Transgender Athletes and Principles of Sport Categorization: Why Genealogy and the Gendered Body Will Not Help

Abstract

This paper offers a discussion of the rationale for the creation of sports categorization criteria based on sporting genealogy and the gendered body, as proposed by Torres et al. in their article 'Beyond Physiology: Embodied Experience, Embodied Advantage, and the Inclusion of Transgender Athletes in Competitive Sport'. The strength of their 'phenomenological' account lies in its complex account of human experience; but this is also what makes it impractical and difficult to operationalize. Categorization rather requires simplicity and practicability, if it is to be applied to all athletes (and not exceptionally to transgender athletes). This discussion helps us to formulate three general principles for the process of categorization of athletes, relating to fairness, verifiability and practicability.

A just organized youth sport

“…In doing so, they regard justice-related problems beyond the playing field as secondary or irrelevant to philosophical discussions around justice in sport. For instance, Martínková, Parry, and Imbrišević (2021) differentiate 'competitionfairness' from 'context-fairness'. Although these authors accept that both affect the outcome of sport events, their analysis of justice is restricted to the former because 'it is not clear what sport is supposed to do about such context-unfairnesses' (9).…”

“And Then People Are Surprised That Disasters Befall Us From All Directions”: Sport Fans’ Responses to Israel’s First Transgender Soccer Referee Sapir Berman

“…The gender division in sport was originally designed to maintain fairness and facilitate competition in sport (Martínková et al, 2021); yet, it is obvious that the clear gender-based categorizations used in sport, which are based on the physiological differences between the sexes, reinforce the equation of masculinity with power and force (Grindstaff & West, 2011). As a result, in the context of sport, homosexuality is perceived as antithetical to sport.…”

“…Sport, which has maintained a strict gender division for many years, clearly faces a significant challenge. The debate over the inclusion of transgender athletes in sports has grown increasingly fierce and intense in recent years (Martínková et al, 2021). The current study focuses on sport fans' attitudes toward the presence of the first transgender soccer referee in an elite league in Israel, and largely reflects the broader discourse on gender diversity and inclusion in general.…”