A Toronto man is taking the plunge to make history this summer, with a challenge that would crown him as the first openly transgender person in history to swim across Lake Ontario.
Lev Goldberg is preparing for the swim of a lifetime: a 51-kilometre trek from Niagara-on-the-Lake to Toronto. It could take anywhere from 20 to 26 hours to complete, though he hopes to clock in somewhere around the 24-hour mark.
The journey is more than just a dip in the water, however. Goldberg is using this remarkable feat to spotlight trans visibility and to show youth that there are no limits to what they can achieve.
Goldberg was just 17 when he moved to Toronto from Pennsylvania, and recalls not being very sporty as a kid. In fact, he says by age 11, he quit playing most sports in school, including swimming.
“Puberty was a time when I was very, very uncomfortable in my body. I wasn’t very physically present in my body. So it never occurred to me to really do any athletics at all until adulthood,” he told Now Toronto.
By his early 20s, he began transitioning and discovered a newfound passion for physical activity. Goldberg took up running and swimming and soon became captivated by ultra-endurance sports. Curious whether the endurance required for marathons could be applied to swimming, he was pleasantly surprised to find that it could.
“I didn’t know that there were challenges like that literally in our backyard… I am in Toronto, and I’m so lucky to be next to this big, amazing, beautiful body of water that people don’t know that we can swim in it a lot of the time.”
As Goldberg prepares for this extreme challenge, his training has been intense. He swims about 12 hours a week, spread over six days, in preparation to complete the feat while adhering to a strict set of rules. During the challenge, he won’t be allowed to touch the safety boat sailing alongside him, sleep, or wear a wetsuit. Additionally, he’ll need to eat every 30 minutes while treading water.
“It’s a lot of mental training and just getting used to being in essentially silence for hours and hours and hours and hours on end,” he said.
Goldberg has since created a Go Fund Me to help raise money for essential expenses such as safety boats, a medical safety team, specialized nutrition and hydration supplies and training support. He says that all funds raised beyond the $12,500 goal will be donated to LGBT YouthLine, an Ontario-based youth-led organization that is dear to Goldberg’s heart.
“LGBT YouthLine is an organization that I volunteered for during my transition. Part of what supported my transition is learning to be a peer support volunteer, being there for other youth, being in a community of peer support volunteers,” he explained. “Being able to give back to that organization is really, really huge for me.”
Goldberg continued.
“This is an increasingly difficult time to be trans… part of it for me is also an act of celebration and gratitude for being where I am right now, and a statement that we should not take for granted as trans people, that we are able to exist in this place.”
Goldberg hopes to one day swim across all five Great Lakes, and to become the first trans person to achieve that. He also wishes to swim across Lake Erie, which borders his home-state of Pennsylvania, a challenge he says would be both “beautiful and symbolic.”
But until then, all eyes are on this big swim set to take place in mid-August, and as Goldberg plans to make history in Toronto, he urges everyone to recognize the importance of supporting trans people in sports.
“Athletics is a space for trans people too. Marathon swimming exists as a sport and is a space where trans people can be present,” he said.
“Trans youth deserve support and safety and we have to do everything we can to protect trans youth.”
