Fair Play: How Sports Shape the Gender Debates

ESPN reporter Barnes debuts with a rigorous exploration of contemporary debates around who gets to compete in women’s sports. They explain how efforts to regulate women’s sports have proliferated ever since the passage of Title IX in 1972, which created the modern two-sex sports landscape by effectively requiring schools to fund women’s athletics if they funded men’s sports. Detailing how sports officials have policed who counts as a woman, Barnes describes the ordeal of South African runner Caster Semenya, a cis woman whom the World Athletics federation only allowed to continue competing in the women’s category for the 400 meter, 800 meter, and 1,500 meter races if she took medication, which had harsh side effects, to suppress her naturally high testosterone levels. Barnes resists providing definitive solutions on incorporating trans and nonbinary athletes into sex-segregated athletics, writing on the one hand that they’re not opposed to restricting trans men taking testosterone from competing in the women’s category. On the other hand, the author argues that though trans women who “went through testosterone-driven puberty” may “retain some physiological advantages,” such differences in ability are unavoidable in sports and shouldn’t necessarily disqualify them. The nuanced analysis captures the complexity of the issue while cutting through bad faith arguments. Searching and timely, this brings clarity to a much debated topic. (Sept.)