The Normative Colonization of "Being": Queer Student Voice and Restrictive Athletic Legislation

• In Event: Sheraton Roundtable Session Four
  In Roundtable Session: Forging New Normatives of Leadership and Policy (Table 4)

Abstract

Eighteen states have adopted laws that ban transgender youth from athletic participation consistent with their gender identity as of July 2022. Part of an unprecedented wave of anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-trans* legislation, the increasingly hostile socio-political environment pathologizes the experience of historically excluded individuals. Utilizing youth narrative from public hearing testimonies in response to anti-trans athletic legislation from a Midwest state in 2021, inductive and deductive coding identified statements and patterns of “being” and identity. This research questions the association of identity with norms related to gender and sexuality. Connecting queer and critical understanding of identity to communicative action and discussion of normative ideals, social norms are understood to contribute to binary categorization, inhibiting queer affirmation through the colonization of identity.

Author

• Benjamin Lebovitz, University of Wisconsin - Madison
  Presenting Author