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Changing The Game: trans teenage athletes striving to be the best at their chosen sports while dealing with transitioning

Brian Butler February 4, 2025

Michael Barnett’s award-winning documentary Changing The Game follows the journeys of three US trans teenage athletes as they strive to be the best at their chosen sports while dealing with transitioning.

It’s a glorious celebration of being who you know yourself truly to be, but also a realistic look at the bigotry, prejudice and hatred that these teens and many more trans people face every day.

Mack Beggs is a Texan wrestler who is transitioning from girl to boy but obliged to fight only in tournaments where the competitors are girls.

In New Hampshire, Sarah is a feisty, self-confident influencer, campaigner and Nordic skier, who is told she will have to have re-assignment surgery before she would be allowed to compete as a female.

“I knew I was a girl from the very beginning. I’m trans and I’m strong – and you can be strong too,” she blogs to other trans teenagers.

Andraya is a black trans female track runner. Her coach Brian tells us: “she’s competing with all the other girls and that’s how it should be.” She’s lucky because Connecticut has liberal policies towards transitioning. The State’s education boss is clear: “trans females are females; cis gender females are females. Anything else is discriminatory.”

Similarly Mack’s coach says: ”I’ll never turn my back on a champion,” and Mack is certainly that – undefeated and two-times State champion, although his true desire is to compete in boys’ contests.

But Barnett’s sensitively directed film also shows the hostile voices that face these youngsters – hateful posts on social media suggesting suicide for instance.

Over 40% of trans teenagers have attempted suicide – a staggering figure.

If the athletes are heroes – so too are their families who are fully supportive – sometimes surprisingly given their conservative and religious backgrounds. The jewel among them is Mack’s grandma who brought him up – she’s a gun-slinging deputy sheriff in Dallas and a Southern Baptist, and his most vociferous champion and defender. “He was never a little girl; we made him a little girl.”

Andraya, with no role models of her own, suddenly finds herself the role model and mentor for Terry, another black trans teen athlete.

Ironically the claim of unfairness and advantage of these young people is used both ways – unfair a former girl on testosterone is competing with girls, but equally unfair he’s not allowed to compete with boys; and equally unfair, say some, that Andraya has the physique of a young man and is competing with girls.

In the end the film shows us the courage, determination and self-awareness that these four teenagers demonstrate every day of their lives – struggling to be who they really are.

How will they flourish in Trump’s dystopian new order? That is the question. I for one think they will be winners.

Changing The Game is on major platforms, including Apple TV, Amazon Prime Video, and Google Play Movies in the UK.

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