Courtesy of The Olympic Channel
As a recruit, Schuyler Bailar received a lot of interest from Division 1 coaches before deciding that Harvard was his first choice. His original plan was to swim on the women’s team at Harvard under head coach Stephanie Morawski, but made the decision to swim for the men’s team with the support of Morawski and men’s coach Kevin Tyrrell.
The journey towards swimming for the Harvard men wasn’t always an easy one, and Schuyler initially postponed his enrollment at Harvard. Bailar’s parents joined the segment to discuss Schuyler’s struggles with eating disorders. They talked about the mental health issues and challenges Schuyler had to overcome as he realized he was transgender.
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Well that’s neat
Thank you for your openness and the many positive interactions that my eldest has has with the Bailar kids. Much love to the Bailar’s from the Fouts Family.
First off, social scientists are not scientists at all.
Secondly, this is a story for talk shows. SwimSwam should be covering the fastest swimmers in our sport. This swimmer is a 58/208 male BR. I’ve read many article about this athlete and times are never brought up (weird).
At the end of the day, this swimmer made choices, and that’s fine. But, this over glorification for what equates to a non-traveling male athlete on hormones is pure lunacy.
I don’t believe this story transcends in water non-accomplishments. This is click-bait.
ESPN started playing the social game five years ago and people have shut them down. The bled out $1 billion last year.
The Truth – a couple things:
(1) SwimSwam should not just be covering the fastest swimmers in our sport. We cover swimming at every level. We cover Katie Ledecky and we cover the 10-year-old who swims an age group showcase in Florida. Certainly times have a big impact on newsworthiness, but they’re far from the only determining factor there.
(2) Speaking of times, you must have missed this story from Bailar’s freshman year, in which Bailar addresses the time logistics of catching up to the pack on the men’s side: https://staging.swimswam.com/schuyler-bailar-to-debut-with-harvard-men-friday-vs-bryant/
(3) It’s a stretch to say ESPN pioneered reporting on social issues. Sports media have been telling personal stories about high-level athletes for at least… Read more »
Thank you for the reply. I respect your opinion.
1) I have been coming to this site since its inception and am aware of the breadth of coverage. I have strong feelings about how AG swimming is covered on this site as well, but that’s for another time. You brought up Katie Ledecky and then you said the 10 year old at the AG Showcase meet in FL – the common thread I see there is that both are experiencing a level of success at their distinct levels. Ballar is not exceptional in the water as a male or female.
2) I did not miss that article, and I just read it again now for good measure. Ballar is… Read more »
The point isn’t about times. It is about grit, tenacity, honesty and support. His story tells kids that they should go for it. It encourages coaches to support their athletes’ journeys. It reminds us that one of the main purposes of a sport is to instill values and character – not just winning. It is a fundamental leg of both USA Swimming and the NCAA. And if you have seen his instagram – even some top NCAA qualifiers have commented that they are inspired by his example.
I’m pretty shocked at these comments. This article is not about your personal views; this article shows an incredible story about a person who went through a difficult situation and persevered to the point where they are now able to inspire others. Kudos to Schuyler and the Bailar family for being so open about this process and helping inspire others to be strong when life is difficult.
I just have one question — and this is a a simply and exclusively practical question. If, for example, a swimmer with the physical strength, height, flexibility, etc. of a Ryan Lochte (or anyone pretty far down the world men’s rankings) decides he’s a woman and has the operations done to change his gender and competes as a woman, and proceeds to demolish every NCAA woman’s record, isn’t that the end of record setting for women?
There’s a rule somewhere about having to be within the “normal” hormonal ranges for the gender. For MTF (males transitioning to female), they are barred from female competition until after a year taking T suppressants and the proper hormones. For FTM (females transitioning to male) they don’t actually HAVE to take T to compete with the men. For a great many trans women, they wouldn’t be able to compete with male athletes without the hormones. But there are always standouts.
Most notably, think if someone like Ledecky was in this boat. She already runs circles around any but the elite males in the sport.
Most athletes who are facing the challenge of transition assume that the people around… Read more »
The NCAA document on trans athletes that is widely available makes no mention of the absolute hormone level requirements that you write about. Can you link to where these standards are?
I applaud Schuyler for his bravery and take no issue with his personal choices. However the transgender issue in sport is problematic when a biological male wishes to compete as a female. I am not certain how it can be fair to all.
Just because I feel like a 28x Olympic medalist, doesn’t make me one
I’m thrilled for Schuyler and wish him the best of success with his journey, but the lack of biological understanding in these comments is astounding. Things like “gender is a social construct” and “some people identify as no gender”… no scientific backing whatsoever for these crazy claims.
well of course there isn’t scientific backing for “gender is a social construct” since the very nature of that statement is philosophical and/or sociological in origin
In places where the social differences between genders are maximized, gendered behavior is substantially increased. Not to mention the fact that far over 99% of people identify with the gender of their biological sex. This suggests to me that it’s inaccurate to call it a social construct over a biological phenomenon.
Minimized**
You might be correct, but even your response is rooted in sociological argument, not scientific. Just because scientific data is used in an argument does not make it a scientific argument . All I was pointing out is that saying there is no scientific backing for the idea of gender as a social construct is making a false comparison.
That’s fair- perhaps I should have said ‘data-driven’ instead.
far over 99%? lol
so like 165% or what
99,99999999999% wouldn’t be far over 99%
Considering there are 7 billion people in the world, 1 percent would be 70 million.
I believe the exact figure is around 99.7%, which is indeed well over 99% when you compare the populations (as Swimmer? has already pointed out). It would reduce the number of people worldwide who would identify as “non-binary” from 70 million to 21 million. Not to get caught in the weeds of the statistics, but that seems significant to me.
Understanding a viewpoint different from yours takes effort and time. That being said, this was a great video with a great story. Thank you for sharing.
You cannot possibly take enough time and effort to change your biology. Differences in expression of ones’ self is one thing. Not understanding reality is another.
I fail to see what your reply has to do with my innocuous comment.
Because there is nothing great about taking “time and effort” to understand something which is demonstrably false. He is a male and no “viewpoint” can change that biological reality.