“If they say they are a woman, they are a woman”: Gender-expansive engagements amongst Ghanaian women footballers

• In Event: Sport, International and State Policy, and Transgender People

Abstract

This presentation outlines how retired women’s footballers in Ghana respond to accusations and questioning about their gendered embodiment. Observations at matches, interviews with 10 retired footballers and a focus group with 15 former players, reveals how players draw on indigenous ideas about gender to reject medicalized boundaries of binary gender, and challenge Western prescriptions of what constitutes a man and a woman. Players’ understanding of and engagement with gender expansiveness, including how they think about those teammates excluded for being intersex, articulates an indigenous philosophy of gender inclusive sports.

Presenter

• Anima Adjepong, University of Cincinnati