Transgender Inclusion in School Sport and Feminism - Learning as we go...

The feminist movement in Sport has by all accounts produced pretty good results. In 120 short years we have seen the rise of female participation rise to almost equal male sport. At the Paris Olympics of 1900 there were a mere 22 female participants. In 2020, female athletes comprised 49% of all athletes with over 5400 taking part. There are a growing number of professional leagues for women, including in previously male dominated sports such as the Football codes and increasingly women’s sport is being broadcast alongside men's – despite lower viewership. Prize money and salary packages are (albeit slowly) becoming more equal.

The recent call for transgender rights is a pleasing development for a community who have no doubt experienced enormous discrimination and ignorance. The recognition that diversity and inclusion is the way forward in our communities, workplaces and schools is a positive development. Research tells us transgender and non-binary people are at much higher risk of experiencing depression, suicidal ideation and risk than their cis-gendered counterparts.

Sport, is of course impacted by this and is now beginning to wrestle with the details of how to achieve this and maintain a safe and level playing field.

Perhaps I am somewhat utopian in my world-view, however I do truly believe most sporting organisations DO embrace the need to be inclusive. Certainly, at grass roots level, where it counts the most. However, the challenges come when we must confront the realities of HOW to do this. It’s more than writing warm and fuzzy statements about inclusion in your Handbooks.

I recent years I have been involved with penning various policies on Gender and Sport. Predictably we began with the premise of inclusion. The working groups I participated in confidently wrote about our provisions for Transgender and Non-Binary students including; Provision of all-gender bathrooms for changing, a gender neutral uniform, use of preferred pronouns and more mixed gender opportunities for all. We patted ourselves on the back and continued on. I now realise we were somewhat na?ve and idealistic. As with all policies, the devil is in the detail and now I, along with many of my colleagues we are currently working with our first open transgender student-athlete, and we must contend with the safety aspects of inclusion and the perceptions of fairness. The particular challenge comes when you have a masculine to feminine transgender student in your community, even more so if they are transitioning post-puberty. As one pundit on a Coaches Facebook group I am a member of eloquently put it, transgender females who transition post puberty have the benefit of the male skeletal and muscular system, higher VO2 max and years of training as a male. Hormones alone do not level the playing field. Its also important to note that often teens and their support network may choose to transition socially without hormonal or surgical intervention.

The recent high-profile case involving a female transgender NCAA swimmer from Penn State tearing down records in their Junior year, has put a spotlight on this contentious issue. Both the IOC and FINA have been conspicuous in their silence thus far. These elite bodies currently utilise invasive medical testing in order to enforce their policies and guide their decision making (which is arguably acceptable at elite level), however I don’t think testosterone testing and the like, would EVER be appropriate at school sport level.

How do you support a student to compete with students of their preferred gender identity, whilst protecting the right of biological female students to a fair contest? This healthy conversation has begun in our school and we plan to trial a range of approaches. All the while collecting student-voice along the way.

Here are some of the concepts we are exploring, which I share in the hope they may be helpful in your quest to find the right balance between the positive movement for transgender rights and a shamelessly feminist approach to promoting sports to all. We are considering these first within an internal context, before we approach the conversation with other schools to see if we can agree on how we can compete together.

1.?????School Records (Swimming/Track & Field etc) – We will be looking to protect our historical and future records by having the traditional Male/Female records but also All-Comers records, which is open to both sexes and all gender identities. This will provide the required inclusion and maybe even a challenge for our more able biological females.

2.?????Event Names – We will be examining how we name our events. Traditionally we’ve gone with Male/Boys and Female/Girls. Would “Open” and Female/Girls be a better fit for the modern world? This works well in some sporting arenas already, for example Darts.

3.?????Squad Sizes – We are in the business of creating opportunities for young people. We will be examining our approach to maximum squad sizes to ensure that we can include both a good number of female students and any keen transgender females in our teams.

4.?????Medal and Trophy Presentations – We will be looking to present dual awards in the event a transgender student achieves a podium placing. Dual medal presentations already happen for a variety of reasons (ties, leagues within a league etc) and this ensures recognition for all. After all, it’s school sport so let’s share the love!

I feel that it’s also important to acknowledge that most of us in leadership roles in the school sport realm right now are coming at this issue from a CIS gendered perspective, so the issues and ideas above are no doubt influenced by this. I firmly believe we will see many iterations of approach before we get it right.?As the parent of a transgender student-athlete put it, “Let us not forget our core aim – safe and inclusive sport for everybody. Staying open, learning about the issues and being willing to support all student-athletes, trans-masculine, trans-feminine, non-binary and CIS gendered is the focus.”