Pride Month: In racing, Charlie Martin smashes entirely new glass ceilings

Article content

By all accounts, Charlie Martin grew up as a child in the United Kingdom with typical boy interests: first aviation, and later motorsport, which started as spectating with friends and led in adult life to a professional racing career.

Article content

Behind those interests, though, Charlie didn’t feel like a boy. From roughly the age of seven, Charlie would gaze in awe at magazine photos of Caroline Cossey, a high-profile transgender woman and British model. In her, Charlie finally saw someone relatable.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

Try refreshing your browser, or
tap here to see other videos from our team.

Pride Month: In racing, Charlie Martin smashes entirely new glass ceilings Back to video

“There was no trans visibility back then,” recalls Martin, 39. “[Cossey] made a massive impact on me. I remember at that point in time thinking, ‘Yeah, this is how I feel. This is me. This is what I need to do.’”

The realization came early, but it took several decades more before Martin decided to transition, in large part due to the societal stigma surrounding transgender people.

Article content

In the years in between, motorsport became a central pillar in Martin’s life. She started out by purchasing and rebuilding a Peugeot 205 from a friend’s father to compete in local hill climb events, eventually moving on to different cars and different disciplines. Racing was a pastime but also a social activity: the paddock was her community.

As time went on, she increasingly felt that she was not living as her authentic self. With the rise of online platforms such as YouTube where trans people vlog their transitions in real time, Martin says watching others go through that process caused her to lose connection with the person staring back at her in the mirror. She felt trapped between the person she was and the person she felt she could be, but she was terrified of how transitioning might affect her future and the people in her life. She was depressed and even suicidal.

Article content

“The turmoil inside me, dealing with this, was horrific,” Martin says. “The only way forward was to confront the fear and accept that if I’m going to go on living, I’ve got to transition or I’m going to be dealing with this my whole life.”

Martin’s transition finally took place in 2012. One of her earliest decisions in the process was that she was going to walk away from racing. Certain that no one would accept her, she concluded she should sell her equipment and use the money to pay for surgery.

“I’d never seen anyone LGBTQ in the paddock. You still experience casual homophobia, and any time someone says a little thing you pick up on it,” Martin says. “I just felt everyone was going to reject me and it was never going to be the same again.”

Article content

Fortunately, Martin says her family and friends talked her out of selling everything. They advised her to wait until she felt comfortable enough to try going back before making a decision.

She began coming out to her friends in motorsport. One particularly close friend never spoke to her again — “which didn’t really get it off to a great start,” she says — but she found others who were very accepting, and she eventually found allies in the paddock who gave her the support and courage to return.

“I went first without a car to just see people, and it was one of the scariest things I’ve ever done,” she says. “It wasn’t like anyone was being intentionally unkind. It’s just a really difficult experience to get through. But thankfully, my friends who knew I was coming that day all came over and gave me a big hug and said nice things.

Article content

“That day was a make-or-break point. If it had gone badly, I wouldn’t have gone back. It’s a really strong message about the role of allies.”

With a modicum of acceptance, a whole lot of resolve, and the support of some key partners — including OSOM Products, a technology company founded by a Canadian — Martin did go back to racing. Repeatedly. And she began tearing down long-established barriers.

In September 2020, she made history as the first transgender person to compete in the 24 Hours of Nurburgring, racing a BMW M240i for Adrenaline Motorsport with her team finishing fourth in class.

She became an ambassador for Racing Pride, an organization launched in 2019 to promote LGBTQ+ inclusivity in motorsport and related industries. Racing Pride played a role in the pride-coloured halo seen on the Aston Martin entries at the Formula One French Grand Prix, including that of Canadian racer Lance Stroll. Martin says those decals are more than performative: the team has policies that bolster inclusivity throughout the organization.

Article content

“A big part of [success] is how people perform in their job,” Martin says. “If you’ve got a happy workforce who feel they can be their true, authentic selves, then of course people are going to deliver their absolute best.”

In 2021, Martin is competing in the Britcar endurance racing championship and continues to work toward her next goal: to be the first transgender driver to compete at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. This dream, she feels, is getting closer to becoming reality.

“I do see it happening,” she says. “I feel like I’m closer to it now than I’ve ever been. I’m getting out there, getting good results, showing that I can drive quickly and consistently, especially in endurance.

“Everything right now is as good as it’s ever been in terms of my ability, putting everything together, and the partners I’m working with who really believe not only me and the work I’m doing but obviously in that ambition of making LGBTQ history at Le Mans. It feels like everything and everyone is pulling in the right direction, and it feels like a lot of things have come together.”

Article content

While she never dreamed she’d be in this position, Martin knows that young, uncertain LGBTQ eyes are watching her, just as she was watching Caroline Cossey in the 1980s. It’s taken bravery and hard work to achieve what she has so far, but she says she feels proud and happy that her story can help others.

“If you can believe in yourself, trust your intuition, and work hard, you can achieve things that you never thought possible,” Martin says. “Showing that as a transgender woman in a sport that lacks any form of LGBTQ+ visibility, that’s such a macho and male-dominated sport, it’s really a crazy thing to do but it’s also an incredible thing.

“If I can go and do that, hopefully that’s the inspiration that anyone needs to start living their own truth in their own lives.”