TERF wars: An introduction

Pearce, Ruth; Erikainen, Sonja; Vincent, B.

doi:10.1177/0038026120934713

Cited by 189 publications

(130 citation statements)

References 50 publications

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“…I situate lawmaking in its discursive political context which is shaped by "trans-exclusionary radical feminists" (TERFs) (Goldberg 2014). TERF circles emerged from second-wave liberal feminist movements and have more recently joined cause with conservative interest groups to contest trans inclusion under sex non-discrimination policies (Pearce et al 2020;Wang 2019;Wuest 2021). 8 Title IX states that "no person .…”

Section: Sports Bodies and Title IXmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sports, Transgender Rights and the Bodily Politics of Cisgender Supremacy

Sharrow

2021

Laws

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Between 2020 and 2021, one hundred and ten bills in state legislatures across the United States suggested banning the participation of transgender athletes on sports teams for girls and women. As of July 2021, ten such bills have become state law. This paper tracks the political shift towards targeting transgender athletes. Conservative political interests now seek laws that suture biological determinist arguments to civil rights of bodies. Although narrow binary definitions of sex have long operated in the background as a means for policy implementation under Title IX, Republican lawmakers now aim to reframe sex non-discrimination policies as means of gendered exclusion. The content of proposals reveal the centrality of ideas about bodily immutability, and body politics more generally, in shaping the future of American gender politics. My analysis of bills from 2021 argues that legislative proposals advance a logic of “cisgender supremacy” inhering in political claims about normatively gendered bodies. Political institutions are another site for advancing, enshrining, and normalizing cis-supremacist gender orders, explicitly joining cause with medical authorities as arbiters of gender normativity. Characteristics of bodies and their alleged role in evidencing sex itself have fueled the tactics of anti-transgender activists on the political Right. However, the target of their aims is not mere policy change but a state-sanctioned return to a narrowly cis- and heteropatriarchal gender order.

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Section: Sports Bodies and Title IXmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sports, Transgender Rights and the Bodily Politics of Cisgender Supremacy

Sharrow

2021

Laws

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“…. "safety" is part of a wider protectionist politics around (cis) women's bodies that function to protect idealised notions of white female vulnerability' (see Patel 2017and Koyama 2020, as in Pearce et al 2020. In this way, we make use of Ahmed's (2019) feminist examination of use to critically examine current female eligibility regulations, with a focus on the emergence of potential organisational violence (systemic discrimination; medical mismanagement), in the context of contemporary sports safeguarding policy and practice.…”

Section: Theoretical Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Safeguarding in sports settings: unpacking a conflicting identity

Bekker

Posbergh

2021

Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health

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Safeguarding is a major area of research, policy, and practice for contemporary sports scholars, practitioners, and stakeholders. In recent years, the concept of safeguarding (broadly: the prevention of harassment and abuse) as applied to sport settings has expanded to include not only sexual harassment and abuse, but also individual (e.g. disordered eating; self-harm), relational (e.g. psychological, physical, sexual harassment and abuse), and organisational (e.g. systemic discrimination; medical mismanagement) forms of violence. In 2016 the International Olympic Committee published its landmark Consensus Statement on non-accidental violence (harassment and abuse) in sport (IOCCS). Concomitantly, sports organisations have increasingly regulated women's eligibility through 'female eligibility policies' under the premise of safeguarding. This is particularly exemplified by World Athletics' 2019 Female Eligibility Regulation (WAFER). The WAFER, however, has received substantial critique, particularly in terms of the systemic discrimination and medical harm that it has been shown to enact on certain groups of marginalised women. In this article, we undertake a comparative document analysis to evaluate female eligibility regulations within the framework of contemporary sport safeguarding policy and practice. Our analysis finds that safeguarding, especially with regard to 'fairness' and women athletes, adopts a conflicting identity due to three primary reasons: (1) lack of organisational accountability; (2) focusing on interpersonal harms rather than systemic violence; and (3) attention to science over athlete voice. As such, we conclude by urging a critical re-examination of the conceptualisation and implementation of safeguarding, positioning organisational violence enacted through female eligibility policies as a sports safeguarding issue.

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“…Sex difference research is a perennial subject of boundary work in professional sports, determining who can compete in women’s events and leagues (Davis 2015; Karkazis and Jordan-Young 2015; Pielke and Pape 2019). A growing number of media and academic figures even endorse this paradigm because they believe it is feminist (Pearce et al 2020). Such “trans-exclusionary radical feminists” cite biological sex differences as justifications to deny trans people’s demands for civil and medical rights.…”

Section: Paradigms Of Sex Research In the Life Sciencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Paradigms of Sex Research and Women in Stem

Lockhart

2021

Gender & Society

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Scientists’ identities and social locations influence their work, but the content of scientific work can also influence scientists. Theory from feminist science studies, autoethnographic accounts, interviews, and experiments indicate that the substance of scientific research can have profound effects on how scientists are treated by colleagues and their sense of belonging in science. I bring together these disparate literatures under the framework of professional cultures. Drawing on the Survey of Earned Doctorates and the Web of Science, I use computational social science tools to argue that the way scientists write about sex in their research influences the future gender ratio of PhDs awarded across 53 subfields of the life sciences over a span of 47 years. Specifically, I show that a critical paradigm of “feminist biology” that seeks to de-essentialize sex and gender corresponds to increases in women’s graduation rates, whereas “sex difference” research—sometimes called “neurosexism” because of its emphasis on essential, categorical differences—corresponds to decreases in women’s graduation rates in most fields.

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TERF wars: An introduction

Cited by 189 publications

References 50 publications

Sports, Transgender Rights and the Bodily Politics of Cisgender Supremacy

Sports, Transgender Rights and the Bodily Politics of Cisgender Supremacy

Safeguarding in sports settings: unpacking a conflicting identity

Paradigms of Sex Research and Women in Stem

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