Crossing over: Transgender woman stays in the race

Editor's note: This was originally published June 8, 2015.

When it comes to endurance sports, Jaimie Good is tough.

She's been a fierce competitor in duathlons, aquathlons and triathlons for 15 years. When she was in the service, she coached the Army 10-Miler running team.

Among her many medals, she holds a first place overall title from an iron-distance triathlon (that's a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike ride, 26.2 mile run) back in 2010. She placed second in that same race in 2008.

But last year's duathlon series at Fellow's Lake was different. It was the first time Good competed since transitioning from a man to a woman. She was more than two years post surgery (a requirement for transgender triathletes in sanctioned events) and had been taking hormone treatments for almost four years.

"I met the requirements. I felt like I could race," Good said.

It was during that race Good met Missy Belk, a nurse practitioner who would become one of her biggest competitors, toughest training partners and dearest friends.

"She beat me in the first run. Then I passed her on the bike, and then she passed me on the second run," Good recalled.

"It hurt bad trying to chase her," Belk said, grimacing as though she could still feel the pain.

In that particular duathlon race last year, Belk was the overall female winner, with Good just six seconds behind her.

When asked if it bothered her that perhaps her closest competitor in local races used to be a man, Belk shook her head.

"It doesn't bother me," said Belk, 41. "We have fun. She is an athlete — a phenomenal athlete. She needs to keep doing it."

Good smiled at her friend.

"It's really nice to have that support," said Good, a 35-year-old MSU nursing student. "And it's nice to have a good training partner, too."

When Good signed up for the duathalon series last year, race organizer Eric Johnson said a few anonymous people questioned the fairness of a transgender athlete competing. Johnson chose to follow the USA Triathlon rules regarding transgender athletes and allow Good to compete.

"I think there is a misunderstanding people have about how the body performs and how hormones affect that," Johnson said. "She was always so much better than the other guys when she was a male. She is just athletically gifted. She is a really good athlete. People didn't understand how much she lost in terms of speed compared to what she had as a man."

According to the director of clinical services for the Center of Excellence for Transgender Health, Dr. Madeline Deutsch, the USA Triathlon and the International Olympic Committee established the "two-year" rule because that gives time for any lingering athletic benefits of testosterone to leave the body and essentially even the playing field for transgender women competing against other women.

With her body no longer producing testosterone and her taking female hormones, Deutsch said Good's muscle mass would decline. Also, Good would have a lower red blood cell count, meaning her blood had lost aerobic capacity.

"These are the two main differences between male and female athletes: decreased muscle mass and the decreased oxygen carrying capacity," Deutsch said. "After two years we think that pretty much everything is equal and any advantage would go away."

While she is still able to cross the finish line before most women and men, Good said her running pace while training was about 6 minutes per mile — before transitioning. Today, her training pace is about 7 minutes per mile.

Her bone structure hasn't changed but that actually creates a potential disadvantage, she said.

"Your aerobic capacity and your muscle density decreased, and yet you have to carry around a heavier skeleton," Good said.

"You have to look at the person as an individual and not just make a blanket statement like, 'Men are faster than women and therefore it's cheating' or 'You just transitioned so you could win in sports.,' " Good said with a laugh. "I was winning a lot more (as a man) than I am now."

Johnson met Good back at a duathlon series in 2000. The two have trained together and traveled to many races together over the years.

"She has always been one of those people who is very soft spoken, not egotistical or brags a lot. She just wanted her results to speak for her. She never wanted a lot of attention, before the surgery or after the surgery," Johnson said. "I have nothing but a lot of respect for her, and as much now as I ever had."

MSU assistant basketball coach Jackie Stiles runs with Good and Belk about once a week. Stiles and Good have never competed in a sanctioned event because Stiles sticks to running-only races while Good likes the combination of running, biking and/or swimming. Even so, Stiles said she really has no opinion on the matter because Stiles has only known Good as a woman.

"If we were at a race and she beat me, I would say, 'Hey, she deserves it. She earned it," Stiles said. "She is a great person. And she's been good to me and a great workout partner."

After paying for gender reassignment surgery, Good said she can't afford to race as much as she used to. After last year's duathlon series, she went on to compete in last year's Republic Tiger Tri, a classic triathlon consisting of running, biking and swimming.

Good was the overall winner among men and women with a time of 57:57. She ran that same race in 2010 — as a man — and tied for second with a slightly faster time of 56:29.

"It just depends on who shows up. You can put me in a race out of 100 people and I can be 100th place," Good said.

"There are women in this area who are faster (runners) than me. I train with them and try to get faster," she said. "But a triathlon — not many could put together all three sports and be faster. I can put all three sports together pretty well."

Good plans to compete in the USA Triathlon Long Course Triathlon National Championship in Oklahoma City later this year.

At age 5, Good was at a neighbor's house in Hannibal when she — then a little boy — first put on a dress.

When asked if she was just playing dress up or if the dress felt right, even at that young age, Good paused for a moment.

"I don't think I was just playing."

Good joined the Army Reserves at age 17 in an effort to suppress her feelings of being a woman and — as she puts it — "learn how to be a man."

"It didn't work," she said.

When Good was 19, her older brother was killed in an automobile accident. That tragedy changed Good in a couple significant ways. Good wanted nothing to do with automobiles so she began riding a bicycle, thus beginning her road to triathlons. And Good made the decision to transition.

"I guess his death made me realize you never know what was going to happen in life. I felt like I had to transition," she said. "After I came out to my mom at 19, I pretty much started transitioning, although I couldn't completely transition because I was in the reserves and then later being in active duty."

Good got out of the Army in 2012 and began living full time as a woman.

"When Jaimie revealed to us she was planning to transition, I remember thinking I lost one son. Why do I have to lose another?" her mom, Debbie said. "Now that she has transitioned, I realize I didn't lose anyone. This is the same person I've always known."

Good is a nursing student at Missouri State University. She and her girlfriend, Aiyana Rose, who is also a transgender woman, were recently featured on the Discovery Life Channel series called "New Girls on the Block."

Good has a bachelor's degree in anthropology and a master's in sports medicine.

"I just want to be treated as a woman and treated with respect," she said.

Governing bodies say:

USA Triathlon, the governing body for most sanctioned triathlons, accepts the guidelines established by the International Olympic Committee. In 2003, the International Olympic Committee expressly allowed both male-to-female and female-to-male transgender people to compete in the games so long as they met these three requirements:

• Surgical anatomical changes have been completed, including external genitalia changes and gonadectomy. (Eligibility should begin no sooner than two years after gonadectomy.)

• Legal recognition of their assigned sex has been conferred by the appropriate official authorities.

• Hormonal therapy appropriate for the assigned sex has been administered in a verifiable manner and for a sufficient length of time to minimize gender-related advantages in sport competitions.

• To find rules regarding transgender athletes in other sports, visit transathlete.com