Apayauq Reitan is the first openly-trans woman to run the Iditarod. Her documentary about the experience, called “Apayauq,” had its Alaska premiere in Juneau on Friday night.
The film has a solitary vibe. It shows Reitan preparing for the race and her send-off in Anchorage, with a large trans pride flag flying from her sled. Then it turns inward, mostly showing Reitan speaking into the camera as she races through wide open landscapes.
“I’m excited to go see my dad!” Reitan says, when she’s just over 100 miles from the finish in Nome. “He’s kind of the reason why I’m able to do this. He’s supported my dog mushing, and he’s also very supportive of me being trans.”
The mood at the screening was defiant. Earlier in the day, which was Transgender Day of Visibility, someone had posted anti-trans signs in public places around Juneau. And the day before, Reitan had joined many other Alaskans in testifying against Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s “parental rights” bill, which would require parental permission for Alaska students to take sex ed, use different names and pronouns in schools and go to clubs that support LGBTQ+ identities.
“We were never presented as human beings. I never saw girls like me,” Reitan said to the House Education Committee. “By the time I was realizing I’m trans, by researching online, I had already gone through a testosterone puberty, which — I wish I would have learned about trans people before that happened.”
Reitan has been mushing since she was four years old. That’s also how old she was when she first knew she was a girl. She learned the sport from her father, and she completed the Iditarod in 2019 before coming out as transgender.
She said she’s happy with the response her film has gotten from other trans people so far, and she hopes to increase the representation of trans women that younger people can see themselves in.
“We’re also being talked about all the time. So our existence is undeniable. And we’ve also been here for thousands of years and across cultures, across the world, and it’s becoming an undeniable fact,” Reitan said. “Yeah, I think all of the legislative attacks on us are going to end. We’re going to win in the end.”
In the meantime, Reitan hopes that trans kids can hang on if they live in a state or family situation where it feels impossible to come out.
“If you can make it to adulthood, then you can transition later,” she said. “And you can be okay. And it’s gone well for a lot of us.”
The documentary isnʼt available online yet. Itʼs still making its way through the film festival circuits.
Correction: an earlier version of this story said Ayapauq was the first openly transgender musher to run the Iditarod, but she was the first out trans woman who ran the Iditarod.
