am very happy as who I am.
54:33
Speaker 2: I'm very grateful for my transition for all of the
54:35
Speaker 2: gender affirming resources I've been able to access. Um, and
54:38
Speaker 2: transphobia still makes my life hard. Yeah.
54:42
Speaker 1: Um, and I guess my last question would really be
54:45
Speaker 1: for people that are really struggling still and are listening
54:48
Speaker 1: to this. Like do you, it makes it seem like
54:52
Speaker 1: you are much happier at the life you have now.
54:55
Speaker 1: and that you took that leap of faith and you
54:56
Speaker 1: believed in yourself, would you recommend that for other people?
55:00
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Without pause, I think that taking leaps of faith
55:04
Speaker 2: for ourselves, for our own happiness is, um, almost always
55:08
Speaker 2: the best decision. I say almost because I think everybody
55:11
Speaker 2: has their own journeys and maybe for somebody it's not,
55:13
Speaker 2: but in my experience, um, I always have encouraged people
55:17
Speaker 2: to be themselves and, um, try their best to find
55:21
Speaker 2: the way, the path forward that's going to create the
55:24
Speaker 2: most peace for them.
55:26
Speaker 1: And I wanted to bring up, you have a really
55:28
Speaker 1: good platform besides your social media and your book. You
55:30
Speaker 1: have a podcast. Is it coming out? Is it out already?
55:33
Speaker 2: Yes, I do have a podcast. It's out. It's called
55:35
Speaker 2: Dear Skylar. And I talk to all kinds of incredible
55:38
Speaker 2: people with stories that are like mine, stories that are
55:41
Speaker 2: different from mine, that really try to answer all the
55:44
Speaker 2: questions that I get asked as a transgender educator. So
55:47
Speaker 2: That's another way for people to get in and learn
55:49
Speaker 2: and listen and try to really hear from trans people
55:53
Speaker 2: about our experiences because I have a lot of amazing
55:55
Speaker 2: trans folks that are on. I also have a lot
55:57
Speaker 2: of allies and people who don't really understand everything as
56:00
Speaker 2: well and who have learned how to be allies to
56:03
Speaker 2: the trans and queer community. So yeah, really excited. I
56:06
Speaker 2: just launched it last month. It's called Dear Skylar and
56:08
Speaker 2: you can get it anywhere you get podcasts. Yeah.
56:10
Speaker 1: And I've seen some clips on your Instagram. It's so good.
56:12
Speaker 1: The clip of you and your father was like really touching.
56:16
Speaker 1: It like brought me to tears. I think I saw
56:18
Speaker 1: something sort of apologizing for how they treated you at
56:21
Speaker 1: one point and still loving you now and accepting you
56:24
Speaker 1: like that was really interesting. And then you had Leah
56:28
Speaker 1: and what came out out of that?
56:30
Speaker 2: Yeah. Leah Thomas is the first openly transgender division one champion.
56:35
Speaker 2: So she swam for University of If you have been
56:39
Speaker 2: hearing about trans women in sports, you've probably heard about
56:42
Speaker 2: Leah Thomas. And she's a friend of mine. And so
56:45
Speaker 2: we sat down to just talk about her experience last year,
56:48
Speaker 2: her experience with the hatred and the vitriol. I mean,
56:50
Speaker 2: there were thousands of media articles about her. There were protests.
56:53
Speaker 2: There was a lot going on. And she and I
56:56
Speaker 2: worked very closely together that year, navigating all of that with,
57:00
Speaker 2: you know, for her. And so we sat down to
57:02
Speaker 2: talk about it. I think it's a really great episode.
57:04
Speaker 2: Leah has not shared her story from her own voice
57:07
Speaker 2: that frequently because of the amount of hatred and vitriol
57:11
Speaker 2: that is out there. And so I was very honored
57:13
Speaker 2: that Leah felt comfortable sitting down with me on Dear
57:16
Speaker 2: Skylar to talk about it. Yeah.
57:17
Speaker 1: So people should all watch that. That episode is probably amazing.
57:20
Speaker 1: I'm going to go watch that myself. I just want
57:23
Speaker 1: to say it's an honor to know you. I wish
57:26
Speaker 1: you the best. I think you're amazing. I think what
57:28
Speaker 1: you're doing is amazing. I'm so proud of you. It
57:30
Speaker 1: almost like brings me tears to like hear your story
57:33
Speaker 1: and to meet you. So thank you so much. I
57:35
Speaker 1: hope everybody goes and checks out all your stuff and
57:38
Speaker 1: just remind people one more time what your Instagram is.
57:41
Speaker 2: Thank you. Yeah. Thank you, Rachel, for all the kind words.
57:43
Speaker 2: My Instagram is pink manta ray, pink, like the color
57:46
Speaker 2: manta ray, like the animal. Okay.
57:48
Speaker 1: Take care. Thank you so much.
57:50
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for having me.
57:53
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for listening to our podcast, Misunderstood
57:55
Speaker 1: with Rachel Uchitel. Please be sure to subscribe to the
57:58
Speaker 1: show and give us a five-star rating and review if
58:00
Speaker 1: you like what you hear. You can support the show
58:03
Speaker 1: by joining our Patreon at patreon.com. Do you have ideas
58:08
Speaker 1: for the show or guests that you want us to
58:10
Speaker 1: reach out to? Please email us at infomisunderstoodpodcast at gmail.com.
58:15
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, and I can't wait to see
58:17
Speaker 1: you next time.
58:19
Speaker 3: Yeah.
58:19
Speaker 2: I mean, if you want to keep that in there,
58:21
Speaker 2: I'm happy to, I haven't stopped my recording and I
58:24
Speaker 2: think it's, people are so afraid to say the wrong
58:26
Speaker 2: thing and I would much rather they say the wrong
58:29
Speaker 2: thing and then deal with the consequences so that they
58:31
Speaker 2: can dive in instead of being hindered by being afraid, right?
58:35
Speaker 2: I think what you named about being afraid is really common.
58:38
Speaker 2: I think it's actually so common that that actually drives
58:41
Speaker 2: people to be hateful sometimes because it's something they don't understand.
58:45
Speaker 2: They don't have the access to resources. They don't know
58:47
Speaker 2: how to get through it. And so it kind of
58:49
Speaker 2: corrodes into resentment. And I've seen it happen. And I've
58:52
Speaker 2: educated all over the country. Actually, after I graduated from college,
58:55
Speaker 2: I did a specific tour just in states that are
58:59
Speaker 2: classically red, cities that are classically red, trying to bring
59:02
Speaker 2: education to places that didn't previously have it. And people
59:04
Speaker 2: can't even define the word transgender. So how are we
59:07
Speaker 2: going to have these conversations? We can't even start with
59:09
Speaker 2: those words. And so we started there and that's okay, right?
59:12
Speaker 2: At one point, I didn't know how to define the
59:13
Speaker 2: word transgender. Now, what I want to say though, about
59:16
Speaker 2: this is really important. I have a lot of privilege
59:18
Speaker 2: in that I have a lot of support. I have
59:20
Speaker 2: the education. I do this for work. I'm paid to
59:22
Speaker 2: do this. So there's space in my brain to deal
59:26
Speaker 2: with people saying the wrong thing, to deal with people
59:28
Speaker 2: having the wrong assumptions, to deal with things that could hurt.
59:31
Speaker 2: Not every trans person has that. That doesn't mean that
59:34
Speaker 2: you shouldn't try. It just means that if you offend somebody,
59:37
Speaker 2: accept the consequences of doing so, right? If you say
59:40
Speaker 2: something that's wrong and somebody's like, ouch, that hurt, then say,
59:43
Speaker 2: oh my gosh, I'm sorry, and move on, right? I
59:46
Speaker 2: think that people are so afraid to make mistakes, they
59:48
Speaker 2: won't make the mistake. And then when they do and
59:50
Speaker 2: somebody gets mad, they're like, but you said I could
59:52
Speaker 2: make a mistake. You can make a mistake and sometimes
59:54
Speaker 2: there's going to be a consequence for that. And that's okay.
59:56
Speaker 2: You can still keep in this fight. Right.
59:59
Speaker 1: But also what I think is interesting that people forget
1:00:01
Speaker 1: is that I think it's a universal feeling to feel
1:00:04
Speaker 1: not included, to feel misunderstood.
1:00:06
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
1:00:06
Speaker 1: You don't know what's missing in your life or what's
1:00:09
Speaker 1: different about you. And everyone is different. It might not
1:00:12
Speaker 1: be that they're trans. It might not be their sexuality,
1:00:15
Speaker 1: but whatever it is for them. I think that's a
1:00:18
Speaker 1: really universal feeling that anyone can understand and that people
1:00:21
Speaker 1: should be really open to because everyone, you know, we're
1:00:25
Speaker 1: all people. And I think people think that, you know,
1:00:28
Speaker 1: so I think that's important.
1:00:30
Speaker 2: Absolutely. I totally agree. I think that, you know, you
1:00:33
Speaker 2: might not understand what it is like to be transgender,
1:00:35
Speaker 2: but you know what it's like to feel alone or
1:00:38
Speaker 2: lonely for a moment. You know what it's like to
1:00:40
Speaker 2: feel misunderstood, right? You know what it's like. Your old
1:00:43
Speaker 2: podcast is called Misunderstood. And most people have felt misunderstood
1:00:47
Speaker 2: at some point in their lives. And trans people often
1:00:49
Speaker 2: feel misunderstood for lots of really good reasons. And sometimes
1:00:53
Speaker 2: we need the space to be angry that we've been misunderstood,
1:00:56
Speaker 2: just like anybody else.
1:00:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I agree. Well, it was such a pleasure.
1:01:00
Speaker 1: I hope we can stay in touch at some point
1:01:02
Speaker 1: when your book comes out. We'd love to hear from
1:01:04
Speaker 1: you again. It's in October, right?
1:01:06
Speaker 2: October 17th. Yeah, I'm really excited about it. So yeah,
1:01:10
Speaker 2: I would love to chat about that as well.
1:01:11
Speaker 1: It looks amazing. I saw your post from the other day.
1:01:14
Speaker 2: So thank you so much.
1:01:15
Speaker 1: Congratulations.
1:01:16
Speaker 2: Thank you. Thank you. And thank you for all the
1:01:18
Speaker 2: kind words. It's really, it's lovely to meet you and
1:01:20
Speaker 2: to have this conversation together. Thank you. Itching. Burning.
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