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When Cat Runner climbed to the top of El Diablo — an overhanging limestone wall above the sea — in Mallorca, Spain, he won the eight-episode HBO rock climbing reality show, “The Climb.”
On the show, which aired its finale in January, 10 amateur climbers vied for a $100,000 prize plus a one-year PrAna sponsorship. Contestants faced different climbing challenges, including deep-water soloing: climbing without a rope on sea-side cliffs like El Diablo.
But Runner’s success, while lucrative, can best be measured by achieving his goal of representing the trans community in a highly visible way.
As a teenager, Runner came out as a transgender man. He began taking testosterone but wasn’t allowed to play on the boys’ team in high school sports. In 2015 he underwent top surgery, or, chest masculinization — a procedure to remove breast tissue and contour the chest.
“That was the most pivotal moment of my transition,” he said in a February interview for outsideonline.com.
He fought for the right to compete as a male for two years, until midway through his senior year, when he finally got permission. But by then he had other commitments, which left little time for a token few months of sport. Climbing, however, was never far from his mind.
“Climbing is the only sport and movement that feels completely intuitive to me,” Runner, a 24 year-old from Louisville, Ky., told me. He was introduced to rock climbing in fourth grade, but it wasn’t until he graduated from high school when he started climbing consistently, at his local bouldering gym and his home crag, the world-famous Red River Gorge in Kentucky.
“After not participating in athletics or really any kind of movement for so long — first, because of growing pains and second, because of anti-trans sports restrictions — it was really exciting to find a way to move my body again in a way that was fun and felt empowering.”
Fast-forward to the final episode of “The Climb,” when Runner climbed ropeless on All Cats Are Black in the Night (5.13a), a supremely difficult line with an insecure crux 35 feet above the Mediterranean Sea. He nailed the crux, then topped out El Diablo with an ear-to-ear smile.
“I’m very honored to be able to be a steward of the trans and queer community,” said Runner. But he cautioned, “It’s really important to remember that I am a single person. I am only sharing my experience and it is the responsibility of the viewer to not project my personal experience, my thoughts, my opinions on the entire trans community. We’re all different.”
Last month, Runner spoke on the Allies panel at the annual No Man’s Land Film Festival (NMLFF) in Denver. As its name suggests, the NMLFF celebrates women and genderqueer people in adventure film, yet the Allies panel is a cohort of men and male-identifying folks who share thoughts and answer questions.
During the panel discussion, Runner said, “I take male privilege and male perception very seriously and want to always be cognizant of how I’m utilizing that privilege… As someone who’s perceived as male and someone who, at times, identifies as male, I’m taken more seriously and people are more willing, more often, to turn to me for advice compared to more feminine people in the room.”
Runner was certainly in a unique position to discuss this idea, as Aisha Weinhold, Founder and Marketing Director of NMLFF, pointed out. “It is a rarity to move through the world as a woman and as a male, and I appreciate his awareness of how his place and space in the world has changed since transitioning.”
One thing Runner has made clear is that his trans identity doesn’t define him. On “The Climb,” they dove into Runner’s personal life in the third episode, not right away, which allowed viewers to see his trans identity as just one aspect of his life rather than the focal point.
“I don’t want to be the best trans climber. I just want to be a really good climber who happens to be trans,” said Runner. “My trans-ness affects my performance and how I come into this space, but it doesn’t affect the type of athlete I am.”
Contact Chris Weidner at cweidner8@gmail.com Follow him on Instagram @christopherweidner and Twitter @cweidner8.
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