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Section One: The Fundamentals
A) History and Context
Make note of anything that surprised you……
Exercise 1: Notebook Prompt
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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.
| 1956: science shows and suggests that chromosome tests and the xy and xx chromosomes are a minor detail in femaleness and maleness, It shouldnt matter. Knowing this then should have changed the course of the “female” testing in sport.
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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?
| I think the gendering of sport has had some constraint on my involvement. I am in a physical sport with a low number of female athletes. Martial Arts is a very male dominated sport. At my home club, we do have a significantly lower number of female athletes and with that a significantly lower number of female coaches.
As someone who participates in this sport because I love it and it really is my passion, It is challenging when I hear some of the adult male athlete’s (usually the newer ones) explain that they will not spar with me, they will not kick or punch me, or that they will go “easy on me” just because I am a women. Just to put this in perspective, I am a second degree black belt in this sport and I have had 3 different times when an adult man with no experience in the sport say this to me. I feel that it complete discredits my years of training and experience. When I hear this, I feel that they are basically saying “I see that you are a black belt however I am a man with no martial art experience and I am still better, stronger, faster, tougher than you. and I will not treat you as a black belt, I will treat you as a fragile women who will be unable to handle sparring with a man”. Luckily, this does not often discourage me, and I do my best to prove them all wrong. However I should feel that I need to prove them wrong. Since one of the main aspect in Taekwondo is fighting or sparring another human and at my club we do not have a ton of adult women, I end up fighting men. Which I am totally fine it, I see no differences and I fight the same regardless of what gender I am with. Yet, there is such an idea that women that are sparring with men will get hurt and will have no chance against them. This puts the idea into many young athletes heads that men are superior to women.
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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 found that these responses confirmed my assumptions on gender coding. Many of the ‘performative’ sports were considered female by the majority. However, the rugby category caught my by surprise in the best possible way. I assumed the majority would vote it as a male sport. I was surprised when I saw that almost 46% of people said it was neutral!
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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 agree, I do not think trans women that compete in women’s sports is threating the sport. I understand both sides of the argument. However, Like Leia states, trans women are a very small minority of female athletes in the sport and they are not dominating the sport either. I think they have a place in women’s sports because they are women too.
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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?
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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.
| I agree with this statement. Sports are made to favour the person with the most advantage. In swimming the athlete with that is stronger, faster, bigger wing span ect is going to win. You can make the same arugement with other sports as well. In Taekwondo, the athlete with the faster kicks, better cardio and longer legs is going to have an advantage over the athletes that do not. I think this is just the nature of sport. This is how it has always been. I find it interesting that now it is becoming an issue, yet it is only an issue for trans women. Trans men do not seem to be questioned and cis men do not either. I think this all comes back to the idea that people want to have control over womens bodies. They want to have authority over what you can do. I know this is a little of topic but we can see this in the USA. With bands on womens autonomy and choice.
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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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