Mickey, Dante, Jayden, Cam
The team initially asked the question: “How do we support trans and intersex women playing sports?” While this is a strong start, it doesn't get to the root of the institutional issue of how these athletes are being treated. They want to create a real lasting change by impacting the people around the athletes, not the athletes themselves. The team decided to solve for coaches, teams, and athletic directors as they can form positive relationships with transgender athletes. Coaches in particular can set an example as mentors and support systems for their players. This caused us to ask: “How Might We assist sports leaders into making safer spaces for their female transgender and intersex players?” The Team Inclusive Sports team ideated on a tool that would allow the team members of trans and intersex players to empathize with them. They wanted to create something that was engaging and data driven to grow empathy and shine light on what these athletes experience. The team decided to make a video game. They struggled with empathy interviews, yet found Capitol High School Color Guard as their community partner. The Color Guard loved our idea of a video game that would be simple, yet impactful; the player goes through the struggles and triumphs of what it is like to be a trans or intersex woman in sports. She faces harassment, but also gets an unexpected amount of support from her coach and some teammates. When creating the characters for our game, we decided to go with something unexpected: clowns. We knew it was a bold move, but we needed our players to avoid connecting gender to the characters present, and clowns don't have stereotypical ways of expressing gender. Many trans people can relate to the feeling of disconnect from their gender identity, which is why it's important to include in our game. The clowns are important to represent the compromised self that many trans people can connect to. The game is not yet complete, but they plan to keep working with the Capital High Color Guard to get it done. They still have some important things to do for it, such as coding it and finalizing our drafts, but have made a lot of progress. They plan on finalizing the game over the summer and implementing it at the start of the fall semester. At that time, they will be more prepared to demo their game with coaches which will allow for a more empathetic experience.
