Gendered Sports

by Deborah Tolman and Bridget Woods

In 2019, we here at SexGenLab.org created a toolkit to answer the question: “Why is Everyone So Upset about Gender? Deb’s father, then an 80-year retired doctor, asked this question; he was really puzzled by all the fuss about athletes’ “true sex.” Castor Semenya, an Olympic gold-medalist runner, was under intense scrutiny and subjected to invasive sex testing to “evaluate” her gender. A desperate need to know how to categorize her and her muscularity was framed in terms of justice–putting the right bodies into ostensibly undisputed boxes of male/female to ensure competition was “fair.” That is, maintaining a firm grip on the gender binary. 

We noticed that very little research was included in media coverage, and when it was, it turned out to be, well, bad science. We went looking for reliable research, evaluated the credibility of studies, and interviewed highly-respected researchers to get answers. Turns out that the criteria for “male” vs “female” kept changing, often to actually ensure binary gender. These assessments were riddled with assumptions, sexism, gender stereotypes, racism, homophobia, transphobia, and incorrect, simplistic beliefs about testosterone. The toolkit provided a plethora of evidence showing the instability of gender categories, the variability and complexity of human bodies.  

Seven years later, we find that not much has changed when it comes to sex testing in sports, as well as the performance of gender in sports and other public arenas. In fact, things seem to have gotten worse. Popular culture is chock-a-block with people who don’t fit into or refuse to be categorized by the biological assumptions essentialist gender categories. The curtain has been pulled back on the gender binary–gender is in fact not so binary. Declarations by politicians that there are two genders, male and female, do not make it so–as research tells us.

Yet there is also ever-more, almost frenzied, insistence that gender is biologically determined to be binary–a determination to make it real–and enforceable. The backslide of LGBTQ+ rights paints a picture of what comes next. Increased punitive measures–policing of bodies, legislation, criminalization–ensure that gender expressiveness is something that is feared rather than celebrated. Any ambiguous performance of gender is seen as a threat, and treated as “deviant” (Gisi, 2022). It is as unsurprising as it is inevitable: trans folks are framed as the “boogeyman” of this moment, stoking and being stoked by cultural upheaval. We see it in legislation restricting trans girls’ participation in school sports and in the controversy sparked in 2022 when Lia Thomas, a transgender woman at University of Pennsylvania, competed on the women’s team. As of April 7, 2026, there have been 97 proposed bills in the U.S. that would restrict access to sports in K-12 as well as higher education (Trans Legislation Tracker, 2026). In 2020, there were 110 proposed bills specifically aimed at banning trans athletes from girls and women's sports teams (Sharrow, 2021). 

We see it in policies denying access to gender-affirming care for youth, despite scientific findings that this denial can lead to deep depression and suicide (Johnson et al., 2025); there is overwhelming evidence that receiving care is associated with positive mental health outcomes, even saving lives (Budge et al., 2024). We see it in book bans in schools, which are ineffective, and actually make these books more enticing. And they are easily accessible in myriad ways (Ananthakrishnan et al., 2025). Despite no evidence that drag queens reading to children is harmful, programs are cancelled in the name of child protection. And research shows that in single-sex bathrooms, trans people, especially female-presenting and of color, suffer sexual harassment and assault, while there is no evidence that cisgender women are in any danger (Murchisson et al., 2019).  

Why is there so much anxiety around dissolving gender binaries? There is a reason we put competitive sports and bathrooms in the same analysis: both are public sites of gender segregation, imbued with assumptions of sex, anatomy, and conflations of gender and sexuality that are surveilled and regulated.  

In January 2025, the White House released a Presidential Action entitled “Defending women from gender ideology extremism and restoring biological truth to the federal government” (Exec. Order No. 14,168, 2025). The “gender ideology extremism” is not clearly defined and relies on loose and arbitrary claims of “eradicat[ing] the biological reality of sex”, and does so in the name of “protecting” women. Research shows, however, that strict sex-segregation for girls and women’s sports teams can actually restrict access to funding and opportunities (Sharrow, 2021). As we will hear from Jinsun Yang in our podcast, the assumption of biological advantages for male athletes is not straightforward (Yang, 2025). While arguments that maintain gender essentialist talking points “are often used in discussions of anti-trans sports laws to supposedly support cisgender women, the research reveals that endorsement of gender essentialism is more often associated with harm to (cisgender) women or problematic beliefs about women” (Atwood, Morgenroth, & Olson, 2024, p. 175). Erasing transness from public spaces allows for increased violence and segregation (Quinan, 2025), and a more rigid grasp on that which is defined as “normal.” And ironically, that's not what gender ideology is–it's the exact opposite. Ideologies are dominant conceptions of gender that are made to seem natural but are actually not. 

In our first toolkit of 2026, we return to gender in sports; sports is the current and persistent focus in its hypervisibility and reinforcement of gender segregation. In addition to this spotlight, we have included two infographics: one that provides a history and critique of sex testing in sports; and another that offers a potential alternative to sex segregation in competitive sports, through the Korean Queer Women Games. We also spoke with Jinsun Yang about their research dismantling the “advantage thesis” in sports. We made the focus of the toolkit on sports, because it is such a lightning rod for surveilling gender, but not because it is the only issue. We’re here to say it’s not just sports, it’s not just bathrooms, it’s not just books: there is a larger moral panic pervading our cultural and political landscape. 

Critical research vanquishes moral panics; this toolkit is full of it. 

Ananthakrishnan, Uttara M., Naveen Basavaraj, Sabari Rajan Karmegam, Ananya Sen, and Michael D. Smith. "Book bans in American libraries: Impact of politics on inclusive content consumption." Marketing Science 44, no. 4 (2025): 933-953.

Atwood, S., Morgenroth, T., & Olson, K.R. (2024). Gender essentialism and benevolent sexism in anti-trans rhetoric. Social Issues and Policy Review, 18, 171-193.

Budge, S. L., Abreu, R. L., Flinn, R. E., Donahue, K. L., Estevez, R., Olezeski, C. L., ... & Allen, B. J. (2024). Gender affirming care is evidence based for transgender and gender-diverse youth. Journal of Adolescent Health, 75(6), 851-853.

Connolly, M. D., Zervos, M. J., Barone II, C. J., Johnson, C. C., & Joseph, C. L. (2016). The mental health of transgender youth: Advances in understanding. Journal of Adolescent Health, 59(5), 489-495. 

de Vries, A. L., McGuire, J. K., Steensma, T. D., Wagenaar, E. C., Doreleijers, T. A., & Cohen-Kettenis, P. T. (2014). Young adult psychological outcome after puberty suppression and gender reassignment. Pediatrics, 134(4), 696–704. 

Exec. Order No. 14,168, 90 FR 8615 (2025). https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/DCPD-202500135/pdf/DCPD-202500135.pdf

Gisi, Jennifer. (2022). Trans optics and panopticons: trans visibility, anti-transness, and surveillance. Wisconsin Journal of Law, Gender and Society, 37(2), 145-168.

Johnson, K. C., LeBlanc, A. J., Jackman, K., Corbeil, T., Dolezal, C., Singh, A. A., & Bockting, W. O. (2025). Gender identity invalidation and suicide risk among trans and nonbinary individuals. Journal of Affective Disorders, 120790.

Murchison, G. R., Agénor, M., Reisner, S. L., & Watson, R. J. (2019). School restroom and locker room restrictions and sexual assault risk among transgender youth. Pediatrics, 143(6), e20182902.

Quinan, C. (2025). From criminalization to erasure: Project 2025 and anti-trans legislation in the US. Crime, Media, Culture, 21(4), 529-547. 

Sharrow, E. A. (2021). Sports, transgender rights and the bodily politics of cisgender supremacy. Laws, 10(63), 1-29. 

Trans Legislation Tracker. (2026, April). 2026 anti-trans bills. https://translegislation.com/ 

Weinhardt, L. S., Stevens, P., Xie, H., Wesp, L. M., John, S. A., Apchemengich, I., ... & Lambrou, N. H. (2017). Transgender and gender nonconforming youths' public facilities use and psychological well-being: a mixed-method study. Transgender health, 2(1), 140-150.

Yang, J. (2025, July). Localization of sex testing: Transnational knowledge production of sex. In Women's Studies International Forum (Vol. 111, p. 103078). Pergamon.