If not in sport, where?

Just hearing lawmakers talk about us in a way that dehumanizes us, that says that we are not worthy of the same experiences as our peers, is detrimental. It’s not only detrimental to the trans people who hear that about themselves, but it also deeply influences the way that other people treat the trans community.

— Chris Mosier, Transgender Athlete on the Global Sport Matters Podcast

From our earliest days at the Global Sport Institute, we have believed that sport could play a positive role in promoting a more inclusive society. Still, when it comes to the evolving landscape of issues related to sex and gender, the battle has played out for years over who gets to participate in sport, from youth leagues to the pros, and that battle only continues to intensify.

Athletes such as the WNBA’s Layshia Clarendon and Quinn of the National Women’s Soccer League came out as gender nonconforming, leading fans, pundits and the media to take a closer look at leagues’ gender policies and how athletes are covered based upon their sex, gender and sexuality. As the Olympics neared, that examination grew more prevalent, with the sports world scrutinizing the International Olympic Committee’s rules over hormone levels and gender classification. What was once a conversation limited to Caster Semenya or Dutee Chand, expanded to become a dominant narrative in Tokyo as several trans athletes who were out competed for the fi rst time.

In the United States, the topic became a political wedge issue. Dozens of bills were introduced at the state level, mostly by conservative legislatures, that specifically addressed young trans athletes’ participation in sport.

To gain a deeper understanding of the issue, the Global Sport Institute polled Americans on their understanding of and beliefs on gender-nonconforming athletes and whether and how they should be able to compete in sport. What we found was emblematic of the fissures we see across American society. The data showed many Americans have limited understanding of what it means to be trans or gender nonconforming and even less consensus on how to approach youth sport in this new day and age.

Of course, apart from gender, queer athletes remained a much-discussed news story in mainstream American sport as well. When Carl Nassib of the NFL’s Las Vegas Raiders became the fi rst major active American pro athlete to come out as gay, the Global Sport Institute provided a platform with additional context for the moment and what it could mean for sport by releasing Global Sport Matters’ digital issue “Beyond the Binary in Sport.”

“The presence of queer masculinities puts young men in another place where they are seen as nonnormative,” said City College of New York professor Stan Thangaraj, in a Global Sport Matters Live conversation.

In addition to polling and digital content, the Global Sport Institute funded researchers who were exploring this growing area of sport scholarship. With a call for projects centered on sex, gender and sexuality in sport, we received a number of interdisciplinary proposals that ranged from studying the physical science of trans athletes to telling the real-life stories of gender nonconforming athletes.

As sport and the world around it continues to advance, the Global Sport Institute remains a platform for insightful discourse that shares well-informed data, findings and viewpoints with its audiences.