McLean Native to Become NCAA's First Openly Transgender Swimmer

Schuyler Bailar was an exceptional kid long before his story made national headlines.

The McLean native is a collegiate-caliber swimmer who now studies at Harvard. He’s also the first openly transgender swimmer in NCAA history, according to Sports Illustrated.

Bailar came out as transgender earlier this year, and although he was initially recruited to Harvard’s women’s swim team, he struggled to decide whether he should compete with the women, where he’d have a chance to win championships, or to compete with the men, where he’d make more history than he would set records.

Harvard’s women’s coach noticed Bailar was struggling with the decision, and ultimately that led Harvard to extend its scholarship offer to both the men’s and women’s teams, giving Bailar a choice with no strings attached.

“Initially the decision was, ‘Do I swim, or do I quit and transition?’” Bailar told The Harvard Crimson, the school’s student newspaper. “I really didn’t want to give up swimming, but I also didn’t know how much longer I could do the living as a girl thing.”

Knowing he could continue to swim competitively no matter what he chose, he decided to embrace his new identity and swim with the men, even though his times didn’t quite stack up as well against most men’s collegiate swimmers.

Bailar may be the first openly transgender competitor in NCAA swimming history, but not in the entire history of NCAA athletics. In 2010, Kyle Allums, a member of the George Washington University women’s basketball team in Washington, D.C., asked to be identified as a man while still competing on the women’s team, according to Time magazine.

“I needed to be comfortable. Playing on a sports team, you become very close. These girls were like my sisters and having them refer to me using female pronouns every single second of the day and not knowing how that made me feel, I couldn’t keep playing like that,” Allums told Time.

In 2011, the NCAA clarified that transgender athletes can compete on teams of either sex, depending on their hormone use, according to the AP.

Bailar is still adjusting as he prepares to join the men’s team this year. He’s still getting used to the men’s locker room, and even to wearing a men’s bathing suit. However, he also notes he’s happy, and believes that will allow him to continue the adjustment and contribute something to his team this year.