The Case for a Transfeminist Analysis of Women’s Rugby

• In Event: 41058 - Sports and Sexuality

Abstract

Women’s rugby is one of the few sports women play that has the same rules as the men’s game. Many previous studies have seen women’s participation in this masculine sport as challenging ideals of femininity and the community as a space for celebrating queerness and bodily diversity. This understanding of the sport is incongruous with World Rugby’s 2020 ban on transwomen from international competition. I will utilize a transfeminist approach to grapple with the threads of queer celebration and trans exclusion in this sport. In this paper, I will revisit the canon of women’s rugby studies on gender and sexuality in the US to uncover moments of transphobia that have gone unanalyzed, and the assumptions made about gender that have shaped these studies and understandings of the sport. As many of these studies are older, I will also incorporate an analysis of current policies around trans inclusion and exclusion in women’s rugby in the US. While women’s sports are ‘having a moment’ with increased attention and investment it is meaningful to examine who is potentially being left behind. This paper will provide important insight during a time of heightened transphobia and policing of bodies in women’s sports as well as suggestions for future studies of gender and sexuality in the sport.

Author

• Cameron Michels, Simon Fraser University