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Section One: The Fundamentals
A) History and Context
Exercise 1: Notebook Prompt
| One thing that surprised me, in particular, was the story of Renee Richards back in 1977, who won the right to compete in the US Open as a woman, especially back then in that time era when we saw gender-inclusive acceptance challenges. Another thing that surprised me was the controversy around the transgender athletes Lia Thomas and Riley Gaines and the many different opinions surrounding transgender athletes in women’s sports and how it has created heated debates about whether transgender women should be able to participate in women’s sports due to their unfair advantage. However, many argue for equality and inclusiveness, which can create many challenges and arguments. This taught me that it might be easier said than done to try and generate inclusivity in women’s sports, but seeing the other point of view is vital in challenging situations like this one.
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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.
| One significant case/milestone I would like to add to this timeline is the case of middle-distance runner track athlete Santhi Soundarajan, who was the first Indian athlete to have been stripped of her silver metal that she had won in the 2006 Asian Games after she had failed a sex verification test which made her ineligible to have participated in the Olympics. She had failed the gender test due to an intersex condition known as Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (AIS), and as a result of the devastation and humiliation, she had attempted suicide. This is important because it sheds light on how these tests can cause harm and fail to provide the proper context, which disqualified her unjustly purely because of the lack of acknowledgment and understanding of her condition and failure to delve deeper into her failed results.
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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?
| No, I have never felt that the gendering of sport has never been a constraint on my involvement. I think this would be because I grew up as a competitive dancer, which has always been framed as a girl sport and danced with predominantly girls; therefore, I never felt in any way constraint as dancing is considered a feminine sport; thus, I never had to prove myself to anybody because I naturally just fit in with the other girls. However, I do remember being a child and being praised for being a dancer because it was exquisite and glitzy, but I do remember the boys in my ballet class being made fun of because they had to wear tights and sparkles. Ballet was seen as a feminine dance style, but as we can see over time, it has been very accepting in integrating males into the sport. It is considered to be very valued. For example, my brother also did ballet, and later on, he played hockey. He was also told that ballet allowed him to attain balance and coordination on the ice, making him a more valuable player. Wayne Gretzky also took ballet lessons, which he agreed made him a better hockey player. Therefore, although dance carries more feminine attributes, males can benefit from it just as much as girls can, especially when using its techniques in other sports.
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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 am completely shocked. The first pole I did was on boxing, and I chose neutral, but the results showed that people mainly chose it as a male sport, which contradicted my assumptions, as I disagree with them. I recently watched a documentary on Netflix on the famous female professional boxer Christy Martin, who even featured Mike Tyson, who called her the world’s best female boxer. He’d even be scared to fight her in the ring. Women like Christy have proven themselves professional boxers and successful fighters. Dance and figure skating came back as a predominantly female gendered sport in the popular imagination.
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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 think it is essential to be impartial. Still, in situations like this and hearing the point of view of Riley Gaines and hearing her frustration around trans women competing in women’s sports, there is a mutual understanding that if you put trans women aside and look at their biology, men have a greater muscle mass compared to females that already put biological males at an advantage. Therefore, I believe the notion that “trans women are a very small minority competing in women’s sports and that there has not been any massive wave of trans women dominating” is flawed overall, as men, in general, have more power and strength than females putting them at a sporting advantage which makes it considered unfair and at no surprise that Lia Thomas won against Riley Gaines who was leading the country shows that trans women can dominate women’s sport. Politicians can overblow the issue as they tend to please the public and make decisions based on what others think, and they fail to look at the fairness of the sport. Still, In this case, I believe they were able to see the deep-rooted issue in itself that, in many aspects, does serve to be unfair for athletes like Riley once you hear her point of view and the challenges she faced during the race and her title history.
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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?
| She states the complexities of unfair advantage, discussing certain athletes with a natural genetic advantage and how they often face scrutiny and discrimination as they are seen as having a sporting advantage. She also talks about how higher levels of testosterone are a heated debate and, if levels are, in fact, higher, how they only serve to be an advantage within certain events and have a lack of scientific evidence. She also sheds light on the challenges athletes face with athletes being forced to partake in medical treatment to decrease their testosterone levels to continue to participate in sporting events. The pushback that is happening as many athletes don’t want to take any medications to change their bodies depicts the evident discrimination to stay below that “number,” which is seen as unjust and unfair. If we look at Connor McDavid, who is known to be the fastest skater in the league, this puts him at a sporting advantage, getting him to the puck faster than the other opponents. He is also at a sporting advantage as he has been known to have type lla muscle fibres, which gives him powerful endurance, which is why he is lightning-fast on the ice. If we look at this scenario, it is also considered unfair to other players who do not have type lla muscle fibres because they cannot compete with Connors regarding endurance ability.
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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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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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