Graduation Year
2022
Document Type
Thesis
Degree
M.A.
Degree Name
Master of Arts (M.A.)
Degree Granting Department
Womens Studies
Major Professor
David A. Rubin, Ph.D.
Committee Member
Travis Bell, Ph.D.
Committee Member
Diane Price Herndl, Ph.D.
Keywords
fairness, gender diverse, legitimacy, testosterone, racialised gender
Abstract
Professional sports are a cornerstone of mainstream capitalist society, a site where issuesof race, class, gender, nation, and religion amongst others are produced, contested, and negotiated. In particular, gender regulation policies serve to delineate the acceptable boundaries of racialised gender and create sanctioned opportunities to surveil transgressive bodies. In this thesis, I posit that professional sports rely on and protect uniformity of gender experience to regulate and exclude trans* and intersex participation and, furthermore, that gender regulation policies delineate the boundaries of gender and particularly womanhood in a way that further marginalises nonbinary athletes. Using critical discourse analysis, a methodology that addresses the power relations and inequities of discursive practices, I examine the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Consensus Meeting on Sex Reassignment and Hyperandrogenism (2015) and the IOC Framework on Fairness, Inclusion and Non-Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity and Sex Variations (2021). In the IOC Consensus, I examine how scientific legitimacy, gender consistency requirements, and an emphasis on fairness contribute to gender regulation. Within the IOC Framework, I explore how such regulation is continued through the use of ambiguous guidelines, transferring of responsibility, and the asymmetrical gendering of fairness and inclusion. I also consider the implications of the document being reframed from a consensus to a framework and how this contributes to relinquishing of responsibility. Through this analysis, I show the (d)evolution of gender regulation in sport but also illustrate how nonbinary athletes are challenging sport to reckon with its relentless exotification and policing of transgressive bodies.
Scholar Commons Citation
Ravat, Sabeehah, "Incorrect Athlete, Incorrect Woman: IOC Gender Regulations and the Boundaries of Womanhood in Professional Sports" (2022). USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/etd/9443
