April 01 2026, 08:15 
Days after the International Olympic Committee announced its ban on transgender women competing in women’s events, a trio of transmasculine athletes took third place in an Ironman triathlon in Oceanside, California.
Schuyler Bailar, Chella Man, and Cal Calamia, who make up Team Iron Transmasc, say that attacks on trans people’s participation in sports were heavy on their minds going into the March 28 Athletic Brewing Ironman 70.3 Oceanside, where they finished third in the men’s division, according to Out.
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But that didn’t stop them from reveling in trans joy.
“We were cracking up about the ‘transition zone,’” Calamia said of the designated areas where competitors transition between swimming, cycling, and marathon portions of the event. “Been there, done that!”
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“We were just playing — splashing in the ocean, doing cartwheels, piggyback rides,” Calamia said. “I genuinely haven’t felt this amazing in a very long time. I felt my inner child just explode out of me.”
At the same time, Calamia told the outlet, the trio “felt like we were fighting for something bigger than ourselves.” Calamia noted that they wore running shorts featuring a trans Pride flag patch, Bailar wore goggles in the flag’s colors, and Man’s cycling suit was emblazoned with the words “bodies are not bans.”
Ahead of the competition, Bailar told the Out that the IOC announcement was devastating “because it sends a message that sports are going to lead through discrimination, as opposed to being on a progressive way of moving humanity forwards, which is what they should be doing.”
Bailar echoed sports journalist and author Katie Barnes’s assertion that discussions about “fairness” in relation to trans women’s participation in women’s sports are “a red herring.”
“This concept of trans athletes being the singular thing that threatens fairness in sports is predicated upon the false conception that there currently exists fairness in sports,” Bailar said. “We have massive disparities in sports that are largely due to systemic oppression, the same oppression that oppresses trans people, patriarchy, misogyny, classism, and socioeconomic disparity, racism being a huge factor as well. And if we put all these things together and we consider, what does fairness actually look like? Now we can recognize that we don’t actually have a level playing field.”
Man said that the “politicized” climate around trans sports bans would be on their mind during the Oceanside Ironman event. “I honestly feel like I’m going to be thinking a lot about trans youth, all trans people,” they said.
“I think our ability to step into sport and say, ‘We’re going to be here anyways, we’re going to show up in all of our complexity for ourselves and for other people who can’t show up,’ hopefully that can be a statement to anybody who cares to take empowerment from that,” Bailar added.
Following their March 28 third-place finish, Calamia told the outlet the team intends to “get more trans athletes doing relays like this.”
“We’re just excited to keep inspiring people and providing a counterweight to the other conversations about trans athletes,” they said.
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