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now on bbc news it's hardtalk. stephen sackur interviews former olympic swimmer casey legler. welcome to hardtalk, i'm stephen sackur. imagine having an extraordinary sporting talent but finding yourself traumatised by the realities of elite—level competition. imagine being defined by your gender and physicality in ways that crushed your own sense of yourself. add to that a prolonged battle with alcohol and drugs and you have the pain—filled early life of my guest today, olympic swimmer—turned—artist, model and now writer, casey legler. what did it take to emerge from the darkness?

casey legler, welcome to hardtalk. thanks for having me. you come here having just written a rather extraordinary memoir of your early life, the first 21 years or so of your life. it is raw, it is full of pain and it exposes some of the very dark places in your own life. how hard was it to write? um, first i just want to say that it's great to be here. i told you before we started that i'm a huge fan but my wife is a massive fan and i've done, i've done, you know,

vogue covers, features, and this is what we've been most excited about so thanks for having us. i grew up watching. it's great having you here but i fear some of what we talk about is going to be quite tough. yeah, and i knew that coming in which is one of the reasons why i agreed to it because i do ask a lot of my reader. five years ago, i truly sat down and decided to write this short memoir about growing up in girlhood as a young olympian, as a young addict in the ‘90s, and what that was like for me. let's look back at the 10—year—old casey legler, raised primarily in france. although your parents were american, your dad was a professional sportsman, he was a basketball player. and by the age of 10, ii, 12, it was clear that your body, your physique was pretty

remarkable for a girl. you'd grown to be 6 foot tall, you had extraordinarily long limbs, big hands and feet and clearly, your dad in particular, who is a sportsman, could see that you might have gifts as an athlete. do you think, in a sense, your body defined what happened next? i think so. so i was 12 and 62", which is 1.85 metres. and certainly when i showed up on the pool deck when i was 12, and i talk about it, and it was one of the first times that i understood this, that perhaps my best interest wasn't exactly what was being considered. you were sort of being commodified. he was assessing you as a potential asset. absolutely. and that of course was a physical judgement because you had

all the attributes that a great swimmer would need. true. and as it turned out, when you started... i was very good. you happened to be really, really good. and reading the book, and this is where we get to the rawness and the pain, it is quite clear that very early on from this sort of elite swimming activity, you were desperately unhappy. you felt completely disconnected, in a sense, from the activity of becoming a great swimmer. i hated swimming, which is such a weird thing to say, right, ‘cause i... you excelled. i excelled, and became an olympian and after i quit swimming, one of my mentors, and i would often talk about myself as an accidental athlete and after hearing myself

talking about my swimming for a year or so in this way, she stopped me and said, "there is nothing accidental about showing up at the olympics," and i had to really kind of understand why i had swum and in writing the book, very shortly after it was written, i was diagnosed with being on the autism spectrum and this, for me, shed my entire experience as a swimmer in a completely different light because i saw my siblings to the right and to the left of me who also swam, quit and ijust didn't understand why i didn't. getting into the water was one of the most physically painful experiences. you are at room temperature, you end up having to take your parka off, your clothes off and then get into competitive temperature degree water which is, fahrenheit, about 67 degrees, i think... and you hated chlorine. i was allergic to it so i walked around just blowing my nose all the time. it was physically

a terrible experience. but you endured. idid. you endured partly because, i don't know if this is the right word, but you anaesthetised yourself with alcohol. absolutely. and with drugs. drugs. and so i think that, as my swimming took off, so did my drinking and using. as i got faster and faster, my drinking and drugging increased and there were a few reasons for that. part of it was that general irreverence and a clear understanding that any of the adults around me, just the duty of care was absent. in the kind of best circumstances, it was negligence and in the absolute worst, they were perpetrators of violence. this is where it seems to me your story gets really dark because in essence, you are describing a late childhood/adolescence in which adults were comprehensively a toxic presence in your life and we have to be honest and say even your parents would stand accused of this because whatever duty of care and love most parents acknowledge, your parents simply

weren't there for you. i mean, i think my parents weren't, the entire institution of swimming wasn't, my teachers weren't, so i think, you know, we have to be careful when we try and look for like that one person who was the bad guy but i think what we are talking about and what this book attempts to storytell is this story of how absolutely normal this very kind of banal violence that sometimes was just neglect and sometimes was, infact, physicalviolence, was normal and i think that in writing it, what i wanted to hold was the banality of the evil. hannah arendt talks about this, right?

she just...veryone was complicit, from all of my team—mates around me, you know... you talk about arendt‘s quote about the banality of evil and you say not all adults around me were perpetrators but they looked the other way. absolutely. you said, you are in your early 40s, i'm guessing your parents are still alive? my father has now passed, rest in power, and my mother is in the south of france, actually i was just visiting her about four weeks ago. so what is the relationship like now? the relationship with my mum is really good, you know? we've both grown and again, the book is written from the perspective of a 14—, is—, 16—year—old, and i think that all of us who run into any of that age group, they basically aren't very fond of their parents, generally speaking. i get you, but when she reads that when you are still 13, you are physically abused badly by one of the medical team that was looking after you as an elite swimmer, she must now feel a terrible sense

of failure in terms of protection. i think that in the times that we have spoken privately about it, both of us have deep regret around, for different reasons, what that experience was like for me. i was so angry with them, and i talk about it in the book, all the athletes are allowed to invite their parents. you basically get free tickets to the olympics and i went out of my way to make sure my parents could not and many years before my father passed, i was able to talk to him about that and i think that again, this book was in the 1990s. this is 30 years ago, and a lot has changed

and when my mum and i have had a chance to talk, and we do, it's been about what it was like being a mum, growing up in patriarchy, feeling obligated, as i felt, to be a certain type of girl and just feeling absolutely imprisoned by it. as a young athlete. and i think that's where she and i connect. you were a top swimmer. i was. you are a star of the french team, got to the atlanta olympics, you, amazingly in a practice session, before your heat, you broke the freestyle 50m world record. idid. and yet, at the very same time,

you were drinking alcohol to the level of addiction, you are consuming cocaine and other drugs, how did you maintain the level of performance? i mean, i think part of it is youth. because i mentor young kids now who, it's just an absolute miracle now that they are alive. not everyone makes it out alive — i have some young ones who have passed and i feel quite lucky that that is not what happened to me. but as far as the people around me, from coaches to team—mates to institutions, the absolute indifference that i felt from them was something i was acutely attuned to, as were all of my team—mates, and i think that... did any of them know of your addictions? yes, they used with me. i was not alone. did your coaches know?

i got pulled out of the water, i talk about it in the book, i was 14 or 15, and i was absolutely an irreverent swimmer. i told my college coach that he didn't have a job without me, which was partly true but absolutely insulting. 14, my coach pulled me out of the water and i'm thinking he was about to tell me i did a greatjob and what he says instead was, "so i hear that at the end of meets, "you are the first one under the table," which is an expression in french that is, you are the first one totally drunk, and i looked at him and i corrected him and i said, "i am actually the last one standing." so you had an enormous sort of front

and rebellious streak and it kept you going despite all of the addictions and the abuse you are doing to your own body. you got to the olympic spot but to finish the swim story, the olympics ended up being a disaster because despite breaking the world record in practice, and it came to the real deal, the heats, you bombed, you didn't get anywhere close to the final and you felt humiliated. and it seems to have sent you on a descent to a rock—bottom place where, if i'm reading it right, you really seriously considered ending your life. yeah, i mean, i had attempted suicide prior to this already and i think if there is anyone who is watching this show, there are a lot of resources that can help you if you are feeling that dark and blue in the uk's really great about that. butl... for as long as i can remember, i felt very dark, empty on the inside of my chest, even as a young kid and when i understood that you could kill yourself when i was 12, i imagined that that is what would happen and so when... so that is the background. there wasn't one particular thing.

i understand a little bit more about that, you know? there are statistics out there, non—gender conforming kids and lgbtqi youth are 70% more likely to attempt suicide. the cliche is you have to hit rock bottom before you start to rise, and you hit rock bottom and essentially you are saved by your sister who takes you back to france when you are in a very bad place in the us. shortly afterwards, you come out and you were honest about your sexuality. was that the beginning of a journey to self—knowledge about your own perception of your gender and your sexuality which helped you ?

imean, yeah. the book, godspeed, ends when i am 21 and it ends there specifically because the life as i had lived up to that point, as you said, ends completely. it's a bit miraculous and inexplicable why one day i was using every day, i had quit swimming and i'd lost the last thing, was peripherally involved with gangs, and the following day i would be in a different state and not use ever again. ever? you went clean and stayed clean? absolutely. and knock on wood, i hope that remains for ever. so what is your explanation? a lot of hope. at this point, there are no more universities in the entire united states who will take me as a swimmer, understandably. i mean, i was... some of them are humourous, the times i get kicked out of practice, and i talk about them, but there was one school who would, and it was in dc,

and the reason they took me was that this one coach had actually coached me for a very short time in high school, and he says, "look, you've a clean slate with me." i think he was hoping to get a fast swimmer too but i was like, "whatever, i need to finish college." and then i came out. i came out as gay, and there are no gay athletes. i come out like this. like, there is no—one who looks like me in swimming. i shaved my head, you know... looking back, i have such fondness for that experience, but it was ultimately the excuse i used to quit swimming. the last, um, the last moment i had with the team was that i sat down to eat with them.

they had all found out i was gay maybe a week or a few days prior. about half the team stood up and left. again, this is the late 1990s. homophobia in dc is still very real. there are still pockets in the united states, there are pockets where safety is not as big a concern but for the most part it still exists. and i quit swimming. ultimately, it seems to me that you're still desperately trying to find out who you really are. it seems you find it first of all through pursuing art. art allows you to express yourself in a way that swimming sure didn't and even a professional career did not appear able to do. so you have art. and then an extraordinary twist, where moving forward some years, you're discovered by a modelling agency. that's right. they don't want you to model

as a woman, they want you to model as a man. well, they want me to model as myself. fair point. but they're, like, into me wearing the clothing that i wear, which is things like this suit, for example. so... and that was a very weird set of circumstances, how that happened, but what i will say is that when i did go back to school and finished my upper education, i only was able to do that because by this time i had mentors, adults, who have my best interest. and unlike in the past, they care. they care. and it's the queer elders — they helped me. i'm intrigued, and if i may bring it back, i'm intrigued by your decision to become a model which, of course, was glamorous and you got front covers of glossy magazines, you got the catwalk experience and all of that, and you became something

of a celebrity. but you had hated the aspect of swimming, which was about turning your physicality into some sort of a commodity, and it seems like 20 years later you ran the risk of again turning your amazing physicality into something of a commodity through modelling. did that never strike you? absolutely. that's why i did it. prior to this happening, i think because i was an athlete but also because i'm curious about the body, i'm curious about how we talk about the body, i'm curious about how the burden of what having a girlhood means, i'm curious about what it means to walk around in this queer body specifically and the truth is that... i know what it's like to be afraid walking down the street and that, for me, because i think of my physicality and because of my art and my curiosity around that,

i began exploring it in photographs. in my writing. so when this happened, i agreed, but every single time i agreed... you mean agreed to model? to model. and the reason i agreed was because i was interested about the edge of commodification of the body. was it possible to re—appropriate the gaze? was it possible to undermine it in some way? right, because from the outside, it would look like you were, again, subjugating yourself in a sense, to the power of others. in an agency, the model does not have the power, the outsider, it lies with the director of the shoot and the stylist and everyone else who wants to create an image. did you find a way of getting power back?

i did, and that was because i was 36. i had 16 years of social activism behind me, because i had many years of study behind me. so when i went into these environments where the body is at stake, absolutely, i went in and was able to surround myself with photographers and stylists who understood and appreciated the questions i was asking in my art practice. and that is, in fact, why they booked me. and so i am not alone in the fashion industry, which i love. it has been so good to me. and i think that when we look around now, there have been changes, but this question of the commodification of the body is a really important one and one we have to keep asking. and today, it does seem that attitudes have shifted a great deal

in terms of an acceptance that gender is a more complex issue than might have been thought of even ten or 20 years ago. there is a recognition of non—binary self—identification and genderfluidity. i wonder how you have evolved and changed ? not that long ago you said that your gender is ambiguous. "i don't fit easily into the category of man or woman. but that is only because these categories are rigid and binding. i'm part of a long lineage of amazing trans and gender—nonconforming folk. " so do you finally feel you've reached a place and are in a society where you can truly, comfortably be yourself? absolutely. but this is a privileged position, right? i'm here in london, england on this set with you having

a really important conversation. i am 6"2', i'm classically good looking, i am white, highly educated and i get to sit across from you and say, "yes, i'm trans. yes, i come from this lineage of, you know, a lineage that is across western cultures across global south cultures and the aboriginal community and samoan culture." like, there is a history there, but i safely get to say that to you. so you're saying it is still a privilege to have that security and safety? absolutely. and one that has come at a personal cost to me, but it's important that when i have the opportunity to sit across from you and be able to be someone that perhaps someone else is seeing on the television, that they would be able to say, "ok, i'm ok." that is so important. visibility does save lives.

but you have found a place where you can be yourself and be comfortable. totally, yeah. that is a great place to end after all of this pain and all of the rawness, a good place to finish. casey legler, thank you so much for being on hardtalk. of course. thank you. my pleasure. hello there. for many we started the year on a cloudy but quiet note, didn't we? but it was all change by day two with rain, some of it heavy across scotland. not one weather front but two.

it must be january — it's buy one get one free and it brought some heavy rain as it drifted its way steadily south and east. so much so that we had 40mm by eight o'clock at the end of the day on thursday in the highlands of scotland. all change as we move into friday's weather because it looks likely that today will be colder and will be a little more in the way of sunshine around, and that is because those two weather fronts continue to drift their way south and east and then they allow the door to open to the colder arctic air. the isobars always squeezing together and they always stay pretty windy in the northern isles with galeforce gusts of winds here but it is going to be a chilly old start in scotland first thing this morning, compare that to double—digits down into the south—east corner. unfortunately that means that we keep cloud and outbreaks of rain here. hopefully by coffee time, certainly by lunchtime that should have eased away. we will have more sunshine coming through for friday, but it stays windy into the far north, that is going to drive in some showers on exposed north—west coast and those temperatures struggling a little, so despite the sunshine just highest

values of 6—9 degrees. moving out of friday into the start of the weekend and it looks likely that high pressure will build from the south and stay with us for saturday and sunday. at the same time, frontal systems drift across the high and that means more cloud here and more of a breeze, so sheltered eastern areas seeing the best of any brightness perhaps on saturday, the more cloud the further west and just a little bit of light, showery rain into the far north—west with highest values on saturday of 7— 10 degrees. it's almost a case of spot the difference as we move into sunday, still under the influence of high—pressure for most, still those weather fronts toppling across that high introducing more cloud and rain but more of a south—westerly feed, slightly less colder air across the country, and temperatures widely back into double figures, 9—11 degrees for many. but, that means that the high pressure is likely to drift its way off into the near continent, so for the start of the new working week as everybody is starting to get back into a routine after christmas and new year, there is some more

rain to come in the forecast, wet and windy weather will arrive for monday into tuesday so this is how it is looking, pretty unsettled, umbrellas close at hand, i'm afraid. take care.

london centric. and he does have a point.

you are watching you stay on the bbc. -- you are watching you stay on the bbc. —— newsday. i'm sharanjit leyl in singapore. the headlines. by land and by sea, tens of thousands of australians are evacuated as bushfires rage on. the fireball just came through at about 80 kays an hour, hit the house, and then we ran into the lake, and all the embers and everything were hitting us, burnt her hair a little bit. the bushfires' impact is felt as far as new zealand, where smoke fills the air and glaciers are coated in soot. i'm nuala mcgovern in london.