Identity

ANDIE TAYLOR IS A NEW WOMAN IDENTITY

BY SARAH BARKER

Andie Taylor is terrified. She fights back tears, tucking her hair behind her ears, checking her shoelaces. What will people think? Should she really compete?

Taylor, 46, has been running since the age of ten, lining up for races since 1984. But this is her first race as a woman.

“I was afraid that people wouldn’t like me. I didn’t want to cause controversy or take anything away from runners who were born female,” Taylor said. “The running community means a lot to me—I don’t want to be an embarrassment to them.”

The cacophony of thoughts fall away with the starting gun, and it’s quiet—just breath and footfalls, stretching out, simply running, fast. Officially, Andrea Taylor finishes the 2019 TC Mile in 5:37, a race she ran as Andrew Taylor in 2017, in 5:01.

Andy (now, Andie) Taylor grew up in south Minneapolis (except 1980 - 1984, in suburban Chicago), in the middle of two brothers. Pretty average childhood, sometimes jumping rope with the girls, sometimes playing with the boys. Hindsight, she admitted, can be tricky but she remembers covering up her genitals at age six or seven. When kids innocently got naked together, she looked at girls’ bodies and thought, that’s what I’m supposed to look like.

This was the 1970s—homosexuality was barely on the radar. Body dysmorphia, the idea of being in the wrong body, didn’t exist outside the medical community. All Taylor knew is that something wasn’t right.

“My dad jogged two to four miles every night. I was a super anxious kid, so when I was about 10, he said, ‘Come run with me.’ I ran two miles without stopping and said, ‘That was the most fun I’ve ever had.’’

Taylor went out for cross country in sixth grade (in Chicago) and was the team’s second runner. “I didn’t see it as stress relief—I really liked competition. I thought, I’ve got some talent. When you discover that in junior high, that’s what you do.”

She ran year round on her own, and when the family moved back to the Twin Cities, joined track at Metcalf Junior High. She’d already cemented her self identity, and her reputation with other kids, as a good athlete, which provided some protection from bullying. But no one survives junior high unscathed

“They said, ‘You walk like a girl, you sit like a girl, you hold your books like a girl.’ I was called gay, sissy, queer. I’d try to play it off and say, ‘I’m a girl-boy,’ but it still hurt, and I’d consciously try to correct girly habits.”

In 1987, at 14 years old, Taylor ran Get In Gear 10K—44:20. She ran cross country and track at Burnsville High School, posting a high school best of 4:36 for the 1600. “That was solid. Between running and music—I was in a band—I got a lot of respect, even if they thought I was girly. And it was not necessarily at odds with how I was feeling to run—it wasn’t a super manly thing like football. I belonged on the running team, like being part of a big family. Being on the team was one of the best things that ever happened to me.

“I was super late on puberty. I had mixed feelings about that because, on one hand, the less male I could look, the better, but I wanted to be able to keep up with guys who were developing.”

At home, Taylor experimented with her mom’s makeup, and shaved her legs, telling her parents it allowed her to run faster. Maybe they thought it was a phase—the elder Taylors didn’t condemn their middle child’s proclivity.

“In high school, I wasn’t sexually attracted to men or girls. I felt emotionally close to girls. I wanted to hold hands and do hair. I had a lot of girlfriends, but did I want to be with them, or did I want to be them? By the end of high school, I definitely wanted to be them. I hated my body. I’d race in shorts and immediately change into warmups because my legs looked like boy’s legs.”

Taylor followed her older brother to St. Thomas, where she found— maybe surprisingly—compassion. But that may be because Taylor looks for the good in every situation. “I wasn’t D1 caliber, and I wanted to run in college. Running was as high a priority as being trans (although I didn’t know what I was then), it was that important to me. It still is.”

In 1991, there was no Internet, and few sources of information. LGBQT? Nope, gay was about as nuanced as it got. So, like most young adults, Taylor embarked on a period of experimentation and discovery—in and out of counseling, on and off antidepressants, she had three long term relationships with women, she kissed some boys, tried on a super macho persona, joined a gay/lesbian group, went to drag festivals, wore makeup. Disgusted by her male body, she did everything she could to look more female—pierced her ears, shaved her legs, wore women’s jeans—but at the same time, she knew she didn’t want to be a man in a dress. She wanted to be a woman in a dress. She heard about sex change operations and thought that would be “awesome.” By her mid-twenties, Taylor told close friends she wanted to be female, to have a woman’s body.

“When I lived alone, I covered the mirror with a blanket or sheet so I wouldn’t have to look at myself.”

Taylor ran track and cross country at St. Thomas, took some years off from running after that, and in her mid-twenties, joined Run N Fun’s Tuesday night group, and eventually their competitive men’s team. As always, running was a respite, and the camaraderie of the running community, a saving grace. If her gender identity was a source of anxiety and anguish, her identity as a runner, and the joy of training and competing, remained rock solid. And therein lay the problem—would trying to solve suffering on one front risk the one sure thing, the relationships and community that had been her foundation thus far?

“I was terrified of the social stigma, that people wouldn’t like me. I didn’t think my family would disown me, but I’m not an isolated individual—I’m part of a community. If I transitioned, it would have a ripple effect, and I didn’t want to do that to the community. I thought I could just live with it.”

Things started to go seriously south in 2014. “I thought, I can’t live another day as a man. I was lonely, but felt I couldn’t be in a relationship

It was patellar tendinitis that stopped Andie Taylor from training for a marathon. She took the injury as a sign and joined a trans counseling group as she weighed transitioning.

when I wasn’t the right sex, the right body. I’d been wearing makeup for 15 years but was like, I look like a man in makeup—that’s awful!”

Taylor attempted suicide in 2016. At the beginning of 2017, she started thinking seriously of transitioning but there were still some obstacles—the expense, the effect on family and friends, and not least, the effect on her running. She was in the best shape of her life and training for December’s Cal International Marathon was going well. If she started hormone treatment, she’d slow down. Then patellar tendinitis developed, the marathon was not going to happen. Taylor took it as a sign.

She joined a trans counseling group in October 2017, and started hormone therapy on March 11, 2018—testosterone blockers and 6mg a day of estradiol. For perspective, a normal dose of estradiol for birth control is 1mg per day, six times less than Taylor takes. With higher dosages come higher risks—high blood pressure, heart attack, stroke, and of course, sterility. The testosterone blocker makes potassium rise leading to increased risk of muscle cramps and heart arrhythmia. Then, there are the desired effects—breast growth, decreased muscle mass, softening of skin and hair, decrease in size of genitalia and erectile dysfunction, which Taylor said, “is a beautiful thing.”

Some things, like meds and part of gender reassignment surgery (constructing a vagina), are covered by insurance, but some, like the $50,000 facial feminization surgery Taylor will have this August, are not.

Taylor was injured and hadn’t run for five months when she started transitioning, so whether it was lack of fitness, hormones, or simply being 45 years old, those first runs in April 2018 were eye opening.

“I worked up to four miles at 8:30 pace and was absolutely wiped out. It was clear, running was going to be the hardest part about transitioning. Two years ago, I did a 20 mile run at 7-minute pace; now that’s my tempo pace. That’s hard. I’m still a competitive person. Which is another thing—I struggle with competing as a woman. I want to run hard, but I don’t want to cause controversy, or take anything away from those who were born female. ”

While science can’t prove unequivocally that trans female athletes have no lingering testosterone advantage, USATF and IAAF guidelines call for 12 months of hormone therapy and testosterone levels below 5nmol/L. Taylor has had, at this writing, 15 months of hormone therapy, and her testosterone levels, monitored regularly by her doctor, are on the low end of normal for women. Her experiences too have been consistent with the data that informed the IAAF rules—her performances as a man ranged from 80 percent to 87 percent age graded, and since transitioning have been about the same, age-graded at 81 percent to 84 percent. Her mile time fell from 5:01 in 2017 to 5:37 in 2019, slower by about 12 percent, which is the average difference between elite male and female performances. What all that says is that Andie Taylor is about as good a runner as Andrew Taylor.

What those stats can’t describe is the joy of finally being in the right body. Taylor proudly showed me her new driver’s license—Andrea Taylor, female. “I’m so elated, just on cloud nine! I wish I had done this earlier. I didn’t know I would be so accepted. My friends and family have been so supportive. It’s so cool when people I don’t know refer to me as she.”

Taylor placed third in the women’s 40-49 age group at Brian Kraft 5K, in 19:26—about what she’d predicted, based on her training. It was a cool, rainy day, and she was in her element, amongst her people—runners—laughing, sharing post race stories. Almost like a new person. It was strange, Taylor admitted, being a person with 46 years of life experience, and at the same time, being completely new to femaleness.