Reelout: Changing the Game By: Hannah Petterson

Changing the Game is a documentary that follows three high school student athletes who are transgender as they compete against fellow cisgender athletes. The film shows the many challenges that transgender athletes face in sports. The stories take place in three different states with each school district having its own rules about the category transgender athletes fit into. Mack lives in Texas, a discriminatory law in Texas prevents Mack from competing against males. In order to be able to wrestle at his high school he must wrestle against females although, Mack identifies as a male. The year prior to filming he won the state champion and was on track to win the female state title again. During the film Mack receives a lot of attention from the public for this and the documentary shows the struggles of dealing with transitioning and competing in a category that you no longer associate yourself with. Through lots of tough and tedious work Mack’s grandmother is eventually able to have Mack wrestle against males on the USA wrestling team at the closing of the film. Sarah is a skier and her school district allows athletes to compete in the gender category in which they assign themselves with. Sarah during the film creates a policy that would give protections to transgender people and she works to get it passed by her local government. Andraya competes in track against other female athletes but faces lots of backlash from parents as they struggle to see the fairness in Andraya competing with other females. Andraya emerges as a role model to another transgender athlete, Terry. Mack, Sarah and Andraya are able to use sports as a way to deal with the negativity around them and create a positive sense of self through their various sports. The documentary is able to shed light on an important topic of transgender athletes that is not talked about enough in mainstream media. 

The film Changing the Game very honestly shows the struggles that transgender athletes go through. The film challenges people to step outside the normative views of sports and gender categories in sports, by challenging personal opinions and what is considered normal (“Gender Identity and Normativity” slide 12). In the film it is very obviously shown that many people still have the view of you must compete in the category that your biological sex deems a person belongs in. News castings, articles, parents and policies are shown aggressively throughout the film with this way of thinking about sports and gender assignment. This normative belief of what should and should not be in terms of everyone being classified into a category for competition is strongly challenged through this film (“Gender Identity and Normativity” slide 12). 

The film also challenges a binary way of thinking, that males and females must be in opposition to each other and creates questions of why we have a need to classify these gender categories in opposition of each other and not based on skill (“Gender Identity and Normativity” slide 13). The film does a good job of expanding thinking from a binary concept to a more holistic approach of sports. Andraya’s coach as well as others in the film bring up the perspective of what are high-school sports truly about. The idea that competition in sports is everything is challenged by many in the film. Andraya’s coach shows the perspective that sports are a way to teach people life skills, for people to create positive self-image and deal with the things that are going on in their lives. For these transgender athletes in the documentary, the sports they play are able to help create a positive body image of who they are in their minds and cope with some of the stressful events they face as transgender people. In the article “Signs of Gender” by Sally Raskoff she talks about how society is changing to incorporate more than just two genders but how in society their still remains a lack of inclusivity for all (Raskoff). Those with the most power in society continue to see sport as binary and do not consider how exclusive separating sport by gender is. The athletes followed in the documentary struggle to be accepted into the gender categories that they belong in because a dominated cisgender society their remains a huge lack of inclusivity that is not adequately applied throughout policies by the schools (Raskoff). As well Sarah demonstrates the lack of inclusivity Raskoff talks about through, the policy she tries to pass about protecting transgender people (Raskoff). 

The documentary changing the game also represents two student athletes who are transgender and African American these two females face triple discrimination because of these categorizations. They therefore face more cumulative oppression based on these classifications of intersectionality. The film is able to properly represent these classifications instead of just focusing solely on one classification for Andraya and Terry it focuses on the intersectionality of these different classifications (“Racialization and Intersectional Analysis” slide 8). I thought that this was able to make the documentary even more powerful to viewers especially for those viewers that do not face multiple classifications of oppression. Changing the Game is able to accurately depict challenges that transgender athletes go through. It is able to broaden the scope on traditional binary thinking of sports and create a larger conversation on what the purpose of sport is. Changing the Game also includes conversations about intersectionality and discrimination in policies, the news and communities around the United States. The film is a proper representation of struggles that transgender athletes face and does a positive job of shedding light and continuing important conversations in society arounds transgender athletes. Overall, I think that Changing the Game is able to add to larger conversations of transgender athletes in sport and challenges both the normative and binary view that is often held while, incorporating other concepts such as intersectionality and overall inclusivity of policies and rules towards transgender people in the United States. 

Works Cited 

Baba, Habibe B. Gender Identity and Normativity. Jan. 2020, https://onq.queensu.ca/d2l/le/content/377345/viewContent/2190381/View?ou=377345 PowerPoint Presentation. 

Baba, Habibe B. Racialization and Intersectional Analysis. Jan 2020, https://onq.queensu.ca/d2l/le/content/377345/viewContent/2190381/View?ou=377345. PowerPoint Presentation. 

Raskoff, Sally. “Signs of Gender.” Everyday Sociology Blog, 27 Mar. 2017, http://www.everydaysociologyblog.com/2017/03/signs-of-gender.html#more.