The Compromise
Kaylen Reilly valued fairness and compromise more than anything. She had since childhood, playing referee between her parents and siblings. She knew, just knew, that there was an answer everyone could be happy with, or equally unhappy with, as was often the case. It was this principle that had lead her into politics. With it, she had fostered success for half-measures, new coats of paint on old problems, and convoluted schemes that would drive everyone to frustration. Such was the nature of ambition.
The arena of her greatest success lay before her now. As a senator, she had introduced the legislation, funded the office that implemented the policy, and resigned her seat to become the chief executive of this new institution. Here it was. The solution, finally, to the problem: transgender athletes in sports.
Oh, she was no bigot, of course. She loved transgender people. Even her own niece was one, or something. She certainly mentioned something about pronouns. So, Kaylen of course understood the issue. But there were legitimate and troubling issues that needed to be debated! And if activists were going to turn everything into a debate about “rights,” without explaining themselves, they’d have to accept when people were uncomfortable, or downright angry. This was easy for someone like her, unbiased, to see.
Kaylen had found an answer that enraged both sides, and therefore, must be smart, or even righteous. If a few goody two shoes activists had to complain, that was proof she was doing something right. How could people not see it? All the arguments about “rights” in the past just went in an endless loop. When you addressed the concerns of so-called activists, the backlash only perpetuated the cycle. That’s why balance was so important. Balance and fairness and trying new things that neither side anticipated.
She’d heard all the concerns from parents. Of course, they couldn’t find virtually any cases where transgender girls in locker rooms were disruptive. There was no mass wave of trans athletes dominating girls’ sports, not at the college level, and certainly not in the pros. The truth was, there weren’t very many trans women athletes at all. But people had their concerns. Would they just be ignored? Would they be placated by saying “that’s not a real problem”? Something had to be done. Just not the “right” thing. People wouldn’t accept it any other way. Kaylen Reilly understood just how reasonable people could be, because she was the most reasonable one of all.
How else could she have built this, the answer to every reasonable concern? As director of the National Athletics Syndicate, she was in control of every sports league in the country. It wouldn’t be reasonable nor balanced to allow a patchwork of regulations, after all.
This is how it worked:
Trans athletes were banned, by default, from virtually all sports. In exchange, the bill mandated the creation not just of a new sports league for trans athletes, but a new sport.
How else to ensure fairness? Here, we’d have athletes of all (trans)genders, body types, skill sets, and even ages competing. There weren’t enough of them to create actual leagues for basketball and so on. And so combatball was invented. Two players, one hard rubber ball, an elevated scoring platform. They fight. They fight for the ball. Get the ball in the designated area, get points. It’s martial arts plus capture the flag plus rugby. There are judges, who contribute a score based on creativity and form. There are sometimes even weapons. The rules vary slightly from zone to zone and division to division.
Naturally, some criticized the flashier elements. The pro wrestling style character drama of it all, the violence, the lasers, the fog. But the state couldn’t just fund such a massive operation for nothing. People had many reasonable concerns about their tax dollars. So, the government had pre-sold the worldwide media rights to Alternative Athletics League Combatball to cable and streaming. In private moments, Kaylen hoped the league might even turn a profit in a few years.
Combatball had the potential to change everything, and theirs was the only game in town. No one could poach their athletes, either: they were signed to exclusive contracts and forbidden under penalty of law from ever signing with another league. The leagues, of course, were forbidden from hiring trans athletes anyway. The system worked.
Some derided it as a freak show. Of course, that misunderstood the fundamental dignity of our players, Kaylen thought. If some choose to be theatrical in their performance, who is the government to deny them that? Perhaps some fans seemed far too invested in the violence, too leering as young trans women pummeled each other, sometimes losing teeth or breaking bones.
But wasn’t that just proof of their passion? Kaylen could see it. Those girls were fighting for something. Something real, that she had given them. In her infinite reasonability, her never-ending commitment to perfect balance, she had come up with “the compromise”: We get everything — a ban on trans athletes in all sports, except government-controlled combatball. In exchange, they get everything they want: Hormones, surgeries, clothes, housing, and of course paychecks.
There are universal benefits, of course. We can’t start them with nothing. But this is a capitalist society, and competition can only make everyone improve, Kaylen knew from her economics courses at Stanford. It was a mathematic certainty, she was pretty sure a professor had said. Maybe it was a grad student. So they compete. You get more money and more health credits with more successes. Perform better, work your way up in competition, and you can be fast-tracked into your ideal body.
One surprising benefit of all this was that the best players became more and more attractive over time. They were in great shape, confident, and had access to the best medicine and surgery American taxpayer money could buy. Their star player and early league champ Addison Davies (they/them from Jacksonville, FL) had become something of a sex symbol, even. See, America loved trans people, she thought.
Despite all the protestations from the trans activist crowd, she felt that she was doing good. She saw the athletes becoming a community. She saw the way they talked after even the most violent matches. The way coaches and mentors and support staff were all drawn into the games, and the lives of their players.
She saw, even, their appreciation. It wasn’t uncommon to see players whisper to each other and point to her. She even caught them smiling a few times. And when she talked to them, they were always polite. Kind, even. They’d look her right in the eye.
Once, Addison said to her, “People aren’t going to forget this.” She said it with such seriousness. In fact, her arms were almost trembling. She was overcome with emotion, it seemed. That night, she violently hurled the ball at the arena walls during one section of the match. By coincidence, it happened to slam right into the glass partition that Kaylen stood behind to watch. She knew it must have been a coincidence. It was odd when it happened again, from Addison’s opponent in that match. But theatrical flourishes weren’t uncommon.
Soon, she was hearing it from every athlete she met. “People won’t forget this.” “We’ll remember this forever.” “We will make you remember what you did to us.” For us. No, she must have said “for us.”
And the ball made its way to her window more and more, oddly enough. Even when she’d added curtains and other protective measures to make herself less visible. Less of a target. The ball kept coming. Match after match, a lean, a whisper, a point, and a smile. It started with just a few. But then, it was a pattern. In nearly every match, one opponent would throw the ball in that way — firm, hard, and clearly deliberate. Then, in the next round, the other player would do the same thing. And they’d stop at the end of the match, point, and smile to each other. Sometimes, it almost looked like laughing.
Athlete after athlete continued this rite. Trans women, trans men, non-binary, xgender, agender, genderqueer. It seemed like it would never stop. What would get them to stop, she thought. What could she do? She’d done so much. She’d been so reasonable.
She looked at the news coverage to try and process it. There was Addison Davies on Defector. “Addison Davies on commissioner-targeting trend: ‘Glass always breaks,’’ read the headline. She blinked. Glass always breaks. Kaylen Reilly heard the sound of a hard rubber ball bouncing off of plexiglass in her nightmares that night. This was the compromise, she remembered. This was the answer. It was reasonable. The system had to be reasonable. She was reasonable. She was in the system. It had to be reasonable. It had to be. Glass didn’t always break.
She knew her in heart, she had solved the problem. She had fixed it. If everyone hated it, she must be doing it right. If all her athletes hated her, she was doing her job. If people hissed and booed at her in public, she was doing something right. It didn’t matter if every night, trans people, young and old, looked at her with rage burning bright like butane torches. Pointed at her like their fingers shot bolts of righteous lightning. Slammed a hard rubber ball in her direction, again and again. It didn’t matter. This was a practical solution, responding to reasonable concerns. This was the compromise.
© Jessica Umbra, 2025
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