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Sports, Transgender Rights and the Bodily Politics of Cisgender Supremacy

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  • Elizabeth A. Sharrow

    (School of Public Policy, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA 01003, USA
    Department of History, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA 01003, USA)

Abstract

Between 2020 and 2021, one hundred and ten bills in state legislatures across the United States suggested banning the participation of transgender athletes on sports teams for girls and women. As of July 2021, ten such bills have become state law. This paper tracks the political shift towards targeting transgender athletes. Conservative political interests now seek laws that suture biological determinist arguments to civil rights of bodies. Although narrow binary definitions of sex have long operated in the background as a means for policy implementation under Title IX, Republican lawmakers now aim to reframe sex non-discrimination policies as means of gendered exclusion . The content of proposals reveal the centrality of ideas about bodily immutability, and body politics more generally, in shaping the future of American gender politics. My analysis of bills from 2021 argues that legislative proposals advance a logic of “cisgender supremacy” inhering in political claims about normatively gendered bodies. Political institutions are another site for advancing, enshrining, and normalizing cis-supremacist gender orders, explicitly joining cause with medical authorities as arbiters of gender normativity. Characteristics of bodies and their alleged role in evidencing sex itself have fueled the tactics of anti-transgender activists on the political Right. However, the target of their aims is not mere policy change but a state-sanctioned return to a narrowly cis- and heteropatriarchal gender order.

Suggested Citation

  • Elizabeth A. Sharrow, 2021. "Sports, Transgender Rights and the Bodily Politics of Cisgender Supremacy," Laws, MDPI, vol. 10(3), pages 1-29, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jlawss:v:10:y:2021:i:3:p:63-:d:606050
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Kalla, Joshua L. & Broockman, David E., 2020. "Reducing Exclusionary Attitudes through Interpersonal Conversation: Evidence from Three Field Experiments," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 114(2), pages 410-425, May.
    2. Erin Buzuvis, 2021. "Law, policy, and the participation of transgender athletes in the United States," Sport Management Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(3), pages 439-451, May.
    3. Suzanne Eckes, 2021. "Sex Discrimination in Schools: The Law and Its Impact on School Policies," Laws, MDPI, vol. 10(2), pages 1-15, May.
    4. Lax, Jeffrey R. & Phillips, Justin H., 2009. "Gay Rights in the States: Public Opinion and Policy Responsiveness," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 103(3), pages 367-386, August.
    5. Andrew B. Bernard & Meghan R. Busse, 2004. "Who Wins the Olympic Games: Economic Resources and Medal Totals," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(1), pages 413-417, February.
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    1. Jennifer R. Pharr & Lung-Chang Chien & Maxim Gakh & Jason Flatt & Krystal Kittle & Emylia Terry, 2022. "Serial Mediation Analysis of the Association of Familiarity with Transgender Sports Bans and Suicidality among Sexual and Gender Minority Adults in the United States," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(17), pages 1-16, August.

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