Liberating Questions
vs constricting questions
Arguably the most rigorous work in my current repertoire, the work that requires the most presence from me during and the most recovery time after, is interviewing. Preparing for an interview is hard work because, although it is fairly easy to ask softball questions and get lukewarm rehearsed answers, it is extremely difficult to ask great questions that invite the interviewee to come alive. To ask them what they want to be asked, what they rarely get asked, what they didn’t know they wanted to get asked until you ask it.
Then even when the prep is over, an interview requires me to listen so hard and watch for the spark behind their eyes and ask a follow up question that I didn’t see coming until it presents itself in the moment. I have to be willing to let go of my entire plan and all the time I put into it if a more vital and lively conversation begins to emerge that takes us in an unexpended direction. When I trained in oral history, we talked about walking an interviewee through a house in their mind, asking them to dwell in certain rooms of their mind longer than usual, drop out of time, and get lost in memories. That is when we get off script and the art can emerge.
In our fast-paced society, the muscles that undergird the art of conversation can atrophy. I am always a little surprised when I am with a good question asker, when I am around someone who is truly curious and seems in no hurry for me to finish my response. It’s delightful. I strive to be that person, too.
The most powerful position in any conversation is curiosity. The person asking genuine questions controls the depth, direction, and quality of the exchange. The person asking the question has to be willing to be surprised and to listen so hard that fear loses its grip. That it ends up in an completely unexpected spot. All too often, in the conversation about trans athletes, the IS IT FAIR? question is asked without genuine curiosity and a willingness to grow. Without curiosity, the question is mired in assumptions that have to be unpacked first. The question asker has not done the prep work necessary for the conversation to go somewhere interesting and uncontrolled by the asker. Then it is not really a question, is it, but rather an invitation for their preconceived notion or bias to be confirmed.
It is time to start asking better questions and having better conversations about trans athletes. It is time for cis people to direct the questions to ourselves. White bodied supremacy will not end until we look at the structures that uphold it and white people, myself included, take a look inside our own bodies and do work there. Transphobia will not end until we look at the structures that uphold it and cis people, myself included, take a look inside our own bodies and do work there. Trans athletes will be used as a distraction from the real work until we shift the questions to structures and do some inner work.
Our own bodies is always a good place to start and to return to. One strategy is for folks to do the inner work of running our own held beliefs through Byron Katie’s questions, which she refers to as The Work. Write down a belief about trans athletes and then ask yourself:
1. Is it true?
2. Can you absolutely know it’s true?
3. How do you react when you believe this thought?
4. What would you be without this thought?
Another strategy for cis folks to be willing to turn the work inward is to use the ten questions we include in the Appendix of FAIR GAME:
Ten Better Questions Cis Folks Can Ask Each Other:
Can you tell me about your experience being cis?
When you talk about someone’s gender and sex, what do you mean?
What, if anything, bothers you about the idea of trans athletes competing in sports? Where does the rub come from? Where do you feel it in your body?
Why are men assumed to be superior athletes? If you learned that, when, how and from whom?
Why and how do we categorize athletes by gender? Why does women’s sport exist?
Why do so few institutions in this country comply with Title IX? Why do women’s sports get so much less support, media coverage, and pay than men’s?
Why is violence against girls and women so high in sports? Who is being harmed and by whom in sports? Who is safe and who is at risk?
Who is benefiting financially from restricting trans kids and adults from playing?
Why do black and brown girls have less access to resources and drop out of sports at double the rate compared to their white, wealthy, suburban counterparts? How can we better support all bodies to play?
How can we remove cost as a barrier so more kids can play sports?
I believe if more cis people, including myself, do this inner work, our conversations will not only be able to focus on structures and where the real generative and liberating work lies, it will also bring a curiosity, vitality, and aliveness back to our questions and conversations. Then it’s going to get fun.