2
Section One: The Fundamentals
A) History and Context
Exercise 1: Notebook Prompt
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I learned about Maximila Imali, I had never heard of her. While I had heard slightly about women who have been discriminated against for higher testosterone. I was surprised to hear that they would test her without giving any explanation, especially for such an invasive test. I’m also surprised that all these events occurred so recently. I also learned about the cards they started implementing, as I had know about the sex tests but the cards are a new fact I’ve learned.
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B) Timeline of History
Exercise 2: Notebook Prompt
What other significant case/milestone would you add to this timeline? Note it in your notebook along with a brief (one or two sentences) explanation of why you feel it is important.
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1977 – Renee Richards Case and Legal Fight Renee Richards, a transgender woman and former ophthalmologist, fought for her right to compete in professional women’s tennis after undergoing gender confirmation surgery. After being initially barred from competing in the U.S. Open due to mandatory Barr body testing, Richards challenged the decision in court. In 1977, the New York Supreme Court ruled in her favour, stating that the policy was discriminatory and allowed her to compete. I feel this is important because this case played a key role in shaping the conversation about transgender athletes in elite sports and brought attention to the controversies around sex verification testing.
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C) Gender coding in Sports
Exercise 3: Notebook Prompt
Has the gendering of sport ever been a constraint on your involvement? How?
Or, if not, why do you think this is?
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The gendering of sport has never been a constraint on my involvement. I think this is because I grew up in the GTA in a school where we had good funding for our sports teams and girls involvement in sports was always very popular. There was a girls team for every boys team and many co-ed teams. I had the opportunity to play whatever sport I wanted throughout my whole life. All that really mattered was my athletic ability and my interest in playing the game.
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D) How is sport gendered in the popular imagination?
Exercise 4: Padlet/Notebook Prompt
While most sports are in fact unisex, gender coding remains pervasive, particularly at the professional level, although with a foundation established in youth competition. Participate in the poll below to share your views on how popular sports are gendered in the popular imagination. Also feel welcome to add or suggest sports that you feel strongly conform to the gender binary!
After you contribute to the padlet prompt, record your response in your notebook AND briefly discuss in two or three sentences how these responses and the polling figures in general confirm or contradict your assumptions about gender-coding and sports. Did anything surprise you?
| I voted on football, powerlifting, volleyball, hockey, softball and baseball. I voted football, powerlifting, hockey and baseball as male in a popular imagination and then volleyball and softball as female in a popular imagination. I was surprised at the fact that hockey had many neutral votes, because I had seen hockey as a mainly male dominated sport, due to its aggressive nature and events like “Hockey Night in Canada” being predominantly male. For the most part however, the polling in general confirmed my assumptions about gender-coding and sports.
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Section Two: Breaking it down
A) Title IX
Exercise 5: Notebook Prompt
In a longer version of the interview excerpted in the video above, Leah Thomas states “Trans women competing in women’s sports does not threaten women’s sports as a whole because trans women are a very small minority of all athletes and the NCAA rules around trans women competing in women’s sports have been around for 10+ years and we haven’t seen any massive wave of trans women dominating”?
Do you agree with this statement? See also the image above suggesting that the issue may be overblown by politicians and influencers who don’t actually care that much about women’s sports.
Please share any thoughts you have in your Notebook by clicking on the audio button above or writing a few sentences.
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I do agree with this statement. The political argument for this issue often takes the stance that they are trying to protect women, however women have never shown or stated that this is a major issue they need to be protected from happening. This has been made to be an issue when it doesn’t need to be. |
B) Unfair Advantage?
Exercise 6: Notebook Prompt
What does the host and writer, Rose Eveleth, have to say on the issue of unfair advantage?
Can you think of other examples of unique biological or circumstantial advantages from which athletes have benefitted enormously that have nothing to do with gender?
I have always thought about my sports that I played and the advantages that come with that for certain people. For many sports, such as basketball and volleyball, being tall gives you a much greater advantage. There’s also weight for sports like wrestling and rugby, mainly those contact sports where when you weigh more it provides an advantage and the same could be said for those who weigh less and do running sports.
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Again, let’s turn to Katie Barnes who points out that we tend to forget amidst all the debate that “sports, by design, are not fair” (235), that “the reality of sports is that we accept unfairness all the time” (235).
Do you agree? Why? In your experience, how fair are sports? Feel welcome to add a video response in the padlet and provide an example if you’re willing. Make sure you include a screenshot of your response in your notebook.
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I agree that we accept unfairness in sports all the time. This is for many reasons, for example when you look at biological or circumstantial advantages like height. We also accept unfairness in the rulings that get made on the playing field, we often leave decisions up to the referee who may not be seeing exactly what happened but they often have the final word. There’s also the financial unfairness where those who have more money or opportunities that are financially based, people can benefit from it in the ways of exposure, the ability to do certain sports and many other advantages. Sports I believe are inherently unfair and we accept that everyday, for the reasons I have included and many more.
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B) The Paris Olympics
Optional Response:
What does Robins mean when she argues that:
“The aims of transvestigating an Olympic athlete are not, in any meaningful sense, anything to do with sports, or fairness, or even with women (cis women, at least) as a social category. Rather, they have everything to do with transness, and the public expression of transfemininity.
For my money this has never been about sport.
What it has always been is an excuse to publicly relitigate the existence of trans women.”
Make a note in your Notebook.
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