Like A Girl is a new series on Fuse that dives in deep into the lives of professional, Olympic and high-level women athletes to show the reality of women in sports — from machismo, racism, sexism, pay disparity, addiction and other challenges they face outside of sports.

series is host by Beija Velez, a former college athlete, who hsaid that Like A Girl shows young girls and women “that we’re worthy to share our stories and there’s power in vulnerability.” 

“We’re tackling issues such as mental health all the way to pay disparity in the sports realm and it shows you that women are navigating so many obstacles but still finding the strength to come out on top. A show like this will inspire the next person to keep pushing through and knowing that we’re all human and trying to figure out solutions on how to protect our minds, bodies, and well-being so you can perform at your best as an athlete and in life overall,” Velez told AL DÍA. 

In the series, Velez also shares her own experience as an athlete who had overcome obstacles with great tenacity.

“The main obstacle I had to face as a female athlete was people telling me that I couldn’t be a hooper and also model and design. My dream was to go to the WNBA, but unfortunately women are not compensated their worth, so I took another route. Growing up so many people would shoot down my dreams and aspirations of wanting to be a multifaceted creative and saying that it wasn’t possible. So I’m grateful to live during a time where I can be a multi-hyphenate and still have a connection to the game while also balancing my other passions. It’s also crazy I went to college with the dream of eventually going to the WNBA one day, and then down the line I ended up designing the WNBA’s 25th anniversary basketball and it sold out in less than 2 hours. The way that all came full circle showed me that you can overcome any obstacle if you just stick to your intuition and vision. A lot of people don’t get it until they see it,” the former athlete added.

Like a Girl will feature the personal and professional stories of: Anastasia Pagonis (an American Paralympic swimmer who represented the United States at the 2020 Summer Paralympics and holds world records), April Ross (an American beach volleyball player and three-time Olympic medalist), Jennifer Soto (an American skateboarder from Jersey City, New Jersey, and winner of the Street League Skateboarding Pro Open London in 2018),  Cece Telfer (a Jamaican American athlete who, in 2019, became the first openly transgender person to win an NCAA title),  Madison Hammond (an American professional soccer player who's a defender for Angel City FC of the National Women’s Soccer League and the first Native American player in the league), and Angel McCoughtry (an American professional basketball player and two-time Olympic gold medalist, who has played in the WNBA and also overseas in Turkey, Slovakia, Lebanon, Hungary and Russia).

The first episodes of Like A Girl premiered on Fuse on Wednesday, March 29.