Gender Diversity and Sport

Interdisciplinary Perspectives

Gemma Witcomb, Elizabeth Peel, Gemma Witcomb, Elizabeth Peel

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781000575491
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

This timely and urgent text presents cutting-edge research exploring the complexities of barriers to inclusive access to sport and physical activity, and discusses how sport, and society, can move forward beyond the gender binary, in both theory and practice.

Sport is one of the most influential, powerful, and visible institutions upholding the gender binary, even as the number of people identifying as transgender and non-binary increases rapidly worldwide. With this rising visibility, societal pressure has been increasing for the equal acceptance of gender diverse people, but while gains have been made in many areas, the participation of intersex, trans and non-binary people in sport remains harshly contested. Bringing together a world-leading team of established and emerging scholars from the UK, USA, and Australia, this collection presents an interdisciplinary analysis of current issues related to the participation of gender diverse individuals in sport and physical activity. Engaging with psychological ideas around identity, prejudice and discrimination, and sports psychology and performance, authors examine evidence that the rules, regulations, and practices that surround physical activity participation – from elite sport to sport in schools, universities, and society at large – are grounded in heteronormative, cisgendered, and sexist practices which unfairly discriminate against gender diverse people.

Also including analysis of personal accounts from non-binary and transgender athletes from a range of sports, this is fascinating and essential reading for education, health, and sports professionals who work with and support gender diverse children and adults, as well as academics and students in the fields of psychology, sport psychology, sociology, law, and sports science, and those participating in, and navigating, sport and physical activity spaces.

Chapter 1

Introduction

Situating Gender Diversity and Sport

G.L. Witcomb and E. Peel

DOI: 10.4324/9781003050568-1

If you enter a sporting event, what are you asked to disclose about yourself? Which categories are salient and influential? ‘Gender’ is an undisputed category participants engaging in sports are typically mandated to disclose. This is a real example of how gender is approached by a sport events listing service in 2021:

Gender

• Male
• Female
• Other/Prefer not to say (Selecting this may affect prize eligibility)

This UK company lists various types of running races, walking, cycling, athletics track and field, aquathon, duathlon and triathlon events. We can see in the way that disclosing gender as part of the registration process is constructed that, on the one hand, gender beyond the two binary options of ‘female’ and ‘male’ is recognised by the presence of a third category. On the other hand, however, if a competitor lists their gender as ‘other’ or does not wish to identify as either ‘male’ or ‘female’ the implication is that they forfeit their opportunity to win any prize associated with the race or event. Ultimately, then, though there is acknowledgement that gender is more complex than dimorphic sex, the only legitimate forms of sporting engagement are in the women’s or men’s categories. This example illustrates the liminality that gender diversity inhabits in sports spaces and raises important questions about how recognition per se does not necessarily translate into inclusion.

Interdisciplinarity and psychological spheres

Gender Diversity and Sport aims to showcase interdisciplinary perspectives in order to further the inclusivity of trans, non-binary and diverse genders in discussion of sport and physical activity. Indeed, cultural studies (Shultz, Chapter 2), law (Patel, Chapter 3), sociology (Phipps, Chapter 4; Newman & Witcomb, Chapter 9), and speech pathology (Stewart et al., Chapter 7) are all represented. Nevertheless, a number of contributors, and ourselves, orient the discussion of gender diversity and sport with reference to psychology – especially concerns germane to the psychology of women and equalities, and the psychology of sexualities.¹ The discipline of psychology in the UK, and elsewhere, has had a chequered history regarding representation and inclusions of trans and gender diverse people and concerns (e.g., Tosh, 2016). Rather than offer an extensive critique of mainstream psychology and the ‘psy’ discipline’s failings, omissions and harms regarding those minoritised on the basis of gender, a brief genealogy of the development of the key (and affirmative) sub-field of psychology of sexualities is illuminating.²

When the field of lesbian and gay psychology – as it was known then – was established in 1998 there was limited consideration of trans and gender non-conforming topics and concerns (e.g., Coyle & Kitzinger, 2002; Clarke & Peel, 2007a). By 2007 there was explicit inclusion of ‘trans’ and ‘queer’ in the field (Clarke & Peel, 2007b), and, as a key collection at that time stressed, the time had come to be “outing” psychology as already, if sometimes ambivalently or unwillingly, incorporate[ing] LGBTQ perspectives’ (Clarke & Peel, 2007c, p. 1). Nevertheless, if we take this substantial four-part 21 chapter volume (Clarke & Peel, 2007b) as a litmus test of the state of the field at that time, there were only three chapters devoted to trans people and a single chapter that focused on sport, centering on the experiences of lesbian sportswomen (Krane & Kauer, 2007). When the first textbook in the psychology of sexualities field was published in 2010 there was acknowledgement that the existing research focused on sport and exercise highlighted ‘the challenges faced by non-heterosexual sportswomen and men in a world infused with ideals of hegemonic masculinity and heterosexuality; and in which sportswomen who display qualities associated with masculinity (such as aggression, strength and confidence) are (negatively) assumed to be lesbian’ (Clarke et al., 2010, p. 253). Notable, then, by its absence was research focused on trans and gender-nonconforming experiences with and in sports contexts, beyond their intersection with gendered stereotypes impacting lesbians. And whilst discussion of gender diversity is thoroughly integrated into the second edition of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Intersex, and Queer Psychology (Ellis et al., 2020) textbook, sport only gets mentioned tangentially in the context of discussion of gender inequality in sports being a site for the discursive production of prejudice.

In terms of sport psychology, while there have been recent efforts to offer intersectional feminist perspectives (e.g., Carter, 2019), there are also renewed calls to frame the sub-field away from its positivist, androcentric routes toward being a field which actively foregrounds ‘compassionate inclusion’ (Krane & Waldron, 2021, p. 469). In their throughgoing critique of the current state of the field of sport psychology Krane and Waldron (2021, p. 470) flag the ‘glaring lack of attention to inclusion and diversity’ and emphasise the ‘largely non-existent’ nature of LGBTQ psychological research within sport psychology. By contrast, their call to action stresses that the:

field should be on the cutting edge of advancing inclusive sport environments. […] given the widespread scrutiny surrounding transgender people in sport and the common narrative of their unfair advantages or locker room politics, there is a deafening silence from sport psychology professionals. […] We should be at the forefront of supporting trans athletes.

(Krane & Waldron, 2021, pp. 470 and 485)

Although we position ourselves as feminist psychologists and not sport psychologists, there is much to be said for heeding the clarion call of Vikki Krane and Jennifer Waldron. Given this book’s focus on sport we encourage sport psychologists – broadly conceived – to consider how centring perspectives that emphasise inclusion in sports for trans and non-binary people and concerns might de-centre taken-for-granted assumptions in sport, sports psychology, and also in wider society.

Though we have situated the interdisciplinary research contained in Gender Diversity and Sport in psychological spheres this should not be read as exclusive. The boundaries of social science disciplines should be porous ones; and similar debates about inclusion and exclusion and the relationship between the marginalised and the mainstream occur in numerous disciplinary contexts.

Axes of Exclusion and Inclusion

Gender has been leveraged throughout history to explain and justify inequality. Most notably, early psychology and neuroscience provided ‘evidence’ of inherent differences between the sexes, with women having marked deficiencies compared to men (cf. Rippon, 2019). While it is now acknowledged that sex-correlated biological processes do play a role in behaviour, it is largely recognised that they do so flexibly, bi-directionally, and in ways that fluctuate across the life course, rather than having a fixed and enduring polarising effect (Rogers, 1999). That said, societal beliefs regarding traditional gender roles still pervade modern society and are evident in opinions about the participation of gender diverse individuals within sport, with those holding more traditional gender role beliefs espousing less support (Flores et al., 2020).

Understandings of gender and sex have shifted largely due to feminist thought from the 1960s onwards. In the contemporary West, often sex is viewed as foundational, dimorphic and wholly linked to biology whereas gender is seen as culturally and socially produced. At times sex/gender are used interchangeably, at other times gender is used as the sole signifier acknowledging that ‘sex’ is subject to the same regulatory norms and discursive practices which produce the material as well as the social (Butler, 1993). Gender, and sexism and cisgenderism, are produced in and through various contexts (e.g., Speer & Stokoe, 2011); fluid, contestable and contingent on the one hand, and structurally embedded and resistant to change on the other. While debate continues about what is included and excluded within the edifice of Gender³ – at all levels of normative practice – the progressive view is that there is no inevitable mapping of biological sex onto a singular gendered identity. The disaggregation of biological sex and gender identity has shaped social practices in many spheres, such as the instantiation of gender-neutral toilets in many organisational spaces and legislative frameworks to support binary trans peoples’ sense of self. Though the widening and troubling of sex and gender is a welcome move forward in understanding gender as influenced by, and ‘performed’ (Butler, 1988; 1990) within our cultural boundaries, and thus also constrained by them, it has presented problems in areas that are firmly rooted to sex difference politics, such as sport.

Sporting contexts are often characterised by exclusivity rather than inclusivity and can ‘completely negate the possibility of inclusion for people with non-binary or intersex identities’ (Krane & Waldron, 2021, pp. 472–473). Although latterly there has been ‘some progress toward greater inclusivity for transgender people in relation to Sport’ (Hargie et al., 2017; p. 224) genuine inclusion of diverse genders in sports settings and, especially, competitive contexts requires transformative thinking and practice. Given the prestige and power of sport we might question whether there is the ideological and political will to affect change in support of minoritised groups and individuals. For many nations around the world, sport is a central part of their national identity. Success in sport is not only a source of national pride for fans, but is seen as a visible, tangible illustration of international ranking and status to the wider world. The international media coverage of the (postponed) 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Tokyo (July–September 2021) is testament to the importance bestowed upon sport as part of a nation’s identity.

At an individual level, sport is also central to identity for many people – whether through personal identity as a participant (e.g., identifying as a sports person) or social identity of being a fan (e.g., identifying with a particular team or sport). Both are significant identities that are enacted through sport, and which have many benefits for mental wellbeing and quality of life. Self-esteem (Jetten et al., 2015), social support (Häusser et al., 2020), meaning and purpose (Steffens et al., 2017) and personal growth (Greenaway et al., 2015) are all associated with connection to sport. Thus, a shared sporting identity can act as vehicle through which people connect with one another. Connectedness is a fundamental human need and desire of all (Baumeister & Leary, 1995) and exclusion in sport may render this more difficult for gender diverse people to achieve; arguab...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Endorsements
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of tables
• List of contributors
• Acknowledgements
• 1. Introduction: Situating Gender Diversity and Sport
• 2. Sex Segregation in Elite Sport: What’s the Problem?
• 3. Law and Regulatory Barriers to Increasing Inclusivity for Trans Athletes
• 4. ‘For Some People they’d Never Be Able to Tick all those Boxes’: Exclusion of Trans and Non-binary Identities in University Sport Policy
• 5. The Navigation of Non-binary Expression through Sports Kit
• 6. Negotiating Gender Performances in Physical Education and School Sport: Gender Diversity and Inclusive Practices
• 7. Understanding How Voice Impacts on Trans Women’s Participation in Sport
• 8. Representing Diverse Genders in Sports Media: The Discursive Production of Cisgenderism in the UK Press
• 9. Ripping up the Rulebook: Challenges and Opportunities in Moving Beyond the Binary
• Index