Netflix’s ‘Stay on Board’ Documentary Highlights the Unbearable Pressure Trans Athletes Face

Netflix’s latest documentary, Stay on Board: The Leo Baker Story—which began streaming today—makes one thing abundantly clear: Society has made life very difficult for trans athletes.

Long before he came out publicly as trans, Leo Baker knew he wasn’t Lacey Baker. The name, the long blond hair, the clothes, and the relentless emphasis on “female”—none of it was true to the person Leo knew himself to be. And yet, his entire career was built on the back of the Lacey Baker brand, one of the top “female” skateboarders in the world.

“I remember being in meetings [as a kid], and it was a conversation amongst adults,” Baker recalls in an interview for the documentary, “of them being like, ‘All the way down to the name. Lacey Baker. It’s so marketable.'”

Without any say in the matter, Baker’s career and financial livelihood had become intricately intertwined with an identity that simply wasn’t his. He knew he was trans, and had known for years. By the time directors Nicola Marsh and Giovanni Reda began filming him in 2019—when he was preparing to skateboard in the 2020 Olympics—he had asked his friends and family to call him Leo. But most of the professional skateboarding world still knew him as Lacey. He had won a number of international skateboarding competitions as “Lacey Baker,” including the Street League Super Crown in 2016. He admits that, for a long time, he didn’t think coming out would ever be an option for him, because of his career.

Watching Baker live in this liminal space—constantly being misgendered and misnamed—is painful, because it’s so clearly tearing him apart. “I feel like I’m living a split life,” he confesses at one point. He doesn’t correct his mom when she calls him Lacey. (She stresses she is trying her best to remember his name and pronouns, and, by the end of the movie, has no slip-ups.) He smiles and says “Thank you,” at a professional lunch when he is approached by a man who seems almost aggressively set on referring to Leo as “female.” He even, while on the phone to schedule his top surgery, tells the administrative assistant that “Lacey Baker” is fine for his preferred name, until his girlfriend gently pushes him to correct that to Lee.

It’s heartbreaking, to watch Baker sacrifice his comfort, happiness, and personhood, all because he seemingly doesn’t want to inconvenience anyone. And, of course, because he knows what will—and does—happen when he finally comes out as trans as a professional skateboarder. Were he anyone else, he says, “I would just transition and move to a new city and live happily ever after. But I’m a space where I have to have a conversation about it with the world. And I don’t want to.”

When Baker posts an Instagram asking people to use they/them or he/him pronouns for him, the vile transphobia in the comments is predictable, perhaps, but no less hurtful for him to see. As he continues to work toward the 2020 Olympics, the hostility continues. Trans athletes have become something of a hyper-fixation for conservatives in the last five years, with 150 anti-trans bills have been proposed in state legislatures this year alone. Some people in Baker’s life urge him to stay in the closet for just another year. It’s the Olympics, right? But, as Baker says bluntly, “If I wait one more year, there might not be any Leo.”

Ultimately, he decides to resign from the U.S. Women’s Olympic Skateboarding Team. His relief is palpable, and it’s an undeniably joyous moment. “I feel like I’ve served my fucking time,” he says. (That decision is further validated when 2020 Olympics are delayed a year thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic.) Yet, while it’s rewarding to see him so happy—finally free to be himself in the skateboarding world—you can’t help but despair at the injustice of it all. He made what his agent called “the most difficult decision of his career.” But all he did was be himself. It’s the rest of the world who made that difficult.