After Atalanta

In a continuation of my last post in which I crib from GLAD lawyer Jennifer Levi's thoughtful social media posts, I offer here an explanation of why and how trans athletes became the target of the right. First, I keep seeing left of center posts/headlines/discourse that highlight how few trans girls/women are competing in sports. I don't love this framing. The underlying premise of inclusion and access does not have a tipping point.  Perhaps what it is meant to show is how the right is weaponizing this issue. This is both reasonable and true but not really very profound in its assessment. Look at some of the groups and people doing the work of banning trans athletes and you will also see agendas which are racist, and anti-Semitic, and Islamophobic, and anti-LGB as well.  If I have not already recommended Judith Butler's Who's Afraid of Gender? (though I am pretty sure I have), go read it. Some of what Butler says is what Levi echoed in a recent posting contemplating the...

 Oddly, sexism is giving me hope right now. Well, the recognition by folks that all this shit is based on sexist and racist idea that white women need protecting.  For example, the attack on trans women, which WILL expand to other folks in the queer alphabet. It is lumped in with the anti-woke agenda of the right. But do not overlook the decidedly sexist discourse. A rationale for removing transwomen from sex-segregated spaces (which is a project of erasure and violence) is that (white) women need protection from people believed to be men. This was excellently articulated by Jennifer Levi, a lawyer for GLAD, Gay and Lesbian Legal who is currently fighting the ban on transgender persons in the military and the removal of transwomen from women's prisons. In a commentary on the unfolding events caused by the cruelty of this administration, Levi cites Ruth Bader Ginsburg's argument in Reed v Reed (a Supreme Court decision which marked the first time the Equal Protection Clause was...

 The same day as the president signed the executive order banning transwomen in school-sponsored sports (which WILL have more widespread effects--i.e., recreational sports for youth and adults), the NCAA issued its own change on transwomen in collegiate sports which, for the purpose of "consistency" will also prohibit transwomen from competing in women's NCAA sports.  [I wrote about the effects the EO will have on Title IX compliance which is something that NCAA purports to care about, at Title IX Blog .] I would have been surprised (in a good way), if they had not. They give in to outside pressure regularly (with positive and negatives effects). But this policy is another example of their failure to protect athletes. [Lack of penalties for schools that shield predatory coaches and doctors as well as athletes who commit sexual assault; their exploitation of Black men who help them make their billions every March; their laughable adherence to an ahistorical definition of ...

One post on the a dministration's executive order banning transwomen and girls from women's sports does not seem sufficient. I have so many things to say. I will do a separate post on the NCAA on the path it chose in issuing its own ban; and then probably another one on the all the contradictions contained in the ban; and then another about this bullshit discourse on the protection of women (the photo of the bill signing with a group of young white girls surrounding a sexual predator is gag-worthy); and the mess that is trying to categorize things as sex or gender.  Here though I muddle through some initial (though not new) thoughts.  I am on sabbatical this semester trying to complete a project on the influences of feminist ideologies of the 1970s (US context) on women's sports. And being (re)immersed in this literature has been somewhat surreal given the current discourse. Gender as a concept was not in circulation in the 70s but arguments over the role of culture, biolo...

 Mariah Burton Nelson and Donna Lopiano, long-time women's sports advocates, have found "a fair and inclusive solution" to the "problem" of trans athletes--specifically trans women (because trans men are apparently inherently disadvantaged despite all that testosterone, the very substance that a mere blink of an eye ago everyone said meant everything in terms of advantage).  They (presumably with their more visible/vocal and polarizing colleagues Nancy Hogshead-Makar and Martina Navratilova) have created the Women's Sports Umbrella. The umbrella, they claim, allows for anyone identifying as female to have a "team" experience. But if an athlete was assigned male at birth and transitioned after the age of 12, that person cannot compete alongside women. Well unless it is an individual sport in which case fine but the scores/times do not get included with the "real women's" scores, they get put into the trans category. (But rugby and othe...

There are so many anti-trans bills passed by and pending in state legislatures here in the United States that I cannot even begin to address them all except to say this has been a concerted movement targeting trans youth for several years now and it is horrifying. The bill in Utah is my focus today. All the bills are horrible and saddening and enraging, but this one...is all that and more. This one demonstrates the consequences of the anti-trans "save women's sports" movement. The bill, which originated in 2021, bans children from participating in sports consistent with their gender identity. It was passed in March 2022, the governor vetoed it, t he legislature overrode the governor's veto.   Governor Cox, a Republican, expressed some compassion when explaining his veto of the bill. He cited that fact that Utah had four transgender children playing school-sponsored sports at the time. (I would argue that the number does not matter, but will save that post for another ...

 [this is cross-posted. Original post is at Title IX Blog. ]  I virtually attended last week's  NCAA annual Inclusion Forum  which was celebrating Title IX but also included issues of BIPOC inclusion and athlete mental health (among others). There was a panel on Thursday afternoon headlined by former Harvard swimmer Schuyler Bailar about trans athletes.  When the conference was announced, I was curious about how the organization would approach--or even if they would--trans athletes given the recent seemingly abrupt change in their policy (January 2022-- curiously  amidst the growing visibility of Penn swimmer Lia Thomas). They moved from a not ideal but not totally horrible policy in which hormone levels (specifically testosterone) governed participation, to a  we-are-cowards-kowtowing-to-the-misnamed-fear-mongering-save-women's-sports folks policy  in which trans athletes are treated as cheaters constantly having to submit to surveillance. Additi...