Opinion by Arwa Mahdawi
THE GUARDIAN
Photograph: John Hanna/AP© Provided by The Guardian
We’re in Kansas now, Toto, show us your genitals
According to the Kansas State High School Activities Association, about 106,000 students participate in the organization’s sports and activities. Guess how many of those students are transgender girls? Three. That’s right, just three.
Three transgender girls enjoying sports is apparently an emergency for Kansas Republicans. For the last few years they’ve been trying to pass a bill that would ban transgender girls and women from participating in female sports at public schools and colleges. The Democratic governor, Laura Kelly, vetoed the bill but, on Wednesday, the Republican-dominated Kansas legislature finally got enough votes to override the veto. Not only are transgender students now restricted from participating in school sports, parents can sue if they think their daughter didn’t make a team because a transgender girl took their place.
Republicans excel at passing deliberately vague bills, whose main purpose is seemingly to terrorize minorities rather than lay out clear law. This bill is no exception: it is very short and doesn’t say how they would determine whether someone is trans. This has led some people to provide their own interpretations.
“Kansas Republicans have successfully overridden the Governor veto to now authorize genital inspections of children in order for kids to play sports,” a viral tweet claimed. While that tweet got thousands of likes it should be noted that the bill doesn’t say anything explicit about genital inspections. However, it’s certainly not a gigantic leap to think something like this might be implemented. A 2021 version of the bill contained language stating that a dispute regarding a student’s sex might be resolved by a “health examination”. Further, during a House meeting in February, state representative Barbara Wasinger, who introduced the legislation, was asked how it would be enforced and answered that it would be via a “sports physical”. Does this mean a “genital inspection”, a Democrat asked. Wasinger said she couldn’t recall. I don’t know about you, but if I introduced legislation that would have a massive impact on people’s lives, I’d try and recall a few details about it.
Kansas isn’t the only state trying to block trans girls’ participation in sports. More than 14 states have passed bills targeting trans people in sports. And, of course, it’s not just sports that are being targeted. Republicans want to stop trans people existing in public at all. At least 452 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been introduced in state legislatures across the US since the start of this year, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), with a large number of these targeting trans people.\
Related video: ‘I didn't know that I could fight for my child,’ says parent of trans youth (cbc.ca) Duration 2:46 View on Watch
WLEX Lexington, KYTransgender athletes in school sports
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KMBC Kansas CityDuring overnight session, Kansas approves plan to end gender-affirming care for minors
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Scripps NewsThis week saw multiple states limit transgender rights
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When it comes to trans people playing sports, the people pushing anti-trans legislation dress up their bigotry in the language of women’s rights. The Kansas bill is predictably and disingenuously called “The Fairness in Women’s Sports Act”. Let’s be very clear here: banning trans girls from playing sports at school has nothing to do with fairness and everything to do with malice. In 2021 the Associated Press contacted two dozen state lawmakers sponsoring bills that would ban transgender girls from competing on girls’ sports teams in public high schools. In almost every case the sponsors couldn’t cite any examples in their state where trans participation in sport had caused a problem.
It’s perfectly reasonable to have a good faith discussion about whether transgender women who have gone through male puberty might retain an unfair advantage in professional women’s sports. It’s a complex subject and many experts believe regulations should be made on a sport-by-sport basis. But that’s professional sport. School sports are meant to be about inclusivity and team work and having fun. Laws like the one in Kansas aren’t being made because of a scientific consensus, they’re not being made because of ‘fairness’–they’re being made to hurt and humiliate young trans people. And these laws, I can’t stress enough, will not just affect trans people: they’ll impact everyone who doesn’t conform to rigid gender stereotypes. Indeed, cisgender women who don’t present in a ‘feminine’ way are already being harassed in public bathrooms because of anti-trans hysteria. There is no clear line between trans rights and women’s rights and gay rights: Republicans are coming for all of us.
‘I got a brain injury and a life sentence’: the hidden legacy of male violence against women
“The connection between traumatic brain injury (TBI) and intimate partner violence (IPV) is a global scandal and a public health secret,” the Guardian reports. For the first time, however, a UK study is under way to investigate the long-term brain health of women abused by their partners.
‘Forever chemicals’ linked to infertility in women, study shows
Unless you subsist on foraged berries and thrice-filtered spring water chances are you’re ingesting tons of “forever chemicals”, or PFAs. They’ve been found in 99% of the people in the US. The first known study on the effect of PFAs on female fertility has found that women with higher levels of these chemicals in their blood have a 40% lower chance of becoming pregnant within a year of trying to conceive.
Women now dominate the book business
“Once upon a time, women authored less than 10% of the new books published in the US each year,” NPR reports. “They now publish more than 50% of them … [and] the average female author sells more books than the average male author. In all this, the book market is an outlier when compared to many other creative realms, which continue to be overwhelmingly dominated by men.”
The week in pawtriarchy
A bunch of researchers recently performed magic tricks for monkeys in the name of scientific discovery. It turns out that monkeys were more likely to be tricked if they had opposable thumbs. “It’s about the embodiment of knowledge,” one of the scientists explained. “How one’s fingers and thumbs move helps to shape the way we think, and the assumptions we make about the world.” Basically the monkey has to be capable of doing the action in the trick to fall for it. Totally bananas.
“Alarming” rate of girls quit sport due to clothing concerns, shows hockey star’s new study already revolutionizing rules
Leading international hockey star’s study has already changed the face of her sport, as English league team players no longer required to wear skirts
Peer-Reviewed PublicationVIDEO: ENGLAND HOCKEY STAR TESS HOWARD, WHO LED THE RESEARCH view more
CREDIT: TAYLOR & FRANCIS GROUP
Sports kit issues shown to be the most underrated cause of low female sport participation. And the solution is simple: choice
New research showing gendered school sport uniform plays a “major role” in high drop-out rates of teenage girls in sport, has already broken boundaries to help remove rigid policies meaning skirts no longer need to be worn in women’s English domestic hockey matches.
Published today in the peer-reviewed journal Sport, Education and Society, the study, which looked at a range of women across the UK aged 18 and over, found 70 percent reported incidents of girls dropping sport at school due to clothing and related body image concerns.
The research was led by England Hockey star, Tess Howard whose strike secured the country’s first-ever Commonwealth Games gold medal, in a 2-1 win against Australia, last summer.
The 24-year-old’s study was carried out whilst she was studying human geography at Durham University. Her early promotion of her dissertation paper within hockey (known as field hockey in the US) circles has already led to new inclusive playing kit regulations being launched at the start of England Hockey’s domestic league 2022/23.
Now, Tess – a forward for East Grinstead Hockey Club – is balancing her playing career with becoming a sports activist. She is on a mission to change the face of hockey internationally, enabling choice for athletes to wear shorts or skorts. Long term, she aims to tackle the issue of gendered uniform across all sport.
“It’s all about choice; choice is being rigorously inclusive,” states Tess, who also stars for Great Britain but cruelly missed out on the Tokyo 2020 Olympics due to an anterior cruciate ligament injury.
“My dream is to go to the Olympics, but my dream is also an Olympics with the option to wear shorts or skorts. That is a powerful statement of inclusion, belonging and evolution in women’s sport.
“No person should be put off participating in any sport based purely on what the uniform requires them to wear. We must put the purpose of sport first and enable individuals to enjoy being active for all the clear benefits.
“If people want to wear shorts or leggings playing basketball or tennis or gymnastics it does not matter.
“The findings I discovered, in terms of the number of girls this is putting off sport, is truly alarming. It's the most underrated cause of low female sport numbers.”
Tess, who is now studying for a master’s at the London School of Economics, adds: “The legacy of gendered and sexualized uniforms is historic, dating back to Victorian times when women and girls in sport had to find ways to emphasize their femininity to be accepted in a masculine world – whether through playing tennis, cricket and hockey in long skirts or sexualization of beach volleyball and gymnastics uniforms. The legacy still exists.
“My research shows it taints a view of women’s sport from a very young age, and it puts focus on what girls’ bodies look like, rather than what they can do on the sports field or in the gym.
“Women’s sport is on the rise – we are so proud of our successful female sporting teams; but think of all the girls we have lost to kit problems. It’s not a girl-issue, it’s systemic in society and it’s a simple fix: choice.”
Historic data shows the gender play gap starts at age 5.
By age 14 only 10% of girls meet physical activity health standards.
Tess wanted to uncover – outside of society norms, social media and class – ‘what are the main barriers?’
Her hypothesis was school sport uniform impacts female sporting experiences and participation in physical activity. She wanted to uncover, too, how a uniform policy could be changed to promote greater female sport participation.
To uncover more, she carried out an extensive analytical online survey, promoted through social media, which 404 women across the UK completed. This was followed-up by eight interviews with a selection of those who had most recently left school.
The findings demonstrate participation and enjoyment of sport was severely impacted by uniform. In total, three-quarters of survey respondents replied ‘often’, ‘many’ and ‘sometimes’, when asked if participants ever saw girls stop playing sport because of sports kit or body image concerns.
But also, the results of the paper showed:
- many women felt sexualized by what they are being forced to wear in sport, contributing to the internalization of the unattainable ‘feminine body ideal’.
- gendered uniforms “influence the development of a fear of ‘masculinization’ and ‘butch/lesbian’ perceptions in sport, and signal the ways uniform can contribute to harmful athletic-feminine identity tensions in teenage girls”.
- gender-split uniforms create behavioral gender role stereotypes, and “undoing cis-normative clothing practices could foster a more inclusive space for all”, especially gender diverse students.
- creating choice is also about supporting physical sporting performance
Quotes taken from respondents of the study further highlight the issue.
“My friends with larger breasts tended to stop playing sports due to the style of our tops,” said one respondent.
Another said: “From Year 7-9, girls in my PE classes felt uncomfortable in the fit of some kit and their self-confidence decreased in kit if they perceived to not have the ‘ideal female body’.”
Further, another respondent explained: “‘I felt watched when playing sports with boys and felt uncomfortable wearing clothes that showed off my figure.”
Following early results of the study, Tess was able to use her influence within the sport to make a positive change, but she is determined to not stop there.
She is now launching Inclusive Sportswear CIC, a community-interest company specializing in the development of rigorously inclusive sportswear policies and guidance for schools, clubs, sport organizations and brands.
Inclusive Sportswear CIC, and its partnerships with Youth Sport Trust and Sporting Equals, will be launched on the 3rd May at the Include Summit in Manchester, the UK's No.1 Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Summit For Sport.
Tess explains: “I continually ask myself: If not now, when? If not us, who? That is what drives me.
“The momentum has been building, now we must connect sports clothing to inclusion and participation in sport.
“But it’s so much more than that: this connects to a greater global movement for individual choice over how we clothe and treat our bodies.”
JOURNAL
Sport Education and Society
ARTICLE TITLE
Practical, Professional or Patriarchal? An investigation into the socio-cultural impacts of gendered school sports uniform and the role uniform plays in shaping female experiences of school sport.
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
7-Apr-2023
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