In 1996, Wilfrid Forgues became Olympic canoe champion. 20 years later, in 2016, Wilfrid becomes Sandra, who fights for equal rights for transgender people.
“It goes wonderfully well when you live in the skin of the person you feel, that you have always been”says Sandra Forgues, gold medalist at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics in two-seater canoeing. “I had this incredible chance to be an Olympic champion, I was a man (at the time)”, she says. What does the fact of reviewing period images cause? “When I remember those moments, I remember them as if I had been a woman in fact, the brain switches completely and perhaps fortunately”explains Sandra Forgues.
“Transidentity is not a choice”
According to her, “Transidentity is not a choice”. “We’ve had this since childhood, I’ve struggled with it for years and it comes back to you very violently”, notes Sandra Forgues. The transition is “something terrible, very violent, where you deconstruct yourself, you are nothing before hoping to rebuild yourself”, she says. Should the creation of a “transgender” category in sport, as mentioned by some? “Transgender people make up about 0.6% of the population. So the ‘invasion’ of trans people that endangers women’s sport, no, that’s just fantasy”concludes Sandra Forgues.
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