The Subversive Sirens, a gold-medal winning Minnesota-based synchronized swimming team is working to promote LGBTQ-inclusiveness and equity in swimming, body positivity and queer visibility. Team member Jae Hyun Shim, who identifies as queer and nonbinary, discusses group’s efforts.
SPEAKER 1: It's All Things Considered on MPR News. Minnesota-based synchronized swimming team started with the hopes of competing in the gay games in 2018, and it went on to win the gold medal. Now the Subversive Sirens has an even bigger platform for its work promoting LGBTQ inclusiveness and equity in swimming. This week, we're bringing you stories about swimmers of color as part of NPR's water month. Today, we're featuring a relatively new synchronized swimmer with the Subversives, who talks about what it's like to feel included in the sport.
JAE HYUN SHIM: My name is Jae Hyun Shim, and I'm a member of the Subversive Sirens.
[CIARA, "LEVEL UP]
Five, four, three, two, one
Leggo! Watch me
Level up, level up, level up, level up.
JAE HYUN SHIM: The mission for the Subversive Sirens is based around Black liberation, queer visibility, body positivity and athletics, and equity in the aquatic arts and swimming. I joined the group in December of this last year. I started swimming synchro one month earlier. And I got in the water. They showed me some moves. I figured out that I still sink to the bottom of the pool very quickly.
[INAUDIBLE]
And I've learned how to get better at sculling and doing things to keep myself up top, and it's just been a ton of fun.
[INAUDIBLE]
I am exhausted at the end of it. Like, going through the routine is, like, running for four minutes straight, but without being able to breathe for half of it. I am non-binary, and I'm also a queer identified. Many people on our team are queer lesbian.
I'm Korean-American and was adopted from Korea as a baby. Swimming is a really white world, like a lot of sports in Minnesota. But because swimming you are so much more exposed, I think, getting to see people who have skin tones like yours and features like yours and bodies that are different than this really athletic model that is put out through media is really the kind of representation that a lot of us didn't get as children, and we have access to now and we get to be those people now.
SPEAKER 2: OK, are we ready? Here we go. [INAUDIBLE]
(SINGING) I believe in the gay power.
JAE HYUN SHIM: To allow trans women of color to continuously be our leaders as they have been, and to create that space and safety, we're ensuring that that's a really huge part of our routine.
[INAUDIBLE]
Transgender folks and gender non-conforming folks have a lot of problems accessing pool spaces because locker rooms themselves are a big barrier for a lot of people, or feeling comfortable enough wearing a small amount of clothing and having parts of your body that you don't identify with really be on display is difficult for people. And so being a person who can openly and strongly say that this is my identity and this is a place where we belong to, I think, opens up doors for other people who are feeling that way.
SPEAKER 1: That was Jae Hyun Shim, a member of the Subversive Sirens. This audio postcard was produced by our Riham Feshir as part of the Water Main from MPR News, helping Minnesotans understand the value of water in their lives. Head over to mprnews.org to see videos and photos of the Subversive Sirens practicing their routine.
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