Make It Count: My Fight to Become the First Transgender Olympic Runner

In this stirring debut memoir, Telfer recounts the challenges she has faced throughout her career as a trans athlete. Growing up in Jamaica, Telfer was bullied for the feminine “way I walk and talk” but discovered that her athleticism earned the begrudging respect of her classmates. While attending college in New Hampshire, she lived as a woman but competed on the men’s track team until the dysphoria caused by competing in the men’s category led her to quit. She resolved to join the women’s team her senior year and was pleasantly surprised when the women’s coach welcomed her with open arms; Telfer went on to win the women’s 400-meter hurdles event at the 2019 NCAA national championships. After graduating, she set her sights on the 2021 Olympics and qualified for the 100-meter and 400-meter hurdles events, but her dreams were dashed after the World Athletics organization banned trans women from competing in the women’s category. The many injustices Telfer has had to endure outrage, but the clipped prose sometimes saps the narrative of momentum (“I get home. I hesitate. I’m not supposed to be on social media. Especially not now. But I can’t resist,” she writes of her deliberation over whether to read Donald Trump Jr.’s critical tweet about her in the run-up to the NCAA championships). Still, this tale of persisting in the face of adversity uplifts. (June)