E12 The Transgender Champion
In this interview, pioneering transgender athlete Chris Mosier shares the importance of athletics in his life, his journey to defining his gender identity, and how our world is changing to be more inclusive and understanding through policy and social change. Chris also provides outstanding insight and advice for those (and their families, friends, and co-workers) who are questioning, curious, or looking to better understand transgender identity.
Chris has been heavily involved in athletics since he was four years old, becoming a trailblazing athlete in his 20s as an All-American Duathlete and six-time member of Team USA. In 2015 he made history as the first known transgender man to make a US Men’s National Team, challenging Olympic policy and opening doors for future transgender athletes. As an advocate for the transgender community, Chris established transathlete.com, the go-to source on transgender athletic policy. He also mentors young athletes and speaks to organizations about how to create more inclusive policies for their institutions.
Chris Mosier:
If a young person, or any person of any age, has the courage to tell you who they are, whether your family member, or friend, or whoever, know that the life that they were living in secrecy or not being able to be honest about who they were is probably harder than the life that they are going to face. And so, while there are very real challenges, and very real discrimination, and violence, and harassment, and all of those things we talked about, against the trans community and the queer community, that not being able to be who you know you are is incredibly painful.
Don MacPherson:
If you've ever wondered what separates top performers from everyone else, you probably discovered it is just a couple differentiators that determine wild success from average results. My name is Don MacPherson, and for two decades, I've been working with executives to help them optimize performance at the individual, team, and organization levels. Now I interview exceptional people from all walks of life so we can learn from them. Welcome to 12 Geniuses.
This is a story of competition, opportunity, and equality. Today's guest is an elite athlete who has fought his way to the top of his sport and is advocating for others who have been sidelined so they are able to participate in sports and in life. Chris Mosier is a six-time member of Team USA, representing the United States in the sprint triathlon, as well as short course and long course duathlons. He's also competed in and completed four Ironman races. Chris is the first transgender athlete featured an ESPN's Body Issue, and he's a member of the National Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame. An advocate and champion for the transgender community, Chris might be best known as the man who changed the Olympics.
Chris, welcome to 12 Geniuses.
Chris Mosier:
Thanks for having me.
Don MacPherson:
Let's start by talking about your athletic career. At what age did you become interested in athletics and which sports were you most passionate about at a young age?
Chris Mosier:
Honestly, the first memory that I have is of being competitive in sports. I would say four years old. I started off playing neighborhood baseball, tee-ball, and then softball, and then moved into basketball, volleyball, and softball in high school, and then started to pick up sports again after college.
Don MacPherson:
How did you get interested in the duathlon and triathlon?
Chris Mosier:
Well, I think that it's a complicated story, right? As many of our stories are, but for me, it was a way to sort of reconnect with the great parts of my identity. And so, what I mean by that is when I grew up, I found myself most feeling like myself when I was playing sports. So, I found my friends and I found my community through playing sports. I felt like it was the place where I was most accepted and valued as a person. It really was where I felt most at home. Most at home in my body, in my personality, and just as a person. For me, it was really a way to fit in with my peers that no matter what people thought of me, off of the court or the field, they loved and appreciated me because I was a good athlete.
I was a great teammate and a great leader. And so, that was really what drew me to sports. I think it was just the matter of being a kid and team sports is what you have the access to as a kid. When I came back into sport, so maybe to back that up, I did not play college sports. And I was setting myself up for collegiate sport career. And when it came time to make the decision to play college sports, I chose not to. The reason I chose not to was that I was assigned female at birth. I identify as a transgender man. And at that time, I didn't identify as a trans man, and honestly, I didn't even know transgender existed. I didn't know the word. But I grew up playing girls and women's sports.
And so, I was raised and socialized as female, playing girls and women's sports, and when it came time to college, I didn't know the terminology, but I knew at that time that I didn't feel comfortable on a girls’ team, on a women's team. And when you get to college, there's basketball and then there's women's basketball. And that was the route that was laid out for me. I knew that I was having a growing discomfort with being on a women's team, and so I chose not to do that. Really, in college, I did all of the intramural co-ed activities, soccer, badminton, ultimate frisbee, whatever I could do to still be active, to still participate, but not to have to do that gendered thing. Then, after college, that was the opportunity for me to reconnect to my body, to myself, to the feelings that I loved of being competitive, but to do that in a way that was individual, that avoided that team and gender piece of that.
Don MacPherson:
What have been some of your athletic achievements?
Chris Mosier:
I don't know. My favorite achievements, I guess, as being the first transgender man to make a men's U.S. national team, and that happened in 2015 for the 2016 World Championship Race. That was a big moment for me, but it also felt like a really big moment for the trans community, for the athletic community to sort of break that barrier. And it really provided me the platform to show other people that it is possible to be your authentic self and continue to play the sports that you love. Because before that moment, there was very little visibility of trans-athletes. I'm not the first transgender athlete and definitely not the first known trans athlete who's had a platform, but there was a big gap between Renee Richards in the ‘70s and my coming out in 2010 and beginning to compete as male in 2011. So, that time switch there left a big gap for trans people to see themselves in sports.
Don MacPherson:
So, there's this big gap between Renee and you and not a ton of activity in there. Sounds like you carried a torch. Is that a torch that you were willing to carry or did it just kind of fall in your lap?
Chris Mosier:
I really worked my way into being willing to carry that torch. And for me, so in thinking about transitioning in, say 2008, 2009, I understood my identity to be that of a transgender man. I really like, I didn't know the terminology growing up, I didn't know trans people in real life before I transitioned. I didn't have relationships, role models, people that I could look to, to say, “Okay, there's a possibility for me as a trans-adult, there's possibility for me as a transgender athlete.” I didn't see that reflection of myself when I was looking. I think that I had a lot of hesitation in coming out publicly, particularly 2009. I delayed my transition for over a year because I didn't want to lose my ability to be competitive in sport.
Being a competitive athlete is so important to me, it's such a core part of my identity. And when I started running and doing triathlon as female, I was doing pretty well. And I saw a possible future for myself in winning races, in making team USA, in being an all American in the future. I didn't want to give that up, that possibility of pursuing my athletic career in the way that I denied myself in college. So, the reason that I thought that that wasn't possible was that I didn't see people doing it, and I also didn't see the policies that would allow me to participate.
Don MacPherson:
When did you first compete as a triathlete or duathlete?
Chris Mosier:
2009 was my first year…
Don MacPherson:
Really?
Chris Mosier:
…in triathlon.
Don MacPherson:
Okay. So, you-
Chris Mosier:
And then 2010 was my first year as male. I did a season and a half as female.
Don MacPherson:
And at that time, you saw yourself as… You could compete at the highest level as a woman.
Chris Mosier:
You don't, you don't start off at the highest level, right? But I did win my first race.
Don MacPherson:
You did? Okay.
Chris Mosier:
There was definitely a possibility for me of saying, “Okay, I just started this. Maybe there's a future for me in triathlon.”
Don MacPherson:
So, you decided to transition very quickly after that. Were you feeling like you just weren't being true to yourself?
Chris Mosier:
Well, I think, for years, I felt like I wasn't really being true to myself, but I didn't know what it was. Starting off, I think that every young person has a very clear sense of self and understanding of who they are. And it's not until adults begin to tell them that they're wrong and that they're acting in a way that they shouldn't be that we start to question ourselves. So, I have very distinct memories of somebody pulling me around the back of my house when I was a four-year-old saying, “You can't run around like this. Little girls can't run around with their shirts off.” I, with my little four-year-old body, look like every other little four-year-old running around with their shirt off, and I don't get it.
Then I'm growing up and people are telling me, “You can't wear your hat backwards. You’re a little girl, little girls don't do that. You can't skateboard, little girls don't skateboard.” And all of these things, as I'm growing up, I shouldn't like this clothing and I shouldn't wear this color, and I should be attracted to these toys and not these toys. I kept getting those messages and thinking like, “Well, you're telling me I'm a little girl and little girls don't skateboard, but I skateboard, so I'm confused. I don't understand what's wrong here.” I think there were all these moments where these discrepancies kept popping up. And I started to think like, “Well, what's wrong with me? I can tell that I'm very clearly not like my peers. I'm not like the other girls in my class.” But at the same time, I could tell that I wasn't like my brother and the little boys in his class.
And so, I just always had this sense of like, I'm just me. I am unique. But I was comfortable with that. And growing up, I think that I felt that way until a certain point, and then I started to question why the world wasn't reflecting back to me the way that I saw myself.
Don MacPherson:
It sounds like you weren't sad, or depressed, or having huge conflicts with it growing up. You just accepted yourself where you were, maybe not accepted by either boys or girls, but just, I think that's fairly uncommon with people who struggle with their gender identity, isn't that?
Chris Mosier:
Well, yeah. It's important to say I'm a trans person, but I'm a case study of one.
Don MacPherson:
Right. No, I understand that.
Chris Mosier:
For as many different ways as there are to be a man and to be a woman, there are that many different ways to be a trans person. So, there's not just a one singular trans experience. And the way transition looks on us can look very different. And different people want to pursue different avenues of the transition in order to feel like their most authentic version of themselves. I wouldn't say that my experience wasn't or was without depression or anxiety or feeling like something was wrong. But I think that one of the great things that I've done as an adult, probably as a coping mechanism, is to not dwell on the bad parts of my experience. I think what we see in the media a lot, if it's not a celebratory story like Laverne Cox, being an out actress, who has made huge progress for the trans community, if it's not a celebratory story like that, and most often it's not, it's bad things happening.
Just today. It was announced that the Trump administration is going to roll back protections for trans people in healthcare. Yesterday, it was announced that the shelter system is going to be allowed to discriminate against transgender people. And, in the last week, three transgender women of color have been murdered. Then there's all sorts of feelings that go along with that. There's so many bad stories, so many stories of discrimination, harassment, and violence against our community. I think it's important for me to talk about those things, but when I'm sharing my story and when I'm reflecting on my experiences, I really want to show people also that it is possible to live an awesome life as a trans person too, to be happy, to be successful, to be in a great relationship, to achieve great things athletically, because I think that those stories are really powerful and important too, to sort of combat all the bad that we're facing in the world.
Don MacPherson:
You started competing as a man in 2010, is that right?
Chris Mosier:
Yeah.
Don MacPherson:
And what was the reception by other competitors, other men who were competing with you?
Chris Mosier:
Surprisingly, really, really good. I say that surprisingly, because in my mind I made it out to be a disaster. I think a lot of trans people do that. What holds trans people, queer people, lesbian, gay, bisexual people back from coming out is the fear of what other people will think, and how it'll be received and what discrimination might happen after that. So, I made up these stories in my mind of how competitors, and teammates, and family members, and coworkers were going to treat me when they heard this. Athletically, I was really surprised because that was the space that was probably the straightest and whitest and most cisgender, meaning, not transgender. For a lot of my teammates, I was the first trans person they ever met in real life, first person they had a conversation with the first time.
Some of them were even hearing the word. My experience with them was awesome because I was a teammate and a coach, and they loved and respected me as a teammate, and it made that transition a lot easier in terms of them accepting me. Other competitors, I mean, when I started to win races overall, outright win races against the second-place male, he would come up and say, “Congratulations.” And you have that good sportsmanship moment at the end of a race. A couple days later, I remember one guy found me on Facebook and everything is trans and talk a lot about trans community and advocacy. And he messaged me and said, "Congrats on the race. It was awesome. And great job, keep it up. And it's really great to see what you're doing.”
That's really been sort of the summary of my experience. While I have had discrimination, I've had people say some things, by and large, it has been positive, and I definitely attribute that to the male privilege that I've received in transition. So, going from female to male, and being perceived as male, that I don't face as much discrimination outright. And the fact that I'm white, and that is also plays into it. Triathlon is a pretty white sport. But I think socially, I've definitely noticed that white privilege has played into it. And also, the sexism of sport and the fact that people don't think that someone assigned female at birth would be competitive against someone assigned male at birth, and against men, right from the start.
Don MacPherson:
How does it feel to represent your country?
Chris Mosier:
I don't think there are actual words that could describe it. I think it's one of the only times that I've been speechless in my life is getting that uniform in the mail. There's a sense of pride, but there's also, for me, it's a sense of pride and rebellion. The fact that I could go and represent my country overseas in sports, but not be safe to use the restroom in a place like North Carolina or Texas. There's such a discrepancy there that I'm able to represent my country in sports, but wouldn't be able to serve in our military and represent our country there. So, I think for me it's, I want to show people that it is possible, and I want to be a great representation, not only of myself and my athletic ability, but of what the potential is for the trans community.
Don MacPherson:
If I have the story right, there was a moment on your 29th birthday that was pretty remarkable. Could you talk about that a little bit?
Chris Mosier:
It was a really uncomfortable experience just in general because I wasn't a person who liked to celebrate my birthday at all. I think it was because as a young person and in my 20s, I just felt like I was not worthy of celebration. So, I would never tell my friends when my birthday was, wouldn't let people celebrate, the song happy birthday gives me a sort of a clockwork orange-like reaction that it is like, it's offensive to me. We went to this restaurant and I ordered my food and then I just broke down at the table and started to cry uncontrollably. The trigger to that was the waiter coming over and saying, “Hey ladies, can I take your order?” In that moment of being addressed in that way, I think that was the point at which I said, I need to do something.
I ran out of the restaurant. I was crying just uncontrollably on the New York City sidewalk and got home. The first thing that I said was, “I never thought that my life would be like this.” It was just that moment of saying, I can't imagine another birthday living this life. It just can't happen.
Don MacPherson:
Understanding when, I think it was your aunt or grandma, pulled you aside and said, “Little girls don't run around with their shirts off,” at that moment, was there a confusion or how did that feel? Then how did that knowledge feel up through high school? Because I think there are probably a lot of young people who are questioning, right?
Chris Mosier:
Yeah.
Don MacPherson:
So, I'm just wondering if you can describe the feelings that you had.
Chris Mosier:
Yeah, I think my initial feeling when my aunt pulled me behind the house and said, “Little girls can't run around with their shirt off,” I think my initial feeling was confusion because I felt, and I saw visually that all of the kids in the neighborhood looked the same. So, I didn't understand actually what the difference was between myself and my brother and my cousins and the neighbors at that time. But four is a pretty young age to… That's kind of understandable that one might not get that. I think, as I grew up, I started to have these messages of, even in elementary school, I was just androgynous or more masculine little kid. So, I would have kids in class say he to me all the time, and I secretly loved it, and maybe not so secretly. And it felt really comfortable to me.
I would be ashamed and embarrassed when people would correct them. As an adult, people saw me as being deceptive or not telling them the truth about my identity. As a kid, I think it was just like, kids are curious and would say things. I had a sixth-grade teacher who, in a new school in sixth grade, a computer teacher, who for the first, say, eight weeks of class, called me he and Mr. Mosier. I only had one friend in that class who knew who I was, and he would snicker about it, but I asked him like, “Don't say anything.” I felt the best in that class. I felt so like myself in that class and just so acknowledged to have a teacher say he. When the teacher found out in that ninth week of class, that everyone else is calling me, she, I faced a lot of backlash from that teacher for the rest of the course.
Don MacPherson:
One of the things that has been very illuminating for me is listening to you talk about the phases of transitioning, because I didn't know what they were, and that there are multiple phases, and you can be in one, stay in one for a long time. Maybe for our audience, could you talk about what the phases of transitioning are?
Chris Mosier:
Yeah. There are a couple of different ways that people can transition. One would be making a social transition, which would mean something like changing your name, your pronouns, style of dress, your haircut, how you express yourself to the world. It could also mean changing bathrooms that you use in public locker room facilities. So, that would be making a social transition. For something like that, it's simply a matter of expressing yourself or asking people to address you in a different way. My first transition was a social transition where I asked people, my friends and family and coworkers, to say he, instead of saying she, when they referred to me. That's a good example of that.
Another way that people can transition is making a medical transition, and this would be cross hormone therapy. So, taking testosterone, which is what I do, taking estrogen treatment and testosterone suppression for a trans woman. It could also potentially include surgeries, gender affirming surgeries. An important note here is that not every trans person wants to have surgery. You don't need to have surgery in order to be trans. It's not a requirement. It's not covered by insurance in some cases. And the future looks pretty bleak for it being covered by insurance in the United States. Some people just don't have a problem with their bodies. I think there's this narrative that trans people are trapped in the wrong body. While some of us feel that way, for sure, that's an accurate narrative for some people, other people just dislike certain parts of their body or feel totally comfortable in their body, and just that's not even something that they need to consider.
Okay. So, there's social transition, there's medical transition, and then there's also legal transition, which would be changing your documents. So, your driver's license, passport, birth certificate, in some cases, social security cards, ID cards like that.
Don MacPherson:
How was the social identity phase for you, talking to your family, talking to coworkers, what was that like for you?
Chris Mosier:
Like I said, I really worked myself up to be very afraid of what the outcome would be of telling people. It was not as bad as I thought that it would be, but it was definitely still challenging each time that I told someone, and each time it got a little easier, but it still was a very uncomfortable process. That disclosure happened… Facebook wasn't as popular, and so with a lot of my family and friends, just freshly on Facebook, I was reconnecting with a lot of old people in my life. So, I used social media as a way to come out to people who I had basically dropped from my life, friends and close people from college that I stopped talking to. Essentially, I stopped talking to them because I didn't know how to talk about myself to them. And I feared that they wouldn't accept me.
I used social media, Facebook Messenger to say, actually I'm trans, and here's what this means, and here's a link that you can read about it. That for me was an easier way to take the pressure off of telling somebody face to face. My work experience was a bit troubled because, as I mentioned, my HR person didn't know what trans meant, so I had to do, not only a lot of educating, but also advocating for myself.
Don MacPherson:
Any sort of really strong backlash by anyone, or did they keep it to themselves if they weren't comfortable?
Chris Mosier:
Most of the backlash was kept to themselves. There was one situation with a director who publicly said some stuff and received a little bit of reprimand for that, but not what I would deem appropriate in terms of the repercussions of their actions. My most challenging part, I think, was having a person in a leadership position who consistently misgendered me for almost two years after my announcement of transition.
Don MacPherson:
Intentionally?
Chris Mosier:
I don't think it was intentional and it also doesn't matter. At the two-year mark, it really didn't matter. And at the one-year mark, at the six-month mark, it really didn't matter to me. I would go into meetings and literally hold my breath. I would just feel like I was going to pass out every time this person started to talk about something that I was working on, because I could just feel it coming. It would be face to face, one-on-one, but it would also be in meetings of 25 people. It consistently happened. I think I really had to tell myself and be comfortable with myself to say… At first, when it happened, and not just with this person, but also, and I would go to a restaurant and someone would say she, after six months into my transition or whatever.
I would say, “What am I doing wrong that people aren't seeing me the way that I see myself? Does this hat make me look more feminine or should I not wear this shirt?” I would just go through my entire; I shouldn't move like this, I shouldn't say this word, what am I doing wrong? I really had to understand that this was not something that I was doing wrong. This was this supervisor's inability to get it and to make the switch. That was on them. It didn't make it any easier in meetings, but it definitely helped me not beat myself up about their issue.
Don MacPherson:
When you think about before transitioning in now, how would you compare your levels of happiness?
Chris Mosier:
I’m exponentially more happy now since transition. There were definitely rough times at the beginning. Particularly as I kind of grew into my identity as being perceived as male, like my comfort with myself changed when I told other people, because I felt like I didn't have to hide myself anymore. I could actually just talk about what I was interested in, say what I did over the weekend, and express myself how I wanted to and not be questioned about it, and not fear being questioned about it. That release of being out made me happier, even if people weren't responding to it appropriately or positively. But every year I've gotten older has been better than the last. That is a really cool thing to say that growing up is pretty awesome. And knowing who you are is pretty great because every year I've been happier than the year before.
Don MacPherson:
You're sometimes called the man who changed the Olympics. Who first called you that?
Chris Mosier:
The BBC. That's pretty awesome, right?
Don MacPherson:
It is.
Chris Mosier:
the BBC and New York Magazine.
Don MacPherson:
And what did you do to earn the title?
Chris Mosier:
In 2015, when I made Team USA, I was ineligible to compete in the World Championship on Team USA because of the International Olympic Committee policy for transgender athletes, which governs the World Championships as well, even outside of the Olympics. And I had to challenge the IOC policy on trans-athletes to get access to compete in the World Championship. Policy, at that time, said that trans athletes needing to have a full, lower surgery, internal and external genital modification in order to compete in the Olympics or in these championship races. And I just saw that as a human rights violation that no athlete should be forced to modify their body in a way that they may not want to in order to compete in sports.
I say adding an extra body part was not going to make me a faster runner or a better cyclist. It really has no bearing on athletic performance. And that was the challenge. So, in late 2015, the group met and they decided to change that policy, which was released early 2016, which enabled me to compete in the 2016 World Championship.
Don MacPherson:
And to date, no trans athlete has competed in the Olympics, is that accurate?
Chris Mosier:
That's accurate, no known trans athlete.
Don MacPherson:
No known.
Chris Mosier:
Yeah.
Don MacPherson:
Okay. When do you think that will change?
Chris Mosier:
It's coming. It's got to be coming. I think that we have Olympic hopefuls right now who want to make Tokyo 2020, and it is very possible that someone, one of us may make it.
Don MacPherson:
I want to ask about the testosterone injections that you get. So, are you on a 10-day cycle or?
Chris Mosier:
Yeah, it can change for different people. For me, it just is high… Like many people, do a once a week shot…
Don MacPherson:
Once a week. Okay.
Chris Mosier:
… of testosterone. It's interesting too, because what that does is it brings my testosterone level up to somewhere within a typical male range, which is a pretty wide range. And then, every day after that, it just drops, and drops, and drops, and drops, and drops until the end of the seven days where I'm at the bottom or below, and then take another shot, and it goes up. It's interesting that I'm not at a level consistent amount like my peers.
Don MacPherson:
Do you feel it like the decline in your performance?
Chris Mosier:
Yeah, I don't really feel it. And there's been no correlation to my performance on day six versus day two. But I think, in the times that I have missed a shot, I've felt it. And in times when my levels were just being figured out, and I'm constantly monitored. I have to submit all of my paperwork and test results to different organizations to have clearance in order to compete in World Championships and things like that, so I'm pretty well monitored.
Don MacPherson:
And it doesn't give you a competitive advantage in any way?
Chris Mosier:
No. Testosterone is definitely a performance-enhancing substance, right? But what we've found is, and there are very few studies about transgender athletes, and so that's the first point is that anybody who is giving you information like it is set in stone is totally wrong because we just don't know enough to say. What we know right now is that for transgender athletes, for taking cross hormone therapy, so for me taking testosterone or for a transgender woman taking testosterone suppression and estrogen treatment, that one moves over into the other sort of gender category of sports at the same level as they were competitive in their first class. So, I was a top 10% female athlete, and I transitioned to be a top 10% male athlete. You may have a transgender woman who was a 35th percentile male athlete and will move over and be somewhere in the 30s as a female athlete.
That's just based on the amount of difference between the gender classes typically. And we know that there are women who can smoke men in different sports, and that there are some guys who are bigger, faster, stronger, and who always dominate. So, there are also men who are very bad at sports and who would never beat a female athlete in anything that they do. So, there's a wide range of performance and ability as well.
Don MacPherson:
So, is it as sump of me to say that you're an advocate of trans women competing against or at the highest levels?
Chris Mosier:
Absolutely. Yeah. I think trans women are women and belong in women's sports. They do not belong in men's sports at all. They are not men. And they do not belong in a third category of competition because that's not where they want to be.
Don MacPherson:
Where's the IOC on trans women competing?
Chris Mosier:
So, the IOC changed the policy in 2016 with my challenge. And not only did they change the surgery requirement, so they removed the requirement for any athlete to have lower surgery in order to compete. They also lowered the amount of wait time that a trans woman needed to wait in order to compete as female. The old rules said two years after taking estrogen treatment, a trans woman could compete with women. Based on the best doctors’ information, medical experts, and studies that they had, in 2016, 2015, they changed it to a one year wait time. So, a trans woman takes estrogen treatment and testosterone suppression, has their hormone levels in a typical cisgender woman, cisgender being non-transgender, women's range for testosterone, and then is cleared to compete with women.
That rule has been working well. It's worked well for the NCAA. It has worked well for elite competition, and we're not seeing an influx of trans women just winning races. It's just not happening. Trans women have been competing in sports over the years, and they are not dominating or ruining or ending women's sports.
Don MacPherson:
Could you talk about the organizations that you're involved in and how you're involved?
Chris Mosier:
I started a website in 2013 called transathlete.com. And that was really created out of my own experience of not seeing policies out there when I was questioning whether or not I could continue to compete in sport. It is essentially just a compilation of the policies that are out there, but it's been a real great way for me to use other policies to create social change with organizations. So, it's very easy for me to go to a state like Indiana and say, “Hey, the high school policy in California and Massachusetts are great and they're working really well, and you have a very bad policy, so here's a good one for you to look at.” And to try to create change that way. As a side note, Indiana didn't bite on it, but other states have.
Other organizations have changed their policies because of better information that's out there. So, that's a place for people to go to. It's transathlete.com. I've been involved with various sports organizations and do a lot of work with social justice organizations. Right now, I'm just a sort of a freelancer, just doing my own thing, working with different companies and organizations to try to spread the message of inclusion and respect in sports.
Don MacPherson:
You talked about maybe a lack of role models when you were younger, but do you have a role model or a mentor who has been helpful for you as you've transitioned?
Chris Mosier:
I was really drawn to athletes who use their platform to create social change. I didn't have that sort of athletic mentor or role model that I could look to that was like me. But very helpful in my transition was Laverne Cox. And just the way that social media makes us all accessible, I was able to reach out to her and get some really great advice as I became more public in my transition. Pretty early on, we had worked together on a GLAAD Media piece about national, it was about transgender day of remembrance and what that means to us. And we became connected through that. The best advice that she gave me was to really remember my community and to think about how I got there and never lose sight of that.
That's something that I see her model all of the time, even with all of the success that she's had, to always be mindful of the community and to use her platform to speak out. I've really tried to follow her lead on that and use my platform as a Nike-sponsored athlete, as somebody who gets media coverage to talk about the discrepancies between my experience and trans women, and the violence that happens against transgender women of color, and speaking about non-binary athletes, and making sure that all these other, or areas of our community also are elevated as I get to rise.
Don MacPherson:
What advice would you have for someone who is hesitant to have a conversation with somebody who's transgender?
Chris Mosier:
A lot of times when I'm speaking at organizations and colleges and universities, which is how I spend a lot of my time now doing my advocacy work is doing speeches and Q&As with people, I always started off saying, “You don't know what you don't know.” You don't know what you don't know. Just in the same way, I didn't know the word transgender existed through high school. I'm pretty sure that I didn't really know what it meant. Even in college, I didn't know what trans identity really meant.
Don MacPherson:
And you're not that old.
Chris Mosier:
And I'm not that old and I'm trans.
Don MacPherson:
Right.
Chris Mosier:
I'm a member of our community and I didn't know for so long and understand something about myself, and the words that go along with the community. Language and terminology is always changing. So, it's possible that you may say something wrong or offensive and just not know it. Even members within the community can fall victim to that. The way that terminology changes, you may say something that's outdated or you don't know that you just don't know what you don't know. So, if we keep that in mind, but come to conversations with good intentions, and good intentions can also be hurtful. The impact of good intention comment can also be hurtful. But if you go into a conversation knowing that you don't know everything, but you're willing to learn, that goes a long way.
Don MacPherson:
I have a number of advice questions. What advice would you give somebody who's questioning their identity?
Chris Mosier:
I would say you know yourself better than anybody else, and to really think about how you will be happiest and live your best life. Because a lot of the times that I see concerns with whether or not people should transition, or if they're questioning, if they are trans, a lot of our decision-making is predicated by what we think other people will think of us and how we will be accepted. Being out is not for everyone. I'll say it like, I'm very hesitant to say that we need more out athletes, or a lot of people say that sports will change forever once we have a out gay male athlete in one of the big four sports that's active. I agree with that, but it's not right for us to try to push every athlete to be out, or every queer person to be out publicly, because there are a lot of repercussions that still come with that.
There's a lot of discrimination and harassment and loss of employment and denying access to different areas that could come with being out. So, it's not safe and it's not comfortable for everybody, but you have to make the decision that's best for you.
Don MacPherson:
What advice do you have for families of someone questioning their identity?
Chris Mosier:
It makes such a difference to have family support. There's so much discrimination and hatred and violence out there in the world outside of the family structure, and to have a safe place to go home to, to have a supportive system. In my mind, growing up, I thought family is supposed to be the people who love you no matter what, and they love you for you because you are a part of their tribe. That's not always the case. We have 40% of homeless youth identify as LGBTQ. A lot of the LGBTQ kids that are kicked out of their home are kicked out because of their identity, because they come out to their parents, or because their parents find out. So, that number is staggering because it's not 40% of the population that's LGBTQ, right? It's a much smaller percentage. And 40% of our homeless youth identify in that way.
So, we know that families aren't always accepting. It's not enough for me to say the impact of being accepting, I think, to enact that is really to say your family member is the same person that they've always been. They just had the confidence and the courage to let you in, right? A lot of people will say that it's not coming out of the closet, it's inviting other people in, right? That's really a gift for people to tell you who they are. When someone tells you who they are, you should believe them.
Don MacPherson:
Last advice question here. What advice do you have for our employers who want to make their workplace more inclusive for transgender employees?
Chris Mosier:
Start with terminology and language, first and foremost, having people be trained on the terminology and the language. And then look at your policies and see where trans people may get caught in your system. For a lot of organizations, it's things like… It could be as simple as email addresses and name change policies, but also looking at your restroom policies, your healthcare coverage, what sort of training and professional development you give to people so that they are equipped to have conversations with people. And also, to give them the tools to be an ally, like the opportunities and outlets to stand up and be active in support of the trans community.
For me, it was a really sort of a game changer to have people be trained, and for me not to have to be the “token trans person,” because I was the first trans person in the transition at my workplace. I was the reason why they had to change the name change policy and figure out restrooms and all. I felt like I was navigating the system, not only for myself, but also for everybody else who would come after me, which was great for everybody who came after me, but was really challenging for me to be that first person.
Don MacPherson:
That's a trailblazer.
Chris Mosier:
And it's not an easy role to have because advocating for yourself is exhausting. This is the reason that allies and accomplices are so important because, for me to have that person who would correct other people when they said she, instead of he, instead of having to do it myself, it took so much pressure off of me.
Don MacPherson:
Do you have an opinion on when a child should be able to begin the transition process?
Chris Mosier:
Being somebody who is visible and accessible on social media, I get messages every day from parents of trans kids as young as four years old. I have people in my life who allow their young person to tell them what pronouns they want to use. And the parents will check in on a weekly basis. What pronouns do you want us to call you this week? And there are young people at age 5, 6, 7, 8, who are asking their parents to use they, them pronouns with them, to not use pronouns with them. So, I think what we need to remember is that our young people are so much more advanced than we are than anyone parental age is on these topics. At the same time, we have young people in college right now who have never known a world without an out trans person in the media in a positive way.
Now, people being born will never know a world without an out trans person on a U.S. team. So, that's a very cool situation to be in, to say, the world is changing. And you can see that the young people have an accelerated understanding of gender, of identity, and of how they can express themselves.
Don MacPherson:
There's the social, the medical, and the legal, right? From somebody who cisgender and who is just learning about this, we automatically think of transitioning as all three of those, but it doesn't necessarily have to be that way. The other thing that's really interesting about what you're saying is I think that a lot of parents get wrapped up in what they did wrong. I remember this with many of my gay friends. Their parents would, when they come out of the closet, they'd say, “Oh, what did we do wrong?” they didn't.
Chris Mosier:
Right. I think a big challenge also is for parents to understand how they can talk about their young person to their peers. I felt like that was one of the challenges that my mom faced was, not that she didn't accept me as a person or as her son, but she had a daughter and two sons, and now she had three sons. And she had a daughter for 29 years. So, how then, when her friends come back to town and say, “Oh, hey, how's Chris?” How does my mom answer that question? I think that was the challenge of her talking to people her age, in her friend group, who also didn't understand trans identity. I don't think she wanted that pressure of having to educate other people on it.
I think that that was something that she had to come to terms with of saying, “How will I talk about my child?” I see that a lot with parents of, both their concerns of what their peers will think about them as a parent and about their kid as a trans person, but also, I see them worried about what the future might be like for their child. Particularly now, I see parents saying, “I don't want my kid to be trans, because it's going to be really hard. And there are going to be policies put in place that prevent them from living a full life.” If a young person, or any person of any age, has the courage to tell you who they are, whether your family member, or friend, or whoever, know that the life that they were living in secrecy or not being able to be honest about who they were, it's probably harder than the life that they're are going to face. So, while there are very real challenges, and very real discrimination, and violence, and harassment, and all of those things we talked about against the trans community and the community, that not being able to be who you know you are is incredibly painful.
Don MacPherson:
What's been your experience with male privilege?
Chris Mosier:
I sort of knew how I was going to navigate telling people, but I had no idea, no one talked about the transition of privilege. I've always been white, so I had a sense of white privilege, but I didn't ever really think about it, as many white people don't or didn't in that time. But it was extremely amplified when I went from being a masculine presenting woman in a relationship with a woman, to being perceived as a straight white man. It was something like, I would go to lunch with my boss, she would hand them the credit card, and the check would come back to me. Or walking into any sort of bodega in New York City corner store, and having people address me first before addressing my wife or before addressing my friend, who's a person of color.
There are so many moments like that, including access to conversations that I didn't have access to before. Being in a barber shop and hearing people talk about women in a certain way. Being in a Uber ride and having my driver feel like he could have conversation with me about a woman in a certain way. All of these, I think, have made me a stronger feminist and advocate for women through this transition.
Don MacPherson:
You have a partner, you're married?
Chris Mosier:
I am married.
Don MacPherson:
Yes. And you've had the same partner for a while. Do you want to talk about her and that relationship?
Chris Mosier:
Yeah, I think that she has been my biggest ally in this. As I mentioned, I had dated men through high school and college, and in my last year of school, met an incredible woman. I was very hesitant to have a relationship with her because I didn't know any gay people and I didn't see positive representations of relationships. And I was also terrified of what my friends would say and what my family would say. So, we started a relationship and I think I had to come to terms with identifying as queer and what that meant for me. Actually, this is part of the reason how I understood my identity as a trans man, was that my relationship with her, when people would call us a lesbian couple, was really offensive to me, and it was just a word that I didn't like.
Other people can identify that way and that's fine. I respect that identity. But for me, it just didn't fit, the word lesbian. And as people would say that to me, I came to understand that it's not that I am not queer, and my sexual orientation is queer in a positive way. And I understand that for people of a certain age, the word queer still holds some negative connotations, which is why I always mention that language changes all the time. But when people would say lesbian, I just realized that I didn't identify as a woman, and that's how that felt wrong. So, that actually helped me understand my gender identity a little bit more.
Don MacPherson:
What common misconception about trans people would you like to clear up? And you could pick more than one if you want.
Chris Mosier:
Well, there's not just one way to be a trans person, and I think that's one of the common misconceptions is that people think that you have to go through a certain order of certain steps in order to do that. When I first came out, a lot of people would ask me, inappropriately, if I “had the surgery,” as though having surgery was the only way to be a trans person. Also, you wouldn't ask anybody else what's in their pants, and so that was super offensive, that anyone thought that they could have that information. Understanding that the trans community is super diverse and there's not just one way to be a trans person. I think there is less and less, but still some people who think that being trans is inauthentic, that it's not a real identity that people have, that people are trying to gain something through transition.
And I see this particularly in sport, people say that trans women are men pretending to be women so they can dominate women's sports. That invalidates the identity of a trans woman as a woman. So, I will just say, in the sporting context, no one is transitioning to achieve athletic glory. It's just not happening. People transition because that is, for many of us, a sort of last resort in some cases. The rates of attempted suicide in the trans community are exponentially higher than the cisgender community. A lot of us feel like that there's no way out, there's no life for us here when we are unable to be authentic in our identity.
Don MacPherson:
Do you have any regrets?
Chris Mosier:
I'm sure I have some regrets, but I'm really grateful for the experience that I have. Initially, when I started transition, I thought, I regret not doing it earlier and waiting that year and a half after I knew who I was because I was afraid of what other people would think or say. But I think all of that experience has made me who I am today. And I'm so happy with who I am today and just so proud to be able to be in a position where I can help influence other people and create change, and create an easier experience for those who come after me. So, I can't regret anything that got me here.
Don MacPherson:
That's a healthy place to be.
Chris Mosier:
Yeah.
Don MacPherson:
That's a really healthy place to be. Chris, I'm sure a lot of people are inspired, are going to wanna know more about you, where can people find you on the internet?
Chris Mosier:
Yeah. Please find me on social media @thechrismosier, that's M-O-S-I-E-R, and then thechrismosier.com is my website. And traveling around the country and the world, speaking at organizations, businesses, and not just during pride events. I think that's really important to say, when we are programming queer people and trans people outside of national coming out day, or day of silence, or trans day of remembrance, it sends a big message to say, we value this community enough to have them in, outside of a specialty day or a pride event or something like that. So, I've really enjoyed my experience going around, traveling, talking to people.
I think there's a real connection that people have to my story through sport. It takes a little bit of the pressure off of learning about the trans community. Interestingly enough, I found that financial organizations, banks really are attracted to my story for their employees and professional development. And I think it's something about that high performance work environment, high performance athletics. There's a lot of similarities. I just really enjoy talking to people and having them get to know me and know more about the trans community.
Don MacPherson:
We will put your website and your contact information in the show page notes, as well as resources. If people are questioning their identity or family members have questions, we'll put some resources in the show page notes.
Chris Mosier:
Great.
Don MacPherson:
Chris, thank you for being a genious.
Chris Mosier:
Thanks so much for having me.
Don MacPherson:
Thank you for listening to 12 Geniuses. Your time is precious and we truly value it. To help continually improve the show, send us your feedback or guest ideas to future@12geniuses.com. This show couldn't have come to you if it weren't for a group of exceptional people. Special thanks to Tony Gordon, Jay Ludgrove, and the rest of the team at GL Productions in London. Finally, if you want more information about how we can prepare your leaders for a rapidly changing business world, influenced by shifting demographics, new technologies, and innovative business models, go to 12geniuses.com.