Trans athletes’ resistance: the struggle for justice in sport podcast

Transcript

Trans athletes’ resistance: the struggle for justice in sport

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Daniel Ridge (DR): Welcome to the Emerald publishing podcast. I'm your host Daniel Ridge and I am a commissioning editor at Emerald Publishing. Today we're diving into the critical subject of trans and non-binary athletes’ resistance in the world of sports. Our discussion is inspired by the book Trans Athletes Resistance, The Struggle for Justice in Sport. This edited collection meticulously documents and analyses the formidable hurdles and resistance faced by trans and non-binary athletes. It explores how trans and non-binary athletes not only resist transphobic policies and practices, but also create new models of inclusive sport. Through sociological investigations, and compelling firsthand accounts, the author's challenge binary definitions set by policymakers, the dominance of the achievement model, and the toxic masculinity common in many sports subcultures. 

Joining me today are the two co-editors of this volume. First, we have Ali Durham Greey, a PhD candidate at the University of Toronto. Ali's research focused on the experience of trans and non-binary individuals in sport and education. They are SSHRC Joseph Armand Lombardi scholar and a retired member of the Canadian Olympic boxing team. 

Our second guest is Helen Jefferson Lenskyj, Professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto. Helen has been a pioneering researcher and activist on gender and sports issues since the 1980s. She has published numerous books, including the Olympic Games, a critical approach, published by Emerald in 2020. With Ali, Helen previously co-edited the 2022 publication, Justice for Trans Athletes: Challenges and Struggles. 

Today, we'll explore the groundbreaking work documented in Trans Athletes Resistance, The Struggle for Justice in Sport, and discuss its implications for creating more inclusive and equitable policies in the world of sports. 

Great to have you both with us today. So the book that we're focusing on today is Trans Athletes’ Resistance, which grew out of your first book Justice for Trans Athletes. So, before we delve into trans, the trans resistance book, can you tell us first about for Justice for Trans Athletes and where that project took you? 

Helen Jefferson Lenskyj (HJL): Yeah, well, I can start with a short history. And that is that Ali and I were talking to one another many years ago, maybe five or six by now about the possibility of Ali sending a book proposal for my Emerald Book series on sport and gender. And that didn't happen for a variety of reasons. But the next time I contacted Ali was to ask would she be interested in coediting a book on trans athletes and what triggered my sudden email to Ali was that there was sort of this buildup of such vitriolic comments on social media, in the US and UK in particular, and this onslaught of trans exclusionary legislation in US states, which has probably tripled since I first started watching or watching those stats. And so, then we put out a call for proposals and got excellent responses to the extent that we thought two books were in order, the first one on the problems and the second one, on the resistance and the solutions. So Ali, I'll let you fill in what I haven't said, which is quite a lot.

Ali Durham Greey (ADG): For me, having this chance to not just work with Helen, but to make two books with Helen was, you know, something you can only really dream about. As a junior graduate student, I was going into my PhD, and I already had this chance to learn about what it's like to how do you make a book proposal? How do you give feedback to tenured full professors? That's not something I learned as a graduate student. Right? That's not something you really learned further to that. Helen's also an amazing writer. Like if you read her work, it just, it's smooth and buttery. And most of what I've been reading in sociology and sports, sociology was not like, it was not written for the reader. It was not thinking about finesse and grace and pleasure in reading. And so while on the one hand, I got this incredible opportunity for my CV and my academic progression in competitiveness. Helen also gave me this opportunity to really model my writing after hers, in that developing my relationship with the reader became a priority.

DR: Yeah, that sounds like a really great experience really unique for, as you said, like an early PhD student. Most of the chapters in your collected book the Trans Athletes Resistance, use insights with an autoethnographical approach. So, can you tell us about autoethnography and perhaps why it's so useful in discussing trans and non-binary experiences in sports?

HJL: Yes, I can start responding to that question. And just to sort of harken back to when I was an undergrad, and the rule almost in sociology was you do not insert the personal pronoun I or me or my, you write in the third person. And that, of course, was very restrictive and silence, particularly women and then silenced LGBTQ people, silenced racialised people and so on. People with disabilities, all of us wanted to write from our own experience. And so, the kind of rules in sociology, thank goodness changed over the decades since I was an undergrad in 1972, on and so now auto ethnography is encouraged. And it's an invaluable method of telling your story telling your experience as a minoritised person, no matter what your identity is. So, it was particularly useful for many of the contributors to our second book, and I'll let our Ali talk about some of the details of that, including Ali's own chapter. 

ADG: We have two chapters on boxing. One is on my experience of boxing for Canada. And we have another one by Dan Irving. It's one of one of my favorite chapters in both books. And it's his experience of boxing. And he weaves in thinking about justice as a relational practice linked to his boxing, and his exploration of gender through boxing. So, I'm a big fan of that chapter. And when I teach courses on sport and gender, it's, that's, that's one of the ones I teach. 

DR: Yeah, that's great. So, diving into your chapter a little bit, I was really enthralled by your chapter in which you describe your experience with boxing that we were just talking about. And you're right, that sports allows players to tell stories about themselves to themselves, in your experience, how to sports help athletes, particularly trans and non binary athletes understand themselves and make sense of who they are.

ADG: So stories, I mean, just like Helen mentioned, stories are data. Our experience is data. And that's what is so radical about autoethnography, is it helped me think about my experiences, what I was observing what I noticed how I felt within a broader political environment, right. And what's I think, so transformative about auto ethnography is that it has the potential for precision in a way that studies that take a more zoomed out look at macro samples do not have the nitty gritty and I think I wonder if that's what you found enthralling is like just the precision I mean, not of reading, I'm still working on that, but just have that that experience. I don't know I. I also find it really engaging to think about autoethnography in terms of teaching because once people really connect with the idea that like the university actually finds their experience valid, it's information, it's knowledge, it's being produced. So yeah, it's autoethnography. Just about stories. Well,

DR: Well, so how do you think that sports help athletes understand themselves and make sense of who they are?

HJL: So just a sense of oneself, and a sense of one's potential strength, which was something in terms of my physicality, I did not have that knowledge, that self-knowledge until I started doing hapkido, which is a Korean system of self-defense. There is sparring involved, but it's primarily self-defense. And for me at five foot two or three, to be able, you know, with a cooperative male partner doing the techniques, having the technique and having a slight advantage of a lower center of gravity being on the five foot three to throw the guy onto the mat was just incredibly empowering and surprising as well. And so I wrote a bit about that, because I in the conclusion, I think it was two book two. Partly because I thought the reader might have a problem if they've never done a combat sport of any kind, or perhaps never a contact sport, which would be sort of on the road to this kind of understanding of physicality and, and power. But I thought a lot of readers may not have that experience personally, and might need persuading that boxing isn't just this nasty, bloody sport, that truly buddy, which both Dan Irving and Ali talk about in their chapters. So I just put a bit about my own experience with Aikido, and the empowerment that comes with that kind of experience. Another example, I think it was an Australian woman who took up boxing and then became a boxing coach, and ran programs specifically for women who had been victims of domestic violence or, or sexual assault, and to then find that empowering that empowerment through a physical sport like boxing, or wrestling or contact sports to some extent. And I know way back when people were talking sports sociologists were talking about what is it that's good for girls in sport. And I think somebody said, you learn to fall down and pick yourself up again. And women and girls in the 70s and 80s, in particular, were socialised to think that that simply wasn't possible that you kind of you got hurt, you lay there waiting for help kind of thing. I'm exaggerating. But you know, that's a far cry from pick yourself up off the mat after you've been thrown in a martial arts move. And instead of being on the defensive, grab the other person and throw them onto the mat. So that kind of feeling, a real gut feeling of empowerment.

DR: Yeah, well, so that brings me back to Ali's chapter on boxing. And I'm wondering how you know, Ali, you've you competed against both men and women, and I was wondering how that played a role in your own gender expression.

ADG: I can tell you about what it's like to spar with men, but I only competed against women. I'm in the, I was in the women's category, I'm biologically female. So I was just really only competing with women. But the thing is, there's so or that, at least when I was boxing, there were so few athletes in the women's division that we did most of our sparring and preparation with men and boys… is actually quite, quite challenging to prepare for a fight. You know, sparring with guys, and then get into the ring, and then fight another woman. And that sort of speaks, I think, to, to Helen’s point on socialising around gender, because, yeah, it's super empowering to beat up a guy.

DR: So how did that affect your life outside of the ring, though, you know, you have that experience of sparring with a male? And then you walk out on the street? And how does that, how does that affect your own self perception and how you embody yourself in the world?

ADG: It definitely made me feel more confident. I think I hadn't really spent a lot of time moving through the world thinking that I belonged in it in terms of taking up space. You know, and this was like the 2000s the arts. So for the first time, I didn't feel like I was in the way. And it was really empowering.

DR: That's really cool. Well, I'm going to quote you to yourself. So, I want to get your reaction to this. So in your chapter, you write, Ali, “To deny trans people the ability to participate in competitive sport, not only excludes us from the full participation in the public sphere, but this denial also diminishes our collective imagination of the vast possibilities of diverse gendered embodiment.” So how do sports become a microcosm for the trans experience? And what does resistance really look like?

ADG: Trans is like a very both like, umbrella concept for folks who don't feel like they fit in the normative categories of men and women. So in that sense, I really do identify as trans and also, you know, trans is a very specific identity that you know, people who have had medical interventions or, you know, changed in documentation and beyond like, that folks sort of really reserve for their experience. So when you're reading the quotation, I was really reflecting on how it's both like an act of allyship and solidarity to say our like, because, you know, I think for most people, at least the people that I meet, a lot of people have a gender that they don't see fitting into, you know, the two discrete options presented, I'd say most of the people in my life, including my family, right, we're all complex people. So when I say that we as trans like, are vulnerable to being robbed of the opportunities to participate in sport, and compete in sport, and nor ourselves through competing in sport, I really, I think it's really important for all of us who love sport and women's sport to like, really put ourselves in the shoes of people who might not get to play. The stories we tell ourselves about ourselves are, for me, the most important thing about sport and, you know, it was that's another cool thing about working with Helen was like looking at these experiences and being reminded that, yeah, this deserves academic publication. And so, I talked about this one fight that I lost, and how that's actually the most potent moment for me in my sport. In my in my sporting experience was, was losing and getting back up after getting knocked down literally, like really hard, really hard by the former Olympic champion.

DR: Yeah, well, you know, this brings me to the introduction of your book, where you discuss the difference between inclusion and belonging. So Helen, perhaps you could explain why belonging is more crucial for trans athletes than simply being included? And perhaps importantly, how can sports organisations foster a sense of true belonging?

HJL: Yeah, and as we used to say, in a lot of other contexts, it's not enough for the dominant institution to say, the door is open, come on in, that doesn't make people feel welcome, or belonging by simply having an open door and then saying, sort of just rolling your eyes and saying, Well, we opened the door, and they didn't come in as though is their fault, whoever they are, in this case, gender minoritised people who want to play sport. So the welcoming, in order to get the sense of belonging involves a really careful scrutiny of a club's policies, programs, the rules of the game, the sort of extracurricular things that happen off the field or off the rink, out of the pool, who's included, who's not included, who feels that they are welcomed in with open arms and belong? And getting back to the question of how the stories have to be out there. Just for the, probably, when I started doing sociology or sport in particular, looking at gender issues, the image if you asked this person in the street, to name an athlete, you could be 99% sure, they'd name a male athlete, a prominent male athlete. If you ask somebody, a child that say to draw a picture of an athlete, would they draw a female athlete or a male athlete? Well, probably a male athlete, and not a whole lot has changed. So, to have in the public imagination, a range of athletic bodies that who and all of these people with these bodies are all legitimate, genuine, dedicated athletes, regardless of their shape or size, or whether they have long hair or short hair or a lots of muscles, or not many muscles or whatever. The public image of the sporting body can be enlarged significantly, with non-binary and trans bodies being part of the landscape part of the television coverage without snide comments about their bodies, just as is. And depressingly, if we're thinking as I might have been that a lot of stuff has changed in the last five or six decades and in in the early days, we were talking about sexploitation of female athletes and so on. And I just saw online today, there's a lingerie company called Blue Bella, I think, I don't even want to repeat their name. They're so appalling and offensive. This company prides themselves on having partnerships and having female athletes pose in sort of guard through bras and that sort of thing and just G strings. This is progress apparently that it gives an image of sexy bodies so that and the caption actually said something like 1/3 of girls drop out of sport when they reached their teen years, as if showing female athletes who are people in their own right, highly respected athletes in their own right, this was the rugby team from Team GB, Great Britain, are some of some of the young women who posed in this in this so called lingerie, and they pose there ostensibly, or that this is how they were exploited, basically by this laundry company to give a sexy image of female athletes so that teenage girls wouldn't drop sport, which just is wrong on so many levels.

DR: Well, I'm wondering Ali about your experience with boxing when you felt or if you did when, when you felt you belonged, rather than just being included?

ADG: That's a great question. It's hard because I think my coaches saw one way of doing things based on how they had done things. And really, the question, for me always was as an athlete, not what should work. But what works is kind of the most challenging part of belonging for me in sport. And women's boxing was like a really awesome place to belong. You know, like, I saw, it was the first time I saw a bunch of people who looked like me, who are like, you know, because when you're boxing, when anyone steps in the ring, you pace like a tiger. There's no, there's no, you know, we can say that's masculine, we can say it's feminine body's doing it, whatever. Like, it's you your, your concern, consensually, getting in the ring. To like, put down some other person or be put down. It is, it's not like a lot of other experiences in the world or in life, right? That most people in the world have, I don't know. Yeah, belonging felt good. Belonging felt really good. And it pushed me to become a better athlete.

DR: Did you feel you had to prove yourself as an athlete to feel like you belonged? 

ADG: Yeah. So I started boxing in 2012. When Women's Boxing was in the Olympics, for the first time, was in the Olympics for the first time, excuse me. And I went to the gym the next day after I watched Mary Spencer, fight in the quarterfinals against the Chinese representative. And Mary lost. And so I was like, I can do better than her. So, I went to a boxing gym the next day and was like, I'm going to be your next Olympic champion. And that's like, a really common thing in boxing gyms. But so, they were like, yeah, sure, just keep coming back. Like, just try and, and don't miss practice. And I didn't miss practice. And by the end of that year, I was on the national team, in boxing internationally. And, you know, I went ahead five fights, I fought Claressa Shields who's like, if you just look her up, she's one of the best boxers of all time. She's an Olympic Champion, more than once, more than twice, I think, professional champion, and I have five fights on my fire. And so that's what, that's the experience I write about in my chapter. And I had to prove myself because they could tell that I was completely crazy. You know, like, I'm going to be an Olympic champion of four years. Nobody does that you like, nobody pulls it off. And nobody says they're going to do it. If you have any sanity of you, and I was telling everybody who would listen like my plan to win, which is what I do, I'm very grandiose by nature, which has its benefits and its costs. But but it you know, and I didn't go to the Olympics in 2016, our amazing athlete, Ariane, for talent, and I lost to her in the Olympic trials in the finals. And, you know, and then I got to cheer her on in, in Rio. And it was, there's some great fights. So she in a way, she carried my Olympic dream. Right, and representing Canada for it. So yeah, I had to prove myself on the daily because everyone thought I was delusional and like, there's no way I was going to succeed. And then I did prove myself because I didn't do exactly what I said I was going to do, but I followed my path to get there, you know, to the best of my ability, and I'm really happy with that.

DR:  Yeah, that's true. Cool. Well, given the current landscape of controversies and debates surrounding trans inclusion in sports, what are some of the practical creative solutions or reimagined structures that could genuinely support and include trans and non binary athletes? 

HJL: Some of these initiatives have been pioneered by LGB people before the LGBTQ community sort of developed more comprehensively. There were community-based softball leagues, soccer leagues, and swimming clubs that were by and for LGB people. They weren't excluding people who were not LGB, but the main purpose was to be a welcoming place where LGB people could belong. I think those community-based initiatives, most of which have expanded to include trans people and other LGBTQ members, as well as Two-Spirit individuals in the case of Canada, aim to be inclusive of all gender and sexual minorities, as well as the majority. So, no one's excluded; everyone is included.

In my limited experience with the softball league in Toronto, which was a lesbian-focused, purely recreational league with no competitions against other leagues, there were probably a couple of hundred players at its peak. The league had simple rules, like changing some to accommodate beginners like me, who had never held a baseball or softball bat and never worn a glove. This ranged from total beginners to more competitive women who had played in competitive leagues, often facing exclusion or stigmatisation for their sexuality. There was a need for lesbian leagues.

There have been accounts of trans athletes being welcomed and included in existing LGB leagues. One example is ultimate frisbee, now called disc golf. The national governing body for disc golf in the U.S. has specifically included trans players. These grassroots initiatives are crucial because leadership is almost never going to come from international federations or even national sports organisations. The initiative has to come from the grassroots and hopefully trickle upwards to provincial and national levels, and maybe one day internationally.

DR: Thank you for listening to today's episode. You can find more information about my guests on our website, and a link to the book Trans Athletes Resistance: The Struggle for Justice in Sport. I'd like to thank my guests for joining me today and the studio This is Distorted.