An Intersectional Web of Harm

Trans Inclusion in Sports Part 7

While trans girls and women are the target of policies seeking to exclude them from sports and they suffer the brunt of the harm created by such policies, these rules can harm all girls and women. Because of intersecting identities, some individuals are more likely to experience harm than others.

In Part 8, I will share some research on how these policies lead to negative outcomes for trans people—but for Part 7, we turn to a refrain often raised by proponents for trans inclusion: anti-trans policies hurt all girls and women.

What is meant by that? Well, it’s a couple things. First, the basis of anti-trans policies, created in the name of “protecting girls and women” serves to reinforce stereotypes about gender (remember the social construction of gender from Part 4?). These stereotypes include that girls/women are weaker than boys/men and are therefore in need of protection. It also includes the stereotype that boys/men are inherently better at sports.

When girls are reminded of the stereotype that boys are better at sports—even if they don’t believe it—their sports performance suffers. It’s a phenomenon known as “stereotype threat.”

Cis girls and women also experience blowback from anti-trans rules when they are suspected/accused of being trans because their appearance, build, athletic ability, etc. don’t seem to meet our socially constructed constraints of what femininity looks like. We saw it last year when a teenage girl had to seek police protection after a member of the Utah State Board of Education falsely accused her of being trans. Her parents described her as "a tomboy with a muscular build and short hair who favors baggy clothing.” In Canada in 2023, a nine-year-old cisgender girl with a pixie cut was participating in a track-and-field event for elementary school students when a man accosted her, demanding proof that she was biologically female.

The harm of assumptions about “who” is girl/woman enough does not hit all girls/women equally. Women of color, particularly Black women, face extra scrutiny about their accordance with their gender, which is based on ideas of white heterosexual femininity. Black women, whether cis, intersex, or trans, must navigate intersecting racial and gender politics to defend their place in women’s sports. For example, Caster Semenya, a Black woman who was assigned female at birth, has been questioned for appearing too masculine and has had to fight policies that bar her from competing in certain events unless she takes medication to lower her natural testosterone levels.

As Pidgeon Pagonis, co-founder of the Intersex Justice Project, said to Vox, “Certain bodies are never allowed to be female, are never allowed to be women, are never allowed to just be.”

Lastly, while anti-trans advocates claim that allowing trans girls/women to play sports would hurt cis girls/women, the data does not bear this out. A 2021 study from the Center for American Progress notes that girls’ sports participation rates have declined in states with trans exclusionary policies, while they have remained steady in states with inclusionary policies. In other words, when states exclude trans girls from sports, all girls are less likely to play sports.

Check out the other posts in the series, and head to Athlete Ally's Resource page for more ways to support trans inclusion in sports.