Transgender Athletes in Competitive Sport

This is the first comprehensive study of the challenges that transgender athletes face in the hyper-macho, sex segregated institution of sport. The book discusses the historical role that sports have played in preserving sex as a binary and examines how gender has been policed within competitive athletics. It considers how transgender athletes are treated by a system predicated on separating males from females, forcing transgender athletes to negotiate the system in coercive ways, and reviews key issues and contemporary cases. Encouraging reflection on our culture’s binary thinking on sex and gender, it offers recommendations on how to make sport a more inclusive place for all participants.

While efforts to include gay and lesbian athletes in competitive sport have received significant attention, it is only recently that we have begun examining the experiences of transgender athletes in competitive sport. This book represents the first comprehensive study of the challenges that transgender athletes face in competitive sport; and the challenges they pose for this sex-segregated institution. Beginning with a discussion of the historical role that sport has played in preserving sex as a binary, the book examines how gender has been policed by policymakers within competitive athletics. It also considers how transgender athletes are treated by a system predicated on separating males from females, consequently forcing transgender athletes to negotiate the system in coercive ways. The book not only exposes our culture’s binary thinking in terms of both sex and gender, but also offers a series of thought-provoking and sometimes contradictory recommendations for how to make sport more hospitable, inclusive and equitable.

Transgender Athletes in Competitive Sport is important reading for all students and scholars of the sociology of sport with an interest in the relationship between sport and gender, politics, identity and ethics.