Cecé Telfer - Make It Count

2024, Cecé Telfer, English, Jamaica,

Full title: "Make It Count: My Fight to Become the First Transgender Olympic Runner" by Cecé Telfer.

"By turns harrowing and hopeful, MAKE IT COUNT is the inspiring story of the first openly transgender woman to win a NCAA title, following her traditional upbringing in Jamaica, her fight to become a US citizen, and her efforts to achieve her Olympic dreams. CeCé Telfer is a warrior. The first openly transgender woman to win an NCAA championship, she has contended with transphobia on and off the track since childhood.

Now, she stands at the crossroads of a national and international conversation about equity in sports, forced to advocate for her personhood and rights at every turn. After spending years training for the 2024 Olympics, Telfer has been sidelined and silenced more times than she can count. But she's never been good at taking no for an answer.

MAKE IT COUNT is Telfer's raw and inspiring story. From coming of age in Jamaica, where she grew up hearing a constant barrage of slurs, to beginning her new life in Toronto and then New Hampshire, where she realized what running could offer her, to living in the backseat of her car while searching for a coach, to Mexico, where she trained for the US Trials, this book follows the arc of Telfer's Olympic dream. This is the story of running on what feels like the edge of a knife, of what it means to compete when you're not just an athlete but treated like a walking controversy. But it's also the story of resilience and athleticism, of a runner who found a clarity in her sport that otherwise eluded her--a sense of being simply alive on this earth, a human moving through space. Finally, herself." 

CeCé Telfer is a Jamaican-born athlete who, in 2019, became the first openly transgender person to win an NCAA title. She was assigned male at birth and competed on the Franklin Pierce University men's track and field team in 2016 and 2017. After coming out and beginning transition, Telfer was allowed to compete in the women's division and eventually took first place in the 400-meter hurdles event in June 2019. Telfer is a trans woman and has been on hormone therapy for quite some time, which has lowered her testosterone levels below the average woman's.

She has also stated that her height, which is 6' 2", puts her at a disadvantage as her size gives her wind resistance and because in the women's 100-meter hurdles, one of her chosen events, the hurdles are placed much closer together than the men's hurdles were, over half a meter closer together. Telfer sought to compete in the 2020 Olympic Trials in the 400-meter hurdles, but was later removed from the event after USA Track & Field determined that she was not able to prove her eligibility for the event under guidelines set for transgender athletes.

Available via Amazon

Photo via Instagram