Faculty
Social Science
Supervisor Name
Dr. Julie McMullin
Keywords
transgender athletes, transgender, sports, review, International Olympic Committee
Description
Transgender athletes have a long and complicated history in relation to the sports they exist within and the governing bodies that surround them. As well, their unique relationship to their gender identity, their teammates, and to their sport, is oftentimes strained. Major sporting organizations such as the International Olympic Committee or FINA have often been at the centre of controversy with transgender participation policies that lack the needed elements of equity, diversity, and inclusion.
Through a review of the pertinent literature from prominent journals in the sociology of sport and queer methodology, literature pertaining to transgender athletes and policy from 2010-2022 were reviewed. Themes of exclusive policies, transgender inclusion, and double standards for transgender versus cisgender athletes emerged throughout this review, with prominent gaps in regard to team sports, transgender male athletes, and lower levels of sport.
The purpose of this review was to explore transgender sport policy and to reveal the existing gaps in the literature. This is a contemporary field, and we hope this review opens the dialogue for new and exciting research.
Acknowledgements
Thank you to Dr. Julie McMullin, the Western USRI program, and the Department of Sociology for both their ongoing support and this research opportunity.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
Document Type
Paper
Included in
Picked Last: A Review of Transgender Athletes’ Experiences in Sport
Transgender athletes have a long and complicated history in relation to the sports they exist within and the governing bodies that surround them. As well, their unique relationship to their gender identity, their teammates, and to their sport, is oftentimes strained. Major sporting organizations such as the International Olympic Committee or FINA have often been at the centre of controversy with transgender participation policies that lack the needed elements of equity, diversity, and inclusion.
Through a review of the pertinent literature from prominent journals in the sociology of sport and queer methodology, literature pertaining to transgender athletes and policy from 2010-2022 were reviewed. Themes of exclusive policies, transgender inclusion, and double standards for transgender versus cisgender athletes emerged throughout this review, with prominent gaps in regard to team sports, transgender male athletes, and lower levels of sport.
The purpose of this review was to explore transgender sport policy and to reveal the existing gaps in the literature. This is a contemporary field, and we hope this review opens the dialogue for new and exciting research.