Being A Black Athlete Has Always Been Political

With the conservafools getting all bent out of shape about Colin Kaepernick NFL anthem protests that are being joined by other NFL players, and now going viral thanks to 45's racist mouth, need to point out that being a Black athlete has always been intimately tied to politics.

From the hatred aimed Jack Johnson's way as heavyweight champion and beating a succession of 'Great White Hopes' challenging him for his title to Jesse Owens, Joe Louis, Jackie Robinson and  Serena Williams, athletic excellence has never been enough for the Black athlete.  They also in many cases have to navigate racism, sexism. and countless other issues from the hardwood to the tennis courts.

Black athletes don't get the luxury of just 'shutting up and play' as the conservafools derisively shout at them.  In many cases Black athletes have used their sporting platforms to call attention to the social injustices of the day as Muhammad Ali and Jim Brown did.

Or racist controversies find them.

And when they do call out America's faults, they are passionately hated on by White Americans as Colin Kaepernick has discovered.   He chose to take a knee during the national anthem in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and to protest police brutality aimed predominately at Black Americans.

Bob Beamon almost didn't make the 1968 Olympic team and get to execute that then world and current Olympic record 29-2 long jump at the Mexico City Olympic games.  People were upset that he and other Black athletes protested the WAC Track and Field Championships held at Brigham Young University that spring.   They were being protested because of the Mormon church's anti-Black theological beliefs and UTEP suspended him.. 

Black female athletes also have had to battle in addition to the racism aimed at them, misogyny. accusations of cheating and 'that's a man' shade simply for excelling at their sport as the Williams sisters, Caster Semenya, Brittney Griner and a far too long list of African descended female athletes can testify to.

Florence Griffith Joyner brought style to track and field along with undeniable speed and talent/  Her 1988 100m world record still hasn't been touched.   But she was dogged by allegations of steroid use that followed her to the grave despite years of clean drug tests.

And how many times have we seen Serena Williams continue to win Grand Slam tournaments, with her 2017 Australian Open win happening while she was 23 weeks pregnant. while having 'that's a man' shade and accusations of substance abuse repeatedly uttered at her?

Black athletes are in many cases also carrying the hopes and aspirations of an entire people on their shoulders, especially if they are in a white dominated sport like tennis, swimming or gymnastics.

It's why Serena 's repeated Grand Slam tournament victories or the success of Dominique Dawes, Gabby Douglas and most recently Simone Biles was a point of pride in Black America.

 

And that Black athlete doesn't even have to be from the US for Black Americans to cheer for them. We were cheering just as loudly for Usain Bolt as his Jamaican countrymen were and griped at the obvious discrimination that French figure skater Surya Bonaly faced as she was competing in the figure skating world of the 90's.

Being a Black athlete has always been a political act.  As long as injustice and anti-Blackness exists in the world, it's sadly going to continue to be that way.

Playing A Transsexual In A Bad Movie Doesn't Make You An Expert On Our Sporting Lives

One of the things I and many trans persons get sick of is people who don't live our trans lives making loud and wrong commentary about them that is detrimental to our humanity as trans people and our international human rights cause.

The latest person to fall into that trap of flapping their loud and wrong gums about our lives is actress Michelle Rodriguez.  She's already catching flak from our community concerning an upcoming movie in which she plays a doublecrossed male assassin that gets kidnapped and given SRS against his will in a movie originally called Tomboy but has now been renamed (re)Assignment.

Still not going to deflect from the fact this looming transphobic trope filled disaster of a movie will be desecrating multiplexes soon, and Trans World will still be calling out the problems in it.

I'll deal with that transphobic trainwreck of a movie in another post.  What I need to do right now is address the WTF tweet that Rodriguez sent calling for a transgender category in the Olympic Games that was aimed at South African 800m runner Caster Semenya, who goes for gold later tonight.

The first problem with this tweet is it's conflating the issues of transgender participation in sports with the issue of hyperandrogenism, and is spreading misinformation to do so.

Let me state for the record Ms. Rodriguez since you obviously aren't aware of this fact, but the IOC since 2004 has allowed trans people to compete in the Olympic Games after consulting with medical experts from around the world familiar with transgender medical issues and transgender inclusion in world sport.    

The International Olympic Committee was obviously satisfied enough about what they  heard from the IOC Medical Commission concerning transgender sporting participation in the Games to issue the Stockholm Consensus that many international sporting federations use as their guidelines for transgender sporting participation in the sporting competitions they oversee.

The International Olympic Committee also in November 2015 refined those procedures and policies in the wake of the IOC Meeting On Sex Reassignment and Hyperandrogenism.

The NCAA also allows transgender athletes to participate in collegiate sports, and those rules are mirrored by 34 state high school sporting associations and counting.

Let me also point out for you as well Ms. Rodriguez and any other peeps believing the fallacy, that trans women after a year on estrogen and testosterone suppression hormone protocols lose whatever strength and endurance advantage stemming from going through a masculine puberty.

I played varsity tennis in high school and still play from time to time, and I noticed I lost speed on my serve as a result of being on hormones since 1994,

The fallacy that because I or any trans feminine athlete went through a masculine puberty I could go out and for example join the women's professional tennis tour and dominate it is ludicrous at best and would be demolished the nanosecond I stood on a tennis court with Serena Williams on the other side of it and had to face her 120 mph serve she would blast past me with boring regularity.

And with trans feminine kids transitioning at earlier ages, they will be going through FEMALE puberty, not a masculine one.  It's also a disservice and an insult to cisgender female athletes everywhere to falsely claim that a trans feminine athlete would simply take over their sport just because we transitioned.

I'm also disappointed Ms. Rodriguez as a fan of your acting career, a fellow woman of color and BTLG community member that you resorted to attacking Caster Semenya as your vehicle to slam trans Olympic participation.  

I'm tired of seeing the racist attacks on Semenya from white women mad that Semenya has run the fifth fastest time ever in the 800m, and alarmed about the perceived threat in their minds that she presents to their hold on a track event they have recently dominated.

The fact that Semenya was 18 and from South Africa when she ran that 1:55:49 time at the 2009 world championships, and would only get better with time and training has really 'scurred' them into action to stop her since they feared they couldn't beat her on the track.

The ongoing attacks since 2009 on Semenya's femininity and gender presentation also plays into the racist 'unwoman' trope that has plagued African descended women across the African Diaspora since slavery, and has been exacerbated by the fact she is in a same sex relationship..

Looks like Mariya Savinova, the Russian woman who won the gold in London in 2012 had to allegedly get her better athletic performance through chemistry to beat Semenya.

But back to talking about trans people and their Olympic Games participation.

The IOC has made it clear in 2004 and again in 2015 that I or any trans person who puts in the work in their chosen sport, meets the criteria from their international sporting body and their national Olympic Committee to qualify for their national Olympic team in their chosen sport will be allowed to participate in the Olympic Games.

I want to see trans women do more in the Olympics than just be part of the opening ceremonies, I want to see a trans women one day standing on a medal platform and competing and winning in their chosen sports.  The trans kids growing up today also need to see that happen in a future winter or summer games and I hope they do in the rest of my remaining time on Planet Earth.

Ms. Rodriguez, being a cisgender person playing a transsexual in a bad transsexual trope filled movie doesn't make you an expert on our sporting lives.

Being a trans person or trans ally that is cognizant of the issues that impact our lives, and has either the lived experience or has done the research to intelligently talk about it does.

Introducing Trans* Athlete

After I compiled the post about why I write about sports as a trans person on a transcentric blog, I discovered while surfing the Web the founding of this timely and still evolving website called Trans* Athlete.

As evidenced by my old roommate Dawn, Fallon Fox in women's MMA and Jazz fighting her two year battle with the US Soccer Federation so she and other trans kids like her could play soccer, trans people are increasingly getting out there and participating in the games we love.

The Trans* Athlete website morphed from an idea by Chris Mosier, an educator, nationally recognized transgender Ironman triathlete and coach and Jessica Pettitt, a Social Justice and Diversity Consultant and Facilitator to create a large-scale resource about inclusive sporting policies for trans athletes. 

After Mosier and Pettitt began to examine the existing documents about sporting inclusion for trans people, they discovered that others have been doing excellent work in creating resources for specific populations regarding policies and best practices for trans inclusion. Chris then morphed the project into this website, which puts together resources for folks looking for information on trans inclusion in athletics.

Trans* Athlete is a resource that puts in one centralized location for students, athletes, coaches, and administrators information about trans inclusion in athletics at various levels of play from K-12 through the collegiate level and beyond.

If this website does its job of allowing trans people to play the games they love, participate and excel at competitive sports and do so without drama from you cis peeps, then it's successfully doing its job.
    

Trans Athlete Playing On His HS Football Team

I've been saying that all the work of trans athletes coming out and breaking barriers would one day lead to a trans athlete wanting to play on their high school team if they desired to do so, getting the opportunity to make that team and nobody tripping when it happened.  .

That scenario I described has finally happened in Michigan.  Seth Knop is a varsity running back on the Grosse Pointe South High School football team who wanted to play last season but was afraid to try out. 

Since it was his senior year Seth took the 'why not' attitude and decided to go for it.  He approached both varsity coach Tim Brandon and junior varsity coach Brian Shelson about his desire to play football and was told that the school's athletic policy permitted coed sports teams.  He tried out and made the squad.

He's gotten respect from his classmates not only for his transition, but being a member of the team.

"The kids in my grade respect me a lot for it," said Knop of his being an out transgender athlete. "They treat me just like everybody else, which is what I wanted."

It's why the NCAA policies on trans athletes were enacted.   It's why the IOC has policies that allow trans athletes to compete in the Olympic Games. And it's also what those trans athletes who took those slings and arrows so that future generations of transkids could play their favorite sports without drama wanted for you as well.

Good luck this season Seth, and have a wonderful senior year. 

Keelin's Olympic Quest Is A Big Fracking Deal

I was disappointed about hearing the news that Keelin didn't qualify for the Olympic team in hammer throw despite his lifetime best throw of 231 feet 11 inches and finished fifth in the US Olympic Trials. 

So unless a trans athlete somewhere else on the planet makes their nation's Olympic team, we will not see a trans athlete marching into London's Olympic Stadium in a few weeks.

When I started writing about Keelin Godsey's quest to make the US Olympic team in the hammer throw, I got conflicting comments from elements of the trans community people about it.  Some were bothered by the fact he was a transman competing in a women's hammer throw event.  Others I don't know what their problem was but I suspect was jealousy.

"I've still done more than many people who are trans have," Godsey said in an interview. "I've competed at the highest level. I couldn't be prouder."

And I'm proud of you as well Keelin along with other trans people who see the big picture.

Bottom line is that Olympians are considered elite athletes and the dedication and hard work required just to make an Olympic team is nothing to be dismissed.  Keelin came 11 agonizing inches from making his Olympic dream come true and making trans and sporting history in the process.   

So yes haters, Keelin's attempt to compete in the Olympics is a big fracking deal.

When my people were fighting for their human rights coverage in the last century, it was Jesse Owens quadruple gold medal 1936 Berlin Olympic performance and continued success of black athletes in Olympic competition that was a building block in the eventual breaking down of Jim Crow segregation in the United States and garnering support for African Americans from people fence sitting on the issue.

You also have to take note of the fact that when Keelin began his transition, the NCAA had no policies in place concerning trans athletes.   Thanks to Godsey coming out at the Division III level in 2005 and later Kye Allums at the Division I athletic level, the NCAA now has implemented policies covering transitioning athletes.  

In addition, various international athletic governing bodies such as the International Olympic Committee and countless others are adapting their policies so that they open the doors for transpeople who wish to compete in their sports.

That's important for our trans younglings who are now entering middle and high school and would like to play sports like their peers or have Olympic dreams of their own.   Because the various state high school athletic governing bodies are in sync with or mirror NCAA rules, these trans younglings who have sporting dreams now have the ability to pursue them.

They also have role models in Keelin, Kye and others to look up to as well.   I also see participation in sports by transpeople as a way to help us get over those shame and guilt issues we struggle with.

Transpeople are on the verge of a tremendous wave of human rights success as the decades old smear and fear tactics and lies of our opponents are debunked and discredited.   The more we are seen doing ordinary things, as part of the culture, and doing what we can to uplift ourselves, our communities and the countries we inhabit as we strive to participate in the greater society, the better. 

Athletic participation has been the road other marginalized groups have used as a pathway to greater visibility and human rights coverage, and it's past time we transfolks did so as well.