One day after the release of Changing the Game, a documentary from Michael Barnett about young trans athletes, Florida joined South Dakota, Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee, West Virginia, Montana and Alabama in signing transphobic legislation restricting transgender athletes from public school sports—all passed within the last year. Texas Democrats prevented a similar bill from becoming law only a few weeks earlier. These hateful policies and would-be policies, pushed by spiteful far-right groups, have no support at the higher levels of the sports that they claim to protect. Changing the Game sharply explores these regulations, and discrimination in general, through the eyes of these athletes themselves. As you might expect, rampant misgendering and the Fox Newses/Joe Rogans of the world pop up throughout the spread-thin doc, but the film and its subjects confront hate and love—from those in the crowd and from themselves—head-on with bold intimacy and respect.
These subjects’ experiences span the U.S.: Texan high school champion wrestler Mack Beggs is stuck competing against the wrong gender, while New Hampshirite skier Sarah Rose Huckman and Connecticuter track runner Andraya Yearwood face their peers. Barnett’s got the directorial patience and savvy to sit back and let his subjects simply be endearing teens. They vlog, gossip, smooch, goof off. Aside from being generally entertaining, allowing them the space to do so serves a dual purpose: Those looking (or perhaps simply needing) to learn will find ample, detailed high school humanity awaiting them, while those ready to root for the kids but less inclined to invest in the sports themselves can get swept up in their Olympic-level enthusiasm and dedication.
Exciting and well-framed workout photography from Barnett and 30 for 30 alum Turner Jumonville splits the difference. The sweaty, muscular vigor with which they shoot kettlebells, jump ropes, starting blocks and ski wax is enthralling and empowering in equal measure; an extreme close-up of manicured nails flipping a tire becomes an understated rebellion. Whether Changing the Game finds its athletes in private preparation or at the gym, its admiring eye when it comes to physicality and effort can’t help but feel all the more pertinent as those it observes discuss and confront body-based struggles. Dysmorphia, self-harm, hormones—these are common teenage troubles exacerbated and magnified by a certain part of the population’s obsession with who’s going in what bathroom. We get plenty of examples, be they self-righteous interviewees or talk show hosts running their mouths, but they’re always overshadowed by the kids themselves.
While everyone is open and candid, Mack and his family steal the show. He’s got a girlfriend (who’s crushing hard), a deputy sheriff grandma and a grandpa whose RaceTrac fountain drink addiction will resonate with many raised in the south. Both his grandparents are conservative and both trying their damnedest to use the right pronouns. The vulnerability the Beggs give Barnett—from the complex growing pains of an older generation to a bittersweet trip down memory lane’s old photo albums—shows an impressive level of trust from all involved.
Most of this comes from Mack himself as he works his way back to the state championship in the film’s central narrative. Footage of his matches follows sports radio chatter amiably discussing his suicide. Boos roar in the auditorium. Here, Changing the Game’s point is most salient: Those booing would boo no matter what. They’re booing easy targets. They’re booing the letter of the law while supporting those enforcing it. The hypocrisy of it all would almost be funny if it weren’t so cruel. And that cruelty, not Mack, is clearly depicted through convincingly edited storytelling as the cause of the very real pain and unfairness accompanying Mack’s ascent. How would these results be different, how would the scholarships be divvied up, were Mack allowed to wrestle his male peers?