Katie Barnes: How Did We Get Here? Queer and Trans Athletes in Sports

Join us for an interview-style talkback and Q&A with ESPN sports journalist Katie Barnes who will discuss their work covering transgender student athletes. In addition to discussing their recent book, “Fair Play: How Sports Shape the Gender Debates,” Katie will provide historical context on how we as a society have gotten to a place of anti-trans legislation that impacts the experiences of student athletes around the world.

ABOUT KATIE
Katie Barnes (they/them) is an award-winning journalist and author. Their first book, Fair Play: How Sports Shape the Gender Debates chronicles the relationship between sports and gender while focusing on transgender athletes and the movement to keep them out of girls’ and women’s sports. Fair Play received starred reviews from Booklist and Kirkus, a positive review from the Washington Post, and was named a “Must-Read Book of 2023″ by Time Magazine.

As a narrative feature writer at ESPN, Katie’s writing has focused on a number of topics ranging across sports, but they have a particular concentration on gender. Since joining ESPN, Katie has written almost exclusively about women, LGBTQ athletes, and pop culture. Most of their writing explores big ideas, from how law and policy affects transgender athletes to how the intersection of race, sexuality, and gender expression affects the marketability of WNBA athletes to what makes “Bring It On” such an iconic sports movie. As a journalist and cultural commentator, Katie has been interviewed by MSNBC, CNN, NPR, WNYC, multiple ESPN platforms, and numerous podcasts about these topics. They were honored for their work by NLGJA – The Association of LGBTQ Journalists as the 2017 Journalist of the Year.

LGBT HISTORY MONTH
LGBT History Month is presented by Spectrum Center, and events are presented by units across campus. Find more LGBT History Month events at spectrumcenter.umich.edu/lgbt-history-month.