Independent Council on Women's Sports

My talk at the International Women's Sports Summit in Denver

This morning I spoke at the International Women’s Sports Summit in Denver. Below is a transcript of the talk. Well, it is what I wrote. And what I meant to say. And did, for the most part. I went off script a little. But you’ll get the idea.

---

Since most of you probably have no idea who I am (if you do, it is probably driven by my covid dissenting and not my status as a former elite athlete) or why I’m here today to speak with you . . . I’ll start by telling my story. If you do have an idea it might be driven by headlines which can be misleading.

My headline on me is that I tend to say things that are true that regular folks as well as those in positions of power and leadership don’t want me to say and it gets me in trouble. I’ve done it two times, in two different decades, very publicly, and found myself in a heap of trouble for it.

Everyone has a story and this is mine. And I’m telling my story because we remember stories, not data nor facts. Though I’m glad doctors and academics are here arming us with data and facts. But we are inspired by stories. We remember stories.

And my story is an exhortation to speak up. To do the right thing. Yes there’s a cost. I’m not going to lie to you. It’s hard. My story can also be viewed as a cautionary tale.

But it is necessary to speak up even if it’s hard. Because the alternative is unthinkable. We sacrifice safety, we sacrifice children, we sacrifice women and we sacrifice truth. I won’t do that. Even if it’s hard. No matter how hard it is.

We need you to join in fighting for children, and women, and in fighting for truth.

I’m a former elite gymnast.

I had an unusual childhood. But not so unusual to the athletes here. Just to “normies” who actually experience childhood. I didn’t.

I trained 6, 7, even 10 hours a day. And in 1986 I became the US National Champion.

During my time as a gymnast I endured a forced starvation diet of less than 400 calories a day, I was fat shamed for gaining a quarter of a pound, my weight — all of 98 pounds — was announced on the loud speaker at my gym if deemed “too fat.” I was screamed at as “lazy” and called “garbage,” I was forced to train on serious injuries including a broken ankle. I broke my femur at the World Championships in 1985 and came back less than 9 months later to win the USA National Championships. Sounds brave. It was, to some extent. But it was also self-annihilating.

When I left the sport ashamed and defeated, I was depressed, had terrible nightmares every night, and thought I had no value in the world beyond this sport that I was done with and was done with me. I felt that way because of how I was coached, not because of what I achieved. I achieved a great deal. I should have been proud.

Abuse of athletes — emotional, physical, sexual — was par for the course. At my gym, 2 of the 8 key staff members were sexually abusing athletes. 8 of the 8 were emotionally and physically abusing the athletes.

The national team coach (before Béla and Márta Károlyi) was a man named Don Peters. For almost a decade he was the coach of the National Team and his own club SCATs. He was the coach of the silver medal winning 1984 Olympic Gymnastics Team.

He was also a sexual abuser. A pedophile. He had coached at a club in the 70s in Connecticut. As the story goes, he was caught abusing a gymnast and the head coach sent him out to California to coach at another club. There, he went on to abuse other athletes. Including my close friend.

It was whispered about. It was known.

I traveled all over the world with Don — Russia, France, Italy. We all knew to stay away from him. To avoid being alone with him. We all also knew don’t say that out loud. Whisper it to each other? Sure. But not out loud.

But when we whisper, the truth stays hidden. The bullies win. The abusers continue abusing. And he did.

He was well respected. By USAG (USGF at the time). He was a coach known for technique. The science of the sport. He brought home medals. Members of his own team populated the national team in huge numbers.

So we all stayed quiet. Including my friend. Who was raped by Don on several occasions. He abused and assaulted others as well.

We felt we didn’t matter enough to speak up. We knew the governing body and our club coaches were mostly interested in protecting the image of the sport — shiny, happy pixies dancing around. Stories of sexual assault flew in the face of that and would impact business — sponsorships, kids signing up for classes at local clubs. We couldn’t have that!

I’d argue the leaders and coaches were so immersed in their mode of doing business, of coaching, that they actually didn’t think of the abusive coaching as wrong. They just said: it’s tough coaching.

It wasn’t. It was abuse. But the abusers managed to turn the whole sport into a funhouse of distortion. The governing body furthered it. And they all failed to do their primary duty — to protect the athletes. The athletes who make the sport what it is. Leaders and coaches sacrificed children in the name of money and medals.

So we stayed quiet and let them tell their story. Because we thought we didn’t have a chance at being heard. And ultimately, even we came to believe their story at our own expense.

But the truth always has a chance. And I’d argue the truth always outs in the end. And it did in gymnastics. Eventually.

But it was a dereliction of duty by every adult who looked the other way or who bought into the false narrative. Their obligation was to protect children. They failed. And I don’t care if it was because they lied or bought into a lie. The result was the same. Children suffered.

20 years later, in 2008, I wrote a book called Chalked Up, exposing the abuses in the sport of gymnastics. It was the first first-person account of how truly cruel the sport is.

Let’s just say, the world inside the sport — the Olympic movement — wasn’t ready for this message. They were invested in upholding the false narrative that gymnasts are happy pixies dancing around. This is how they generated sponsors. And sponsorship dollars paid high salaries for USA gymnastics executives.

When I wrote the book, I naively thought that the abuse in the sport was an open secret. Not a secret secret. I was somehow unaware, two decades out of that environment, that we were not to speak of it. That we were to further a lie. And I was unprepared for the backlash.

My naiveté is what gets me in trouble.

I learned fast though. That it stinks to go first. I was dragged in the press and across the internet for saying things that were patently true — emotional and physical abuse is rampant in the sport, the coaching culture is one of extreme cruelty, children are abused as a matter of course. Medals and adult reputations matter more than the well-being of  children. I was harassed relentlessly by officials in the sport.

Steve Penny, then head of USAG (now disgraced for having covered up the Nassar abuse), called me at work (I didn’t answer) to tell me I needed to stop. That things had changed since the 80s (they hadn’t). Jane Allen, then head of Australia Gymnastics, future head of British Gymnastics called me a liar and said I was harming the sport.

I kept going. My voice got stronger the more pushback I received.

I wrote the book because I continued to suffer the repercussions of this training environment as an adult. I did it because I didn’t want other young athletes to go through what I did. I did it because what I said was true. And I wished that some adult had stood up for me, when I was going through it, rather than protect the reputations of coaches and USA Gymnastics and USOC leaders.

A few years after I wrote the book, Don Peters was banned from the sport. Progress. The book inspired athletes who had been abused by Peters to report that abuse to the governing body. USAG dragged their feet, but eventually, the noise was loud enough that they had to act. A win.

Ten years after I wrote the book, Larry Nassar, the now disgraced former “doctor” for Team USA Gymnastics, went to prison for life for sexually abusing hundreds of young athletes. I was redeemed. The entire community pretended they had always stood with me. They hadn’t. I remember. 

I went from being a pariah in gymnastics and the overall Olympic movement, to a hero. Overnight. I was “un-cancelled.” If that’s a thing.

I should note, I’m not especially brave. Gymnastics instilled obedience in me. It’s hard for regular people with regular childhoods to understand how brutally insistent the culture was, and is, that athletes be seen and not heard.

It’s hard for me to screw up my courage and speak up, stand out, say the thing that needs to be said. I need to prod myself, push myself, to do it.

I’m not a contrarian by nature. I don’t like being hated. I hate it, in fact. But I’m loyal to the truth. I’m committed to common sense. I care about children. And I will endure the slings and arrows of a vicious mob to stand by both.

In 2018, when I was “redeemed” with the Nassar conviction, I didn’t realize I was about to go through it all again. Only this time, it would be far worse. I would go up against not just the tiny gymnastics community but what would feel like the entire world. And I won’t get into that today — because it’s an aside — but the long and short of it is I advocated for open public schools during covid and I battled my executive peers inside of Levi’s where I was the Brand President. And after a 2 year struggle and a 23 year career there, I was told I had to leave.

But it was worth it. To stand up for kids. And truth.

And that is what we need to do.

In 2020, I made a film called Athlete A that won an Emmy award for best investigative documentary. It connected the crimes of Larry Nassar to the broader culture of abuse in gymnastics.

I had no idea how to make a film, I just knew the story needed to be told to a broad audience. So I started. Then I did it. Again, my naiveté is what gets me into trouble. And also, what presents me with unimaginable opportunities.

The film had an incredible impact in sports. Athletes — current and retired — saw themselves in it. Many realized for the first time that what they gone through was, in fact, abuse. A grassroots movement was started. With the hashtags #gymnastalliance and #athletealliance, gymnasts and athletes across the world stood up, told their stories and demanded change.

Across at least 10 countries. Investigations started. Leaders were ousted for neglect. Jane Allen was forced to resign as the head of British Gymnastics. Coaches were investigated and banned.

It's what needed to happen. But imagine how many athletes would have been saved from abuse if in 2008 the governing body had taken my book seriously, investigated the claims — which were much whispered about beyond my book — instead of smearing me? How much faster would we have gotten to the right place? How many athletes would have been saved from abuse?

We need to start a movement. Each of us who cares about girls and women’s sports.

How do you start a movement? What do you call it? You don’t. You just start. You don’t brand it or over-strategize it. You just do it. You go. You start.

We need to be brave. We need to stand up. The normal people with common sense have to stop whispering at home, in the shadows to our friends and neighbors, and we need to find our voices and say true things . . . true things that EVERYONE knows to be true but are too afraid to say.

We need to laugh when they call us names. Bat them away, let them roll off your back. It’s a tactic to silence us, it’s not truth.

I don’t’ think anyone really thought I was a racist when I stood up for open schools (that’s what I was called repeatedly.) The argument was if you wanted public schools to open you didn’t care if black children died. It’s ridiculous on its face. But calling someone a racist is effective. Even if it didn’t keep me silent it kept others silent for fear of being called the same. It’s a career ending slur. But that doesn’t make it true.

I spent my life fighting for and marching for equality. But it didn’t matter. They said it anyway. Because it was effective. And while it didn’t keep me quiet, it kept others quiet for far too long.

Don’t let them further lies. Don’t be afraid of being called names which are obviously not true. Say the true thing. Say it anyway.

If we deny biology, there is no other end point than the elimination of sex-based categories in sports. No more girls and women’s sports. No more educational opportunities that come with sports. No more medals. Not more competing for girls and women. Because who is going to sign up to compete when she has no chance of a fair competition? No one. That’s where this goes if we don’t stand up.

You have a responsibility to protect children. And women’s sports. Every one of you. There is only one possible outcome if we fail to do it. If we allow them to say there is no such thing as biological advantage for males the only plausible outcome is there will be no gender categories in sports one day. That is the only possible outcome if we allow this to continue, if we fail to speak up and say a simple and very true thing — because we are afraid of being called a name.

Don’t be afraid. Don’t be careful. Say the true thing. Do it now. Do it with me. You have a responsibility. Do not forsake women, girls, children. Don’t do it. Stop whispering to your friends how little sense this all makes. Say it loud.

People ask me all the time why is this the hill you were willing to die on? Free speech and children. (They’re talking about my covid dissenting and losing my job over it). My response: why weren’t you?

If you aren’t willing to stand up for children, you simply have no hill. And you need to wrestle with that. I look myself in the mirror every day and I know I speak the truth, I know their name-calling is false. And I keep going.