2 Chapter Two: Playing with Gender
Section One: The Fundamentals
A) History and Context
Exercise 1: Notebook Prompt
| While listening to the podcast “Episode Three: Card-carrying Females”, there were a few aspects of women’s sports and its regulations that surprised me, and were completely new to me. Firstly, prior to this module and episode, I did not know that in professional sports women were required to undergo sex-testing. From what I learned in the episode, sex-testing can involve blood work, physical inspection and examination of body parts, chromosomal testing (Barr body test), and hormonal testing. Combined, women must meet specific criteria in order to be defined as “woman-enough” to compete in the women’s category for sports. Hearing Maximila Imali’s story about the discrimination and sexism she faced whilst undergoing this testing was truly saddening to hear but important to know. The differences between women and men undergoing sports is inequitable and unfair, leaving women in vulnerable, frightening, and stressful situations where they must undress in front of a physician to prove they are women. Furthermore, it discriminates against women with naturally higher levels of testosterone- such as Maximila, which prohibits and limits them from competing in their sport professionally. These practices are harmful for these women, as it invalidates the gender identity that many have aligned with since birth. It places a disconnect between the gender experiences they have had their entire life and a scale of how “womanly” they are based on biological differences. Furthermore, as they are going through the debate of their sex-at-birth, they become subject to both social and athletic scrutiny which can feel like a gender-policing situation- where everyone accept their own self holds the capacity to define their gender and what it means for their athletic career. Despite the many different elements of what it means to be female, and what it means to be a successful athlete, sex-testing nit-picks over a strict and narrow set of criteria that women must meet in order to be considered a true woman and a fair athlete. This is discriminatory in multiple ways as it can discriminate against women who may have health conditions impacting their hormonal levels (especially conditions that affect estrogen and testosterone levels naturally). This is something that happened to Maximila and forced her to step down from competing in the 2018 Olympic games. Furthermore, its a double-standard and discriminates against women. Where men can be accepted on the basis of their athletic performance, woman no matter how excellent they are in their athletic abilities always had to prove their womanhood to medical and athletic representatives. The entire process is un-dignifying and humiliating for women, and may subject them to unnecessary stress, depression, and more.
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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.
| Another Case I would add to this timeline is the 2012 policy adopted by the IOC that each National Olympic Committee should investigate all differences in sex characteristics before a woman can officially register for the Olympics. In 2011, Annett Negesa was required to undergo sex-verification testing in which she later on found out that she was born with gonads. This case is important because at first, it seemed like minor testing practices such as blood testing however slowly progressed to her being required to take testosterone-lowering medication, to undergoing a surgery to remove gonads without her consent as she was originally told she was required to be sedated to receive an injection. The medical and athletics committee withheld information about the medical procedures and coerced her into making decisions she was not properly informed about. The result of this procedure alongside the sex-testing included her college revoking her athletic scholarship, and lifelong struggles with chronic pain. This is so important to understanding the discriminatory practices against women, medical coercion, lack of autonomy, and lack of informed decision-making.
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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?
| Throughout middle school and high-school, I was very competitive and athletic. I played in competitive sports teams such as rugby, basketball, volleyball, 400m races, and more. Essentially wherever there was a team- I always tried out. As I played on women-only teams for these sports, I didn’t notice too many differences compared to the men’s teams. However I can recall one way we all felt there was a double-standard for the girls teams compared to the boys teams. During practices for rugby, it would often be quite hot as it is continuous drills and running to build endurance with very minimal breaks. As such, despite wearing proper attire, it could be extremely hot and humid. There were a few times some of the girls tried to cool-down by taking their top layer off and wearing their sports-bra, however our coach (we had both male and female), however most of the time male, was very against this practice. Although I can understand that we were under 18 at the time, there was nothing sexual about doing this- it was simply to cool down in the heat and working through rigorous practices. It was frustrating because while we got into trouble for this, we would look over to the boys team on a different field in which almost every single one of them had their shirts off. It was a double standard- and in our perspectives the only sexual thing about wearing our sports bras without a shirt was the fact that we were told not to. It was only then that it felt like we were being sexualized. There is so much stigma around breasts, and there is normalcy in identifying breasts as sexual objects- however in this context we were simply just girls playing a sport we loved. There was nothing sexual about it.
Other times I can recall gender being a constraint on my involvement in sports was in gym classes. Sometimes if a certain boy was the “captain” when choosing back and forth who gets assigned to their team, they would aim for choosing boys first and girls last. This was very frustrating because despite having more athletic capability than some of the boys in our class- it didn’t matter, we always were seen as less than athletically. Additionally, even when teams were equally divided between boys and girls by the teacher, most of the boys were never team players and inclusive. I can remember so many times when playing basketball, a sport I was well-versed in at the time, I would be the only person open and have an advantage in making a basket and therefore scoring another point, and a boy who had the ball would look at me, scan the court for another boy, and pass to that boy who was clearly not able to catch the ball- or in an area that was disadvantaged and unlikely to get closer to the hoop/score a point. It was so frustrating and invalidating and despite knowing I was good at this sport and understood good plays and strategies, and that I was genuinely friends with these boys, their actions made me feel inferior, or not good enough. It really affected my confidence and I felt embarrassed and stressed out when playing sports with them. So much so that myself and a lot of my girl-friends internalized the misogyny and just stopped expecting to be passed the ball or properly involved. We stopped believing that we were capable or just as good as the boys, which is really sad to look back on because it was simply not true.
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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?
| In the poll, I thought that popular sports that are associated with the male gender included hockey, racing, baseball, powerlifting, golf, basketball, soccer and football. The sports I thought were associated as neutral were cricket, surfing, netball, swimming, tennis, volleyball, gymnastics, martial arts, and boxing. The sports I thought were associated with the female gender were dance, cheerleading, softball, and figure skating.
I think my responses mostly reflect that of the majority votes for the polls. This may be because of gender stereotypes and societal norms associating men as “tough”, “rough”, “strong” which fits in with contact sports like the ones I mentioned. The gender neutral sports tended to be sports with less physical contact, have a co-ed category, or having some kind of physical barrier between the teams protecting one another from direct physical contact or roughhousing. Additionally, to me these sports tend to have a culture that is more inclusive such as surfing, or have more female coverage in the media than other sports. The ones that deviated from others responses were boxing and martial arts as a gender neutral category- which did surprise me, however I grew up watching these and partaking in the odd class for them so I saw both the male and female categories very often. Lastly, the sports I chose as associated with the female gender were dance, figure-skating, and cheerleading. This may be because there is a stereotype that women are “fragile”, “dainty”, “weak”, and are therefore more suited for sports with less physical contact or aggression. Additionally women are associated with being more emotional or expressive thus placing a bias on society that women are better suited for artistic sports that encourage emotional expression. |
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.
| The debate over trans-women competing in women’s sports is one that I don’t fully agree or disagree with. I think this is partially because I don’t know sufficient information to make a valid opinion over “yes I agree” or “no, I disagree”, but I am very open to learning more, which is a reason why I took this course. On one hand, there are some very real genetic differences amongst trans-women that transitioned after going through male puberty. Differences such as wing-span, height, muscle mass, body composition, hormonal levels (although hormone therapy can address this difference), can affect the athletic capacity of an individual. This really matters for sports such as swimming, basketball, running, etc.). For example, because of this, women will most likely not run as fast as men in the 400m race (varying by 4 seconds). Additionally, these differences can impact the maximum strength an individual can hold, for example in boxing, the Khelif vs Carini match was very controversial as Khelif, a trans-woman won her match in 46-seconds. Carini made statements about how she had never felt a punch that hard indicating the strength of a punch from a trans-woman had a significant difference to that of at-birth women. At the same time however, she made further statements to try to end the public scrutiny Khelif faced about her gender being the reason.
On another hand, I am now learning more about how flawed sex-verification testing is. For instance, many women already face differences in hormonal levels and chromosomes despite always being identified as a woman. Women with conditions impacting their estrogen and testosterone hormones can fail a sex-verification test despite being a woman. Similarly, trans athletes may fail sex-verification testing because of hormone levels. There truly is a very small amount of trans-women athletes competing therefore I do think that it is being blown up in the media to grander proportions than necessary. Not only this, but there are individual biological differences that are not specifically because of gender. For example, women will have differences in height, muscle composition and mass, bone structure, etc. impacting their stride, speeding, and strength. So it kind of makes you question what other factors are deemed unfairly adventitious and when is it considered to be unfair. I also question why only transwomen are the subject of debate and not trans-male athletes. It’s difficult as I am not a professional woman athlete, so I cannot speak to their experiences as I have not faced them. Many professional athletes have made statements about the unequal disadvantage trans-women athletes have in women’s category, and how it sets back advancements that required years of hard-fought advocacy for cis-gendered women. Many argue that cis-gendered women’s categories should remain as such to maintain visibility and representation. I think that maintaining proper representation of women’s advancement especially in sports is so important, however I also think that not recognizing trans-women as women can also be harmful as it invalidates their gender identity and subjects them to discrimination, scrutiny and transphobia. Perhaps other solutions can be made to address this controversy such as having weight-classes in contact sports instead of only dividing sport by gender, that way trans-women can be included in women’s categories and the biological differences can be more fairly addressed.
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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?
| Rose Eveleth discusses the topic of unfair advantage, introducing viewers to different perspectives on biological differences that are not gender-specific, alongside the lack of research to adequately address these differences between DSD women and non-DSD women or trans-women and non-DSD men. Furthermore, she explains the ethical issue of the World Sports center in not properly altering their regulations to reflect the true results of their research. Essentially, she sheds light onto the debate by explaining how simply assessing biological differences in trans-women (gender-specific differences) is not a true reflection of their athletic capacities and what it means for women’s sports. Using it as a sole measurement to whether their traits provide an unfair advantage disregards other indicators of biological advantage such as hemoglobin mutations on anaerobic metabolism, angiotensinogen, etc. For example, Michael Phelps only produces half the amount of lactic acid enabling him to maintain longer endurance over his male-competitors. Furthermore, he is double jointed enabling further flexibility which may impact his strokes. There are certain biological variations that individuals will benefit from regardless of their gender. In this instance, Rose Eveleth challenges us to consider why despite all biological variations, sports decides to fixate on only one indicator of advantage, gender.
Some examples of athletes that have benefitted from unique biological advantages unrelated to gender includes Killian Jonet, an ultra-endurance athlete who has one of the highest recorded VO2 Max -related to lung capacity. This gives him an advantage in enduring long periods of intensity at different altitudes. Sally Gunnell is a 400m hurdler Olympic gold-medalist, who has a larger heart size increasing her stroke volume. Meaning she is able to pump greater amounts of blood promoting oxygenation. This may have been advantageous throughout her race when the oxygen and endurance demands became greater. Other circumstantial advantages can be seen with Lebron son, Bronny James who is now playing on the Lakers alongside Lebron. Some may credit his success to having stronger professional connections from his father, greater family income to support costs of coaches, travelling, eating healthier, etc. which can all contribute to higher athletic performance.
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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.
| In Favor:
I agree with Katie Barnes that “sports by design are unfair”. The downside is that much of what sports are lies on the need for opportunity. Unfortunately, sports have not always been equitable or accessible. That is- individuals of higher socioeconomic status will more often than not have more advantages and opportunity in the field of sports compared to those of lower socioeconomic status. In professional sports, who you know matters. Having access to professional coaches who have insider knowledge and connections to professional teams and decision makers in sports can be the difference between success or failure in achieving this dream. Furthermore, this kind of opportunity requires having the income to support the training, gear and transportation to maintain this lifestyle. This is a barrier for so many talented athletes from playing on university or professional level teams. For example Lebron James’ son, Bryce James, made the Lakers team at 17 years old. This was considered sort of controversial in the media. As cool as it is to be playing on the same team as his father- many asked if it was a choice based on his current skill and projected improvement or if it was at large related to his relations. Although he seems very skilled, is he currently at a higher playing skill compared to individuals from a different background? Would he have been chosen or considered had his parents not been a basketball legend and internet personality?
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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.
| To me, Robins is indicating that sports federations utilize the debate of trans-women in cis-women sports to mask their gendered social and political agenda of including and recognizing trans-women’s place in society. Instead of fairness in women’s sports being the central issue at play, Robins depicts how the true issue is the societal norms and perspectives on transgender individuals and especially trans-femininity. The reason why they must face so much scrutiny is a reflection of a deviation from societal norms which makes people uncomfortable. When she says it “has never been about the sport”, she eludes to the idea that fairness in women’s sports is not what the sports federation actually cares about, and acts as a disguise to their true underlying motive which is to diminish transgender visibility and rights. Further when she states that it is an “excuse to relitigate the existence of trans women”, we can draw connections to how sex-verification tests diminish trans-women (even cis-women) down to gendered attributes- taking away from multiple other valid determinants of not only athletic performance, but gender as a whole (hormone levels, chromosome levels, etc.). We have seen the flaws of such testing in invalidating cis-women of being “woman-enough”, so why do we focus so much on them?
To me, it makes me question why trans-women are so publicly disputed and not trans-men. It makes me consider broader societal norms in association with male vs female associated traits and how much society accepts them. For example, trans-women may face so much scrutiny because society often values male traits and sees them as “superior”- at-least in a patriarchal context. When masculine traits are seen as strength, and dominance, it is seen in a more positive light than female associated traits such as “weakness/fragility” and being more passive. As such, when a man transitions to a women- it may be seen as disempowerment, losing power/status/authority. Furthermore, trans-women face scrutiny over being seen as “woman-enough” as society scrutinizes their physical appearance polices their gender making it seem as though they may not fit into societies physical expectations of femininity. In contrast, when women transition to men- it could be seen as gaining power, or status under a patriarchal context. Thus leading to less scrutiny in the media, and less of a subject for debate. This is seen so prominently in sports- as media scrutinizes trans women athletes, subjecting them to continuous gendered and invasive testing whereas most sports organizations do not require sex-verification for trans-male athletes- apart from documentation on testosterone therapy. This is because they assume there are no biological advantages for them (being women-at-birth). This shows that trans-vestigating has absolutely everything to do with suppressing and invalidating the existence of trans-women in society, drawing back to discriminatory and false perceptions that being a woman is negative. |