Abstract
The “transgender challenge” to the binary-based organization of most sport and many leisure activities is complex and potentially transformative. From relatively conservative campaigns and policies to enable binary-conforming and medically transitioned athletes to compete in their affirmed gender to more radical challenges to the very science of sex difference that naturalizes an ideologically constructed two-sex system, the world of sport is experiencing a shake-up. In this chapter, I describe and analyze changes at the policy level of key sporting institutions in terms of their conservative versus transformative potential.
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Notes
- 1.
cisgender refers to the sex/gender identity of a person whose gender identity correlates with the reproductive organs that marked them as their birth sex (Aultman, 2014)
- 2.
For an overview of transgender participation policies, by sport and country, see TRANS*ATHLETE resource.
- 3.
For example, transgender 11-year old Tracey Wilson’s parents launched (and won) a human rights complaint on her behalf against the Vancouver area Catholic diocese and achieved the desired policy change to recognize transgender girls and boys as their affirmed sex (Canadian Press, 2014). Similarly, Maine’s highest court ruled in 2014 that a transgender student’s rights were violated when her school forced her to use a staff bathroom rather than the girls’ bathroom (Byrne, 2014). The recent passage of AB 1266 into law in California, signed by the Governor on 12 August 2013 allows children ‘to participate in sex-segregated programmes, activities and facilities’ based on their affirmed gender rather than their birth sex. The law allows students to use bathrooms and locker rooms that correspond to their affirmed rather than assigned gender. Also see, San Francisco Unified School District, 2004; Toronto School Board, year; Edmonton School Board, 2011; Vancouver School Board, 2014 update of policy adopted in 2004.
- 4.
Taking effect on 1 January 2016, a Calfornia statute ensures that students in grades K-12 have the right to participate in sex-segregated activities and spaces in a manner consistent with their affirmed rather than assigned gender.
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Travers, A. (2018). Transgender Issues in Sport and Leisure. In: Mansfield, L., Caudwell, J., Wheaton, B., Watson, B. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Feminism and Sport, Leisure and Physical Education. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-53318-0_40
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