3 Chapter Two: Playing with Gender
Section One: The Fundamentals
A) History and Context
Exercise 1: Notebook Prompt
| Listening to Episode Three of Rose Eveleth’s podcast Tested provided several surprising insights about the challenges women have faced in sports. One of the most shocking revelations was the practice of “nude parades” before 1968, where female athletes were required to undergo physical inspections to confirm their gender. This invasive and dehumanizing process underscores the discrimination women endured. It was also surprising to learn about the introduction of chromosome testing after 1968, which led to the use of “gender passports” to verify female athletes’ eligibility. Another striking point was the exemption of men from gender verification processes, despite frequent doping scandals in men’s sports. This double standard highlights the inequities in how male and female athletes are treated. Lastly, I was surprised that it wasn’t until 2012 that women were allowed to compete in every Olympic sport, a delay that reflects the longstanding barriers to gender equity in athletics. These revelations shed light on the systemic challenges women have faced and the evolving debates around inclusion and fairness in sports. |
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.
| One significant milestone to add to this timeline is Caster Semenya’s legal battle with the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) in 2019. Semenya, an elite South African runner and two-time Olympic gold medalist, challenged the IAAF’s regulations requiring athletes with naturally high testosterone levels to medically alter their bodies to compete in women’s events. This case is crucial because it highlights the ongoing scrutiny of women’s bodies in sports, particularly for intersex athletes, and raises ethical questions about fairness, human rights, and the policing of gender in athletics. |
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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Using Katie Barnes’ Fair Play, I’d say the gendering of sports hasn’t directly constrained my involvement because I’ve mostly participated in sports that fit traditional gender expectations. Thanks to things like Title IX, opportunities for women in sports have expanded, and I’ve been lucky enough to benefit from that progress. However, Barnes points out that sports are deeply tied to societal ideas about gender, often reinforcing stereotypes about what’s considered masculine or feminine. For example, in gymnastics, there’s a big focus on femininity and appearance, which can limit how athletes are viewed or supported. And even though Serena Williams was far more dominant on the court, Maria Sharapova earned significantly more in endorsements early in her career, showing how factors like race and beauty standards play into these dynamics. While I haven’t felt directly held back, reading Barnes’ work makes me think about how much sports are shaped by these gendered expectations and how important it is to create a more inclusive environment where everyone can thrive. |
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 contributing to the Padlet prompt, I took a closer look at the polling results and found that they mostly confirmed what I expected about gender coding in sports. For example, sports like football and powerlifting are predominantly associated with males, while gymnastics and softball are typically linked to females. However, I was surprised to see that sports like volleyball and hockey had a notable percentage of neutral responses, suggesting that perceptions of gender in sports might be shifting. This indicates that while traditional gender roles in sports are still quite prominent, there’s a growing recognition of the inclusivity in various sports. |
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 with Leah Thomas’s statement to some extent, especially when considering the small number of transgender athletes in competitive sports. Trans women make up a very small minority of all athletes, and despite some high-profile cases, like Thomas’s own participation, there hasn’t been a widespread issue of trans women dominating women’s sports. The NCAA’s long-standing rules, such as hormone level requirements, aim to ensure a level playing field and have been in place for over a decade without causing the massive disruptions that critics feared. However, while the current data suggests that trans women are not threatening women’s sports on a broad scale, this conversation is still evolving. As more trans athletes compete and more research is conducted, the impact of these regulations may become more complex, and fairness for all athletes, both cisgender and transgender, will remain an important issue to address moving forward. |
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?
| In the Tested podcast, Rose Evereth challenges the way we view “unfair advantage” in sports, emphasizing how the focus is often placed on gender-related traits rather than the broader range of natural physical advantages athletes may have. She argues that the idea of unfairness is typically applied to women whose bodies don’t fit traditional gender norms, while male athletes with similar genetic advantages are rarely scrutinized. Evereth suggests that we need a more inclusive definition of what constitutes an unfair advantage. Examples of biological advantages that have nothing to do with gender include Michael Phelps’s long wingspan, Usain Bolt’s tall frame and long stride, Haile Gebrselassie’s oxygen uptake, Eliud Kipchoge’s running efficiency, and Simone Biles’s strength and flexibility. These traits give athletes a distinct edge, yet they are often accepted as part of the natural variation in athletic performance, showing how the concept of unfair advantage is unevenly applied. |
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 Katie Barnes’s point that sports, by design, are not inherently fair. The nature of competition is that athletes come from different backgrounds, have different resources, and possess varying physical attributes, all of which contribute to the level of fairness. Some athletes have access to better training facilities, coaches, or nutrition, while others may not. Additionally, physical factors like height, muscle composition, or endurance give some athletes an advantage over others, and these differences aren’t regulated by any fair standard. In my experience, sports are often fair in the sense that everyone competes under the same set of rules, but the playing field is rarely level. For example, in professional basketball, players like Shaquille O’Neal had a significant advantage due to their height and physical strength, while shorter players, though talented, had to work harder to compensate for this difference. Despite the disparities, we accept these differences as part of the competition, because the goal is not always about equality but about showcasing the best abilities of the athletes. |
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 argues that the real focus of “transvestigating” Olympic athletes isn’t about the fairness of sports, the protection of cis women in athletics, or even the integrity of competition. Instead, she suggests that this practice is rooted in a larger cultural agenda aimed at scrutinizing and questioning the very existence of trans women. The act of “transvestigation,” as Robins describes it, is not genuinely concerned with sports or gender fairness but is a way for people to publicly challenge the legitimacy of trans women by scrutinizing their femininity and gender identity. It is a mechanism to engage in broader societal debates about transness, often in a manner that disregards the actual issues within sports and focuses on undermining trans women’s rights and identities. |
