The pool was safety to transgender swimmer Schuyler Bailar. He wants it that way for others

For Schuyler Bailar, the pool represented something more than fun. It was a place of safety and comfort. It was where Bailar could be himself.

The problem was outside of it.

"I was often bullied for not being gender-conforming," Bailar said in an interview with USA TODAY. "In high school I decided I was sick of being bullied."

Bailar would go on to swim for Harvard. While there, he used that prominent platform to bring attention to the attacks on the transgender community. He'd continue that fight after school, becoming a humanitarian and persistent advocate. That fight is needed as trans athletes are under attack on a number of different fronts.

In fact, recently, more than a dozen cisgender female athletes sued the National Collegiate Athletic Association over its transgender participation policy, which the athletes claim violates their rights under Title IX, the law that prohibits discrimination based on sex at any institution that receives federal funding.

Bailar's story (his first name is pronounced "SKY-lar"), like the previous ones in this four-part series, is important to tell because we must see and listen to these trailblazing athletes in all of their humanness and, truly, in their own words.

How impressive has Bailar's journey been? In 2015, while swimming for Harvard, he became the first transgender athlete to compete on an NCAA Division 1 men's team. He's also become one of the most vocal and powerful athletes fighting for the rights of the trans community. Bailar's efforts became so nationally recognized that in 2016 he was profiled on 60 Minutes.

Since then, his efforts to bring awareness, and fight discrimination, have only become more pronounced. Bailar's book, He/She/They: How We Talk About Gender and Why It Matters, was published by Hachette in October of 2023. Bailar says the book helps bring common sense to the ongoing conversation about the trans community.

"Everybody is debating trans rights," Bailar said, "and where trans people belong, and if we belong, and yet most Americans claim they've never met a trans person. Most can't accurately define the word 'transgender...'"

Bailar is trying to change all of that. It's his mission.