“The trickle of states banning transgender athletes has turned into a waterfall.”

This statement, written by New York Times writer Katie Rogers in an April 7 article, comes after over 20 states in the U.S. enacted bans on transgender athletes participating in federally-funded sports — ranging from K-12 to the collegiate level.

“People feel as if they are put into boxes (with gender), and when they see people who aren’t in those boxes, that angers them,” said Juliet Suess, the swim and dive head coach at Chapman University who is also non-binary. “Rather than trying to escape their own boxes, they try to force everyone else into the box.” 

Shortly after entering office, U.S. President Joe Biden signed an executive order on Jan 20, 2021 to combat discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation in conjunction with a 1972 law that prohibits sex-based discrimination. Despite these efforts, states’ attempts to ban trans athletes from sports are only becoming more prominent in the U.S.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 734 on April 20 which, if passed by the Senate, could amend Title IX to mandate the exclusion of transgender students from school sports nationally, according to Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD).  

However, Suess is not letting these legislations stop them from making swim and dive a gender-inclusive sport at Chapman. 

Suess — known as Coach J to the swim and dive team — has been working to make the sport more gender inclusive at Chapman. Earlier this year, Suess initiated a shift in labels for the team’s swim and dive wear to not only pertain to only men’s and women’s suits, but any gender identification on the team. 

Instead of only using terms like “men’s” and “women’s,” “high tops” refer to the athletes whose uniforms cover the upper half of their body and “low tops” refer to those whose uniforms only cover the lower half of their body, according to their Instagram account.

While Suess does not expect all of the athletes to identify as “high top” or “low top,” they hope that the team will validate all non-binary labels.

“To not allow transgender individuals to participate in sport as their true authentic selves erases them from that arena,” Suess said. “If you can imagine being erased from anything, whether it be women’s right to vote (or) whether it’s reproductive rights, to be erased from that space and not given that ability to participate — that can really harm that person’s well-being, especially their mental health. They can’t exist in public.” 

Grace Littrell, the swim and dive social media coordinator, publicized the new labels on the team’s Instagram page. According to Littrell, she and Suess spent a great deal of time discussing the delivery of the label announcement, concluding that the team’s intentions needed to be as transparent and clear as possible. 

“Moving forward as a team, one of our goals is to create an inclusive environment for all no matter what they identify as,” the post wrote. “We want to create a positive change that can allow everyone to feel safe and comfortable to be their true selves.”

As a diver on the swim and dive team, Littrell noted that she believes everyone, regardless of their gender identity, should reap the benefits of the sport. 

“I think all sports should be gender inclusive,” said Littrell, a first-year communication studies major. “I’ve been given so much through sports, and I feel like sports are a great way to build a community. There’s a lot to learn in sports aside from being active. I think if we’re able to make the environments for kids and adults more inclusive, it will have a bigger impact on our community than we expect.”

Littrell also noted the reactions of her fellow team members when Suess had a group meeting to announce the new labels. 

“It was definitely a change for all of us to make that switch,” Littrell said. “We had to be more cognitive of this change, but since then everyone has really adjusted to where it is no longer out of the box.”

According to Suess, the exclusion of the LGBTQ+ community from federally-funded sports is nothing new, with many sports, especially swimming, containing a history of excluding the LGBTQ+ community. Yet, Suess noted that recent legislation is only leading to more discrimination. 

“Back in the day, gay and lesbian individuals were not able to participate in the swimming sport,” Suess said. “Now, there’s an International Gay and Lesbian Aquatics Association (IGLA) that puts on swim meets all around the world because athletes weren’t able to participate in things like the Olympics. On the one hand, (organizations like IGLA) are creations of safe spaces, but they also do come from discrimination.” 

For Suess, these historical and present bans are unwarranted, as the number of trans athletes in sports is not very high. According to CNN, less than 1% of athletes competing in women’s sports at the collegiate level in the U.S. are transgender,​ and there are no significant systematic reviews or meta-analysis studies to back the bans. 

“Something that is important to note is that the amount of trans people in sports is quite small,” Suess said. “None of the science around transgender athletes in sports has even been conducted at a high-enough level to say any of the things that are being said (by politicians).”

Suess is also disheartened about the recent exclusive legislative actions, noting that they may negatively affect the mental health of LGBTQ youth in the U.S. 

“Transgender individuals participating in sports has a huge benefit for their mental health from a sense of belonging, and to take that away from children is really sad,” Suess said. “They say that it is about protecting other children, right, but who’s protecting transgender kids?”

That is why, for Suess, the shift to more inclusive labels has been an important first step toward gender inclusion in aquatic sports at Chapman. Suess competitively swam in high school and at Occidental University in Los Angeles prior to coaching. 

“I just love the water, so I did not care what title I was being given or what identity was enforced on me until later in life, but I knew when I became head coach that I wanted to create a space that was both competitive and also really inclusive,” Suess told The Panther. 

According to Suess, the topic of transgender athletes in sport shouldn’t be political, yet in recent years, it has been greatly politicized. Suess only hopes that politicians start taking a more humanitarian approach to the matter.

“To me, it shouldn’t be politics,” Suess said. “It is politicized, but it is not politics. My hope is that people recognize that everybody has a right to their own humanity. I think part of it is that they’re (legislatures) afraid of the freedom that we represent.”