Schuyler Bailar: A Transgender Athlete and Activist Telling His Story in Hopes That His Experiences May Help Transgender Youth Find Their Voice
When Schuyler Bailar chose to compete for the Harvard men’s swimming team, becoming the first transgender NCAA athlete to play men’s Division I sports, he was driven purely by his love for the sport. Despite some controversy over his place on the team, Schuyler’s 100-yard breaststroke ranked in the top 15% of all NCAA swims of that season. As his athletic career progressed and the story of his success spread, Schuyler accumulated over 200,000 Instagram followers and became a figure that young transgender athletes could look up to. Schuyler now works as a public speaker and activist, telling his story in hopes that his experiences may help transgender youth find their voice.
GRAPHIC DESIGN by JANICE KIM / PHOTO by ROSE LINCOLN, HARVARD STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
“The number one thing I want to deliver is that shred of possibility. I want them to see that their happiness is possible—that their gender identity and their body and their world can actually align.”
Schuyler began swimming at just ten months old. “I’ve always been in the water,” Schuyler explains, but he began to take the sport more seriously around the age of seven or eight. Training started at 4:00 am before school and picked back up once school finished. Swimming consumed much of his life, and his undying love for the sport pushed him through years of rigorous training and the challenges that had yet to come.
During his gap year between high school and college, Schuyler transitioned. More than anyone, Schuyler understood the challenges that would come along with becoming the first transgender NCAA athlete to play men’s Division I sports. Having no frame of reference for anyone like him, Schulyer spent “months, if not years, Googling transgender swimmer, transgender athlete, and nothing came up.” Still, he knew that he wanted to swim and that nothing was going to stop him from doing so. He explains, “I love swimming, and I didn't want to let anything stop me from swimming. I didn't want to be miserable, and being on the men's team and continuing to swim, while it brought many challenges, seemed like the best answer to me in terms of being myself and feeling like myself, and continuing to be able to do the sport that I love.”
PHOTO: SYDNEY CLAIRE PHOTOGRAPHY
Once on the team at Harvard, Schuyler was pleasantly surprised to find that a lot of people were supportive of his position on the team. While people had their judgments and misconceptions about his transition, he shares that he spent his time focused on himself and his sport. “I have no idea what everybody thought, nor do I care,” he says. “I think it was really, really important to me to spend time focusing on what I needed and why I was in the sport, as opposed to what other people wanted from me and what other people thought of me.”
Schuyler’s spot on the Harvard team soon got some attention from the media, and very quickly, he found himself having to make a decision about how much he wanted to be in the spotlight. After agreeing to do his first interview, Schuyler knew that once the article was out there, his entire life would be, too. “I knew that if I told my story once, it might not be the end of it. I was very aware of that. I talked about it with my coach, and he said, ‘Listen, we can keep this quiet. You don't have to do the interviews if you don't want to.’ Harvard has a really tight PR system. But I was like, no, if I do this I will [reach] people. I want people to know this is possible because I didn't know it was possible. And I didn't know I could do this.”
PHOTO: SYDNEY CLAIRE PHOTOGRAPHY
Schuyler has since grown a following on Instagram for his work around trans rights activism and visibility. After the years he himself spent questioning his identity, Schuyler took to Instagram to build an educational space for people to learn more about trans identity. Schuyler developed a signature style for his posts, which features him holding a whiteboard with a powerful message while standing shirtless in front of the camera. “Being shirtless is something that's really important to my empowerment, and I've literally never worn a shirt on my account. I'm also a swimmer, so I'm always shirtless.” Schuyler explains. His growing audience was unexpected. “I think it kind of snowballed over time. I didn't start being like, ‘Yes, I will do like a hundred speeches a year and be this activist,’” Schuyler recalls. “I made [a conscious decision] when I got my first interview. I thought to myself, ‘This could be a story. This could go somewhere,’” and Schuyler was right. As his Instagram following grew, Schuyler was able to shed light on issues including transphobia.
“I want people to know [being an openly transgender athlete on a NCAA Division I team] is possible because I didn't know it was possible. And I didn't know I could do this.”
With his success also comes ignorant comments, which Schuyler has not been a stranger to in the years since coming out. In his everyday life, he explains that he is quicker to engage in conversations with people when transphobic sentiments arise. He has learned that yelling is unproductive, explaining that he knows how delicate these interactions can be and would prefer to speak in a level-headed tone, even when he is met with the opposite. He opts to ask questions and attempts to have a deeper conversation about the issues, with the hope that in the end the other person will learn something and understand. Still, the importance of boundaries in these conversations is ever-present. He says, “Maybe I don't have the energy to walk them through why their comment was transphobic. Maybe I don't really need to break that down for them, and I need to just walk away. So you have to be mindful of that, too.”
PHOTO: SYDNEY CLAIRE PHOTOGRAPHY
When it comes to encountering transphobia online, Schuyler tries to “call people into conversation” rather than react with anger. Schuyler has developed a standard response method: “If I think that my response to the comment is something that other people need to see because they may deal with some of these comments, I post my response.” He stresses that he does not respond for the original commenter, but rather for transgender kids who need help responding to hateful comments or interacting with hurtful comments in their own lives.
In spite of the transphobic comments he personally receives, Schuyler believes he has seen progress for the transgender rights movement, namely in visibility. He emphasizes that before he came out he saw minimal visibility of any kind, but the word “transgender” has since become more widely used. “I think it's kind of a little bit of a double-edged sword though,” Schuyler clarifies, “While this has allowed us to fight more for our rights, it has also increased the violence and discrimination towards us because people know to whom, or what, they are discriminating against.”
While transgender representation in the media has increased, that growth has not come without its flaws. In entertainment, Schuyler stresses that transgender roles should be played by transgender actors. And while the portrayal of only skinny, white, stereotypically masculine transgender men is often performative and not true activism, Schuyler believes some representation, as opposed to none at all, can still save the lives of transgender kids who are struggling with their identities. Similarly, companies who contribute to anti-LGBTQ+ efforts while still selling rainbow-themed products during Pride month can still make a queer kid feel safe. Schuyler recalls walking into the mall during Pride and being surrounded by rainbows. While he was aware of the insidious and capitalistic intentions of this celebration, he still found himself in tears. “Something can be both performative and a step forward,” Schuyler explains, “It’s really complicated because a child doesn’t know any better. All they see is the rainbows and that makes them feel like maybe they belong here, just a little bit more.”
PHOTO by AMOS MAC
Beyond the misconceptions society holds about transgender men, Schuyler also battles the stereotype that East Asian men are less “manly.” The portrayal of East Asian men as more meek or submissive has been a flawed depiction that Schuyler has personally felt he’s had to fight against in his life. All of these pieces of his identity—Asian American, transgender, athlete—made him feel as though he “couldn’t exist.” He caught glimpses of himself in others represented in the media, but never once did he see the intersection of all the parts that composed him within a single celebrity or fictional character. “I think one of the things that I try really hard to encourage people now is reminding people that they can find themselves in parts,” Schuyler advises. “If I can find pieces, I can remind myself that there is kinship in many different ways with many different people. And I don't have to find everything in one person in order to have validation that I'm existent.”
“I think one of the things that I try really hard to encourage people now is reminding people that they can find themselves in parts. If I can find pieces, I can remind myself that there is kinship in many different ways with many different people. And I don't have to find everything in one person in order to have validation that I'm existent.”
Schuyler looks back on the years he spent Googling keywords like “transgender athlete,” “transgender swimmer,” and “Asian transgender athlete,” finding zero results. And in spite of the negativity and lack of precedent, Schuyler made himself visible. Now, when young people Google transgender athlete or transgender swimmer, they can find Schuyler alongside many other athletes. “The number one thing I want to deliver is that shred of possibility,” Schuyler firmly states. “I want them to see that their happiness is possible—that their gender identity and their body and their world can actually align.”
STORY JAMIE YI