2
Section One: The Fundamentals
A) History and Context
Exercise 1: Notebook Prompt
| I have known that some women have XY chromosomes, but what I did not realize is that if they were getting these sex tests and they came back as XY, they wouldn’t be able to compete in any sports because they were not “women” but they are also not a man. And it is just shocking to think that although the nude parades are extremely disturbing, there would have been women allowed to participate in their sport even having the XY chromosomes because you wouldn’t have known not knowing the gene buildup. And it is extremely disheartening to hear how awful and shameful it must have been for these women to be told they are not “women”.
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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.
| In 2020, Laurel Hubbart was the first trans woman to compete in the Tokyo Summer Olympics in weight lifting. I think it is an important milestone to note in this timeline, when talking about sex testing, and to see that it is reported that with all the development of sex testing, we do get somewhere, in which a trans woman is competing at the Olympics. Because of the growth of sex testing, these were the things that they were trying not to let happen.
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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?
| The gendering of sport has not particularly affected my involvement, I am very passionate about sports and will always find a way to participate. But it has affected my limitations in sports and caused some restraints on what I can and can’t do. Being a woman in sports is always difficult and there have been many times from my childhood that it was not possible to play at a certain level in sports because I am a woman. For instance, growing up there was no girl’s hockey where I lived, and where some girls opted to not play because of the gender factor, I still played and had to try out for the boy’s team and outworked many boys to get a spot on the team. That all came to a halt when puberty came into play, and where I was not allowed to be in boy’s hockey at that time because of my gender. That didn’t mean I stopped playing, it was an inconvenience having to travel out of my town to be able to play hockey in a women’s league that was also a none competitive leauge, but regardless of the challenges I faced to play my sport it never stopped me from being involved.
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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?
| After voting and viewing the polls, I was not too surprised, my vote on every poll was in the majority. The only poll that surprised me a little is that softball had male and neutral votes, I do not follow baseball or softball, but from what I knew from my friends is that baseball was for boys and softball was for girls. I was unaware that boys played softball, so even though 58% of the votes were female, I was surprised it wasn’t higher.
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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.
| I am on the fence with this question, but leading more towards I do not agree that trans women competing in women’s sports does not threaten women’s sports as a whole. Women have had lots of setbacks in the upbringing of sports and still have lots of setbacks, and I believe that the heightened topic of trans women competing in women’s sports takes away a lot of the success that women have in sports, and to say that it has been already 10+ years that these trans rules have been put in place and no one has started talking about it until transwomen excel in the sport. For over 30 years biological women were told they were not allowed to play their sport because of sex testing, and all their life it has been a norm that women are weaker than men, and having a very small number of trans women athletes and still have some of those transwomen win in their sport, is intimating to biological women who have tried their whole life and had to fight to try and be at equal levels in sports and get their recognition. When looking at Women’s sports from the beginning to now, and seeing that trans rules have only been in place for just over 10 years and there are already important political discussions on this topic, when most women in sports never have a voice and for many issues, women face in sports it takes way longer than 10 years to gain recognition.
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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, mainly focuses on how certain biological factors that could lead to an advantage should be classified as unfair. She also mentions that these biological factors are not praised the same, Caster Semenya who has naturally high testosterone was questioned and judged, well Micheal Phelps and his naturally long wingspans, everyone is in awe.
Usain Bolt has fast twitch fibers, that allow someone of his hight to be able to run faster.
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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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In Favor- I agree with the statement from Katie Barns “Sports, by design, are not fair”. The rules in sports are one factor in keeping consistency in the “fairness” of the game, but it is just not enough to say that sports are fair. Many different factors lead sports to be unfair, there are biological components that are out of people’s control, but these aspects can make someone have a significant advantage in their sport. The different levels of training that also come with how much money someone has to be able to afford that training will lead to an advantage in their sport. The geographical factor of where someone is from, and the climate, affect how people have to train differently for different sports. There are countless amounts of examples of how sports will never be able to be completely fair, but I also think that it gives athletes motivation to succeed knowing that others have advantages that not everyone has.
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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.
| Robins is essentially saying that sports are being used as a way to speak against trans women, and they are using these topics of fairness in sports as a way to tear down trans women in sports when it has nothing to do with sports.
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