Transgender Athletes in Martial Arts—Azure Kim (2024)

Video

Writer’s Reflection

My remediated argument took the shape of a video. In the video, I explained a little bit about issues facing transgender athletes and went over a solution. I was making the argument for transgender athletes despite not coming up with a concrete solution on how to solve the issue. However, the solution I did propose is to be empathetic to trans athletes by listening to their hardships and doing the best to accommodate and advocate for their struggles. I decided that I wanted the video to be seen by transgender athletes who are younger, like teenagers. This let me be a little more fun and creative with the way I displayed the information. So I added skit portions to the video that were about a taekwondo player getting confronted by a dude about being transgender. Then I thought it would be interesting to add a little drawn person to explain some portions of the video to keep it interesting instead of it just being me talking to the camera. How this video can help solve the problem of transgender athletes is by getting the issue to a bigger audience. Even though the intended audience is supposed to be teenage trans athletes it is more likely that anyone is going to see this video. They might be for or against transgender athletes in sports but by creating my video to be more lighthearted, it can be watchable from any standpoint on the issue.

The lightheartedness of my video is one of many rhetorical choices I decided to make. I added a Fallon Fox quote on her thoughts of being forced to come out as transgender from an interview to add credibility. Also, I added citations in the top right corner to let the audience know that I am using different sources for my information and not making it up. Pathos, the appeal to emotions, was most used in my video. In the background, I added soft emotional instrumental music to make the audience feel saddened by the trans experience of discrimination. In the skits I did, I made the trans athlete a sympathetic character. Using rhetorical appeals the way I did helped portray my argument.

Using this new modality really helped me branch out my creativity. I felt that throughout this semester I was limited in my thought process. I had to use my creativity through text in the form of essays which is something I am not good at. Finally, getting to create a video that didn’t have many guidelines besides getting my argument across was relieving. Starting this project, I felt pretty confident because of all the different ideas I had. Then getting feedback from my peers fueled my creative confidence in my ideas. I already have previous experience editing and creating videos since I like to do that in my free time. So this whole remediated argument felt like a simple pastime project for me.

The biggest takeaway from this experience is I am much better at creating a multimodal argument than I expected. Writing about my argument is so much harder than creating a video about it. However, having a paper to base the video on helps make the process of creating a script easier. I also learned a lot more about video editing. I decided to use my computer to edit everything since it seemed easier than using my phone. So, I downloaded a new program called Capcut. It has a lot more features than iMovie so I found it more promising. It was weird at first but I started to enjoy it much more as I got into my video editing process. Looking back I would have loved to spend more time on my editing. Even though I think I did enough to make what this project needed, there are still some places I think could have been improved.

Overall, this project was successful. Do I think this video will make a major difference for trans athletes? No. I do think though that it might at least let the athletes see that they are heard. What I do think was successful was my use of multimodal composition. If I had to do something like this again for another class, I would be more than prepared for it. I will probably have to use multimodal composing for career work. Since I hope to become a teacher, creating slideshows with information and different images and then explaining them to a class is a form of multimodal composition. This whole project got me thinking creatively and I will continue to bring that to every project I do.

A Note From the Instructor—Emily Alexander

Azure’s remediated argument is a stunning example of multimodal composition. Taking seriously the prospect of this final assignment, Azure has thoughtfully crafted a project that is as engaging as it is informative. From the start of the semester, Azure had been open about their varying degrees of comfort with the types of writing different assignments asked for, tending to prefer the “more creative” parts of the semester. With this context, it made a lot of sense to me that Azure felt more confident in this final unit. However, as we see in both their video and their writer’s reflection, this project did not by any means forego the critical and rhetorical thinking that served as a cornerstone of our course since the start. Evidence of this is found in their clear vision of the rhetorical situation, informing their decision making, as well as in the details of their video through things like dress, setting, and incorporating animation. I think we have a lot to gain from Azure’s approach to this assignment—in both content and process—and I am thrilled it is reaching an audience beyond our classroom!