Transgender high school athletes from across the country compete at the top of their fields, while also challenging the boundaries and perceptions of fairness and discrimination.
This powerful documentary takes you through the lives of athletes Mack Beggs, Sarah Rose, and Andraya Yearwood, who face discrimination on their sports team. Because they all identify with the opposite sex they were assigned at birth, this makes it difficult to be accepted, especially in sports. The film focuses on whether they have a fair advantage competing on the team of the gender they identify with. Mack, a transgender male wrestler, is forced to play on the women’s team, even though he identifies as male. Parents of other athletes share their concern and sometimes outrage because they believe he has an unfair advantage over the other women because of his hormonal intake. Sarah, a transgender female skier, admits to constantly feeling the need to minimize her true athletic ability with fear of scrutiny of being accused out of being able to beat her teammates because she was born male. Andraya, a transgender female track star, constantly gets harassed by parents calling it a disgrace that she wins nearly every race, raising the question if high levels of testosterone make a stronger or better athlete.
These young teens not only face discrimination in sports but in other areas of their lives as well. The constant talk of pedophilia or other perverted acts have somehow become linked to transgender and homosexuals, even though there has never been any reported cases of such acts. Sarah, tired of being harassed and not being treated fairly, decides to get political and present a bill that was passed in New Hampshire called HB1319 that will provide legal protections for transgender people in New Hampshire from discrimination.
At the roundtable following the film, I asked the athletes from their experience, what people are most afraid of about their transgender identity when they meet them? Sarah says that people have told her that they didn’t know what to expect since they have never met anyone transgender and that they often believe the stereotypes they see on social media. Mack says people thought he was a freak of nature and didn’t expect him to be a normal guy. Andraya says that for some people it’s easier to just follow what others are saying and not want to stick out. I thought this was a great documentary, it really shows that as a society, we still have a long way to go in accepting differences in others.
“Changing the Game” recently premiered at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival
