The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has always been plagued by what queer theorist Judith Butler calls gender trouble. In 2000, the IOC discontinued their practice of sex-testing because medical experts could not agree on what defined a genetic female and so an adequate medical testing measure could not be found. In response to outside pressure, the IOC adopted a policy enabling transsexual athletes to compete in the 2004 Olympic Games. This article argues that the IOC policy on sex reassignment does not operate to guard against discrimination and harassment against transsexual athletes but that it operates to maintain the popular illusion that there are two, binary gender designations. While both transsexual and Olympic bodies have unique histories and vastly different experiences in the social and political realms, using psychoanalysis we contend that the need to test gendered bodies is incited by an anxiety about bodily deterioration, aging, and, ultimately, mortality.

While education communities have well defined commitments to protect their learners from oppressive instructional materials, discourses of science education are often left unexamined. This analysis/critique employs queer theory as a perspective to look at how one widely used textbook in Ontario schools conceptualizes notions of gender and sexuality. Results indicate the use of discourses that promote exclusively heteronormative constructions of sexuality along with sex/gender binaries. Challenging such oppressive misconceptions of sex/gender and sexuality is discussed.Keywords Heteronormative(ity) Á Queer Á Textbook Á Gender Á Sexuality L'identité secrète d'un manuel de biologie: naturalisation et hétérosexualisation des questions de genre (Sommaire Executiv)Depuis une dizaine d'années, les directions d'école en Amérique du Nord promulguent des politiques claires visant à éliminer tout matériel discriminatoire en ce qui concerne l'identité sexuelle et la représentation genrée dans les écoles. Clairement, ces politiques s'adressent aussi à l'éducation aux sciences. Toutefois, les représentations en termes de sexualité, de sexe ou de genre dans les textes scientifiques qui prétendent à une certaine visée universelle et impersonnelle continuent souvent à reproduire des identités sexuelles ou genrées reflétant l'ordre social prévalent. La présente analyse/critique utilise la théorie queer comme perspective pour examiner la manière dont un manuel scolaire utilisé largement dans les écoles en Ontario conceptualise les notions de genre et de sexualité.Les conclusions ont été organisées en deux catégories de discours: la représentation de sexe selon le système binaire mâle/femelle, ainsi que le discours de l'hétéronormativité. Les discours normatifs de l'hétéronormativité contribuent à opprimer les individus qui ne J. Bazzul (&) Á H. Sykes Curriculum, Teaching and Learning, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at

One of the ways heterosexuality maintains its privileged status is through the discursive figure of “the closet,” where everyday speech normalizes heterosexuality while silencing lesbian sexuality. In this paper, feminist and queer theories are used to explain why the closet has featured so prominently in women’s physical education. The paper also contains a poststructural analysis of how the closet was constructed in the life histories of 6 lesbian and heterosexual physical educators. Excerpts from the life histories illustrate how silences inside the closet acquired meaning only in relation to everyday talk about heterosexuality. Finally, deconstruction is used to suggest how heterosexuality can sometimes find itself inside the closet, thereby undermining the boundaries between inside/outside, silence/speech, and lesbian/heterosexual.

This article examines developments in gender policies in sport in relation to recent changes in transsexual rights legislation and gender identity activism. The Gay Games has developed a gender identity policy about “men, women, transgender and intersex” athletes. In 2004, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) introduced the Stockholm Consensus on sex reassignment surgery to allow “transsexual” athletes to compete at the Olympics. These developments do not indicate an overall increase in the acceptance of gender variance in the world of sport; rather, there has been ongoing resistance to inclusive gender policies in mainstream sport organizations. I argue this resistance is based on anxieties about the instability of the male/female gender binary and the emergence of queer gender subjectivities within women’s, gay, and mainstream sporting communities.