Trans Athletic Inclusion: Attitudes among Collegiate Stakeholders vs. the Public

• In Event: Public Identities and Policy Effects

Abstract

The struggle for gender equality in the U.S. has a long history of marginalizing the interests of minority sub-groups. Emblematic of these dynamics is the uneven political incorporation of transgender and gender-diverse people. Namely, neither women’s nor LGBTQ+ advocacy organizations or social movements have organized centrally to seek transgender rights (Strolovitch 2007) and in federal law, there are limited gender identity non-discrimination protections. Although sex equity policies have undeniably opened access to education, the workplace, and competitive athletics for many American women, these policies have also become a vector for processes of what literature on group politics call “secondary marginalization” (Cohen 1999). Entrenched but often subtle biases against identities on the margins of groups already grappling for political intelligibility and recognition produce unequal access to the struggle for defining the terms of their inclusion. Consequently, policies designed to meet the needs of a disadvantaged group (e.g., women) can generate political uncertainties rather than stable policy protections for minority subgroups (e.g., transgender women) during periods of policy debate and change.

The politics of transgender inclusion are emblematic of these dynamics. Even during the previous decade marked by important legal victories for the LGBTQ+ coalition (e.g., for marriage equality and the right to openly serve in the U.S. military), the transgender community simultaneously faced targeted attempts by lawmakers to deny their full access to gender-affirming healthcare, public restrooms, employment non-discrimination, military service, and accurate identification documents. In the shadow of the status improvements secured for women and queer people through civil rights policies that protect their interests, transgender people experience escalating surveillance, violence, and pointed attacks.

The 2020 and 2021 state legislative sessions saw over 140 proposals and 11 laws that target transgender people for exclusion athletic competition (e.g., Sharrow 2021), a trend that extends a plethora of anti-transgender state-level bills in recent years. These developments highlight growing political dispute over which gender identities are composite in determining “women’s interests.” As the political categories of gender (i.e., historically “men” and “women”) are destabilized and broadened by both social movement claims and state laws that protect against gender identity-based discrimination, the question of who counts as a woman worthy of protection under sex non-discrimination policy is increasingly contested. Such policies, including Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, nominally address discrimination “on the basis of sex” and stem from attempts to curtail sex discrimination with cisgender women in mind (Sharrow 2017). But the gendered landscape of American life has changed dramatically in the half-century since Title IX became law. There is fresh ambiguity over whether and how civil rights policies designed to address the subordination of women at school, at work, and in sports, will encompass an increasingly gender-diverse populace. Furthermore, there is a fundamental uncertainty about the role that majoritarian groups -- including both those in the general public and those policy beneficiaries who benefit from protections extended through the implementation of equity policy -- will play in defining the next era of gender equality debates.

This paper seeks insights into the pathways and barriers to support for transgender inclusion under sex equity policy. Intercollegiate athletics is ground zero for these debates. We explore policy beneficiary opinion (i.e., college athletes, coaches, and administrators) toward the inclusion of disadvantaged minority subgroups (i.e., transgender women and transgender men) compared with mass opinion. We draw on 4 unique and new datasets collected in 2018 and 2019, the era before the current nationwide political discussion, to analyze the main trends that shape attitudes among the dominant stakeholders in college sports (i.e., cisgender athletes, coaches, and administrators) versus the general public.

Our purpose is not to explore the legitimacy of trans exclusionary logics but instead to identify the dynamics. Both mass and stakeholder attitudes can play a role in shaping policy (Campbell 2003; Mettler and Soss 2004). We find that policy beneficiary groups are more likely to be opposed to transgender inclusion in collegiate sport on both men’s and women’s teams. However, by exploring the correlates of opposition, we delineate that secondary marginalization is driven primarily by conservative and sexist attitudes among beneficiaries more so than the general public, and is more pronounced on the question of including transgender women on women’s teams. We argue that these findings provide important insights into the future of gender equality debates.

Authors

• Elizabeth A. Sharrow, University of Massachusetts Amherst

• James N. Druckman, Northwestern University

• Maya Novak-Herzog, Northwestern University