Peninsula theater festival hosts trans athlete panel discussion
By JOANNE ENGELHARDT | For The Daily News
PUBLISHED: August 25, 2020 at 10:41 a.m. | UPDATED: August 25, 2020 at 10:47 a.m.
Five trans athletes from various sports are set to participate in an Aug. 29 panel discussion that’s part of the Redwood City Festival.
Themed “Co-EXIST: Stories of Unlikely Connection,” the online festival is co-produced by Redwood City’s Fuse Theatre and Dragon Theatre. “When Equality is the Prize: A Panel of Trans Athletes” will be live streamed Saturday at 7 p.m.
Tessa Corrie, a queer Latinx director and arts advocate based in the Bay Area, is curating the panel, which she says is “grounded in creating love for this same community.”
“Trans athletes are fighting for their rights and against injustice every day,” Corrie says. “I think it’s important for our audiences to draw parallels between trans athletes in 2020 and those in 1976. How can we dismantle the barriers these athletes face today?”
Saturday’s panelists include CeCe Telfer, an NCAA Division II track and field national champion in the 400 meters, and Dr. Juniper Simonis, a four-time world champion skater who played for the Rose City Rollers’ Wheels of Justice roller derby team.
The remaining three panelists are Kristi Miller, former international dual athlete in the modern pentathlon and the aquathon; Juniper Eastwood, a former Division I track and cross country runner; and Karleigh Webb, a duathlete/triathlete and longtime sports journalist.
Holding the festival online has allowed the theater companies to expand its focus.
“We want to open up more space for important conversations around racism as well as support BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, Persons of Color) and queer artists,” says Fuse Theatre founder Stacey Ardelean.
