Schuyler Bailar, 19-year-old Harvard undergraduate, will be the first openly transgender swimmer to compete on a college team. The talented recruit, who broke records on the University’s women’s team last year, will dive into next season on the men’s team. Note’s an in-depth June 23 Washington Post feature, Bailor’s decision may not have come without its challenges but Harvard’s support was strong :
“Bailar, a 5-foot-8, 170-pound athlete, struggled for years through depression, self-harm, suicidal thoughts, eating disorders and a broken back. As a girl, Bailar competed at a high level — setting a national relay record on a girls’ team with future Olympic champion Katie Ledecky — but she was confused and pained.
‘I was a very lost kid who didn’t understand why I spent my entire childhood being a boy but not really, one who focused intently on studies and swimming to distract from anything that came up in my mind,’ said Bailar, who grew up in Virginia and attended the private Georgetown Day School in the District. ‘I was caught between two worlds.’
He isn’t anymore. Though he bears scars across his chest from surgery to remove his breasts and mammary glands — and he faces some fears about living as a man — he feels better now than he ever has. And the world, so far, has been far more accepting than he imagined.”
As for Harvard:
“Earlier this year, [Harvard’s Women’s Swim Team Coach Stephanie] Morawski recommended that Bailar try swimming with the men even though it meant losing a top prospect from the women’s team. Both teams won Ivy League titles in 2014. …
Switching squads meant that Bailar would go from being one of the school’s strongest female swimmers to possibly the back of the pack on the men’s team. “It meant giving up the goals I had set for myself as a swimmer,” Bailar said. “But I had to let go of those goals. This isn’t a choice.”
When Morawski asked Kevin Tyrrell, the men’s head coach, whether his team would accept Bailar, the answer came quickly. ‘We don’t see this as much of a big deal,’ Tyrrell said. ‘Another kid to coach.’
When Tyrrell told the nearly 40-member squad, not a single swimmer raised a concern. Said Kent Haeffner, a rising Harvard sophomore swimmer from Fort Lauderdale, Fla.: ‘He’s just another member of the team. That’s the way we’ve embraced him.'”
Meet Schuyler in a LGBTQ Nation video webcast.
