It is, of course, a privilege to have one’s humanity taken for granted right from the start. Not to be seen as a man, because that is not something I strive for, but to be seen as a human being without having to explain myself immediately. It is obviously a form of privilege to pass—even if it turns out to be the wrong gender. (Grey)
The opening quote exemplifies an experience among trans people of being barred from being truly human because they are unintelligible within the framework of a culture dominated by binary gender norms. As Butler (1990) states, “‘[i]ntelligible’ genders are those which in some sense institute and maintain relations of coherence and continuity among sex, gender, sexual practice, and desire” (p. 23). In this way, being cisgender becomes a prerequisite for being human, which means that trans people sometimes must make an effort to “become human,” that is, to become intelligible to be included in social contexts. In this article, we explore the processes of trans people’s struggle to become human in sports and exercise.
Research into transgender—or trans—people’s conditions in sports and exercise has gained considerable momentum in recent years (e.g., Anderson & Travers, 2017; Jones et al., 2017; Müller & Böhlke, 2023). Only in the past few years alone, several articles on the subject have appeared in this journal that, in some way, have dealt with the matter (e.g., Kavoura et al., 2022; Knoester et al., 2023; Posbergh, 2023). In their article about transgender experiences in Martial Arts, Kavoura et al. (2022) highlighted how transgender people must employ social change strategies to cope with the recurring cis-/heteronormative sports culture. According to Kavoura et al. (2022), “These strategies involved taking responsibility (individually or collectively) to ‘solve the problem’ of cis- and heteronormativity that otherwise threatened to exclude or marginalize them” (p. 202). In this article, we take Kavoura and colleagues’ analysis one step further by demonstrating how such inclusion strategies simultaneously are about various attempts by trans people to make themselves intelligible as human beings, rather than nonhumans or monsters (Stryker, 1994) in sports and exercise cultures. Perhaps, inclusion is not even the main issue but the possibility of existing as trans in sports and exercise.
Questions about trans in sports and exercise are not new. Already, Birrell and Cole (1990) expounded on a case in tennis where Renee Richards, whom they describe as a female transsexual, caused clamor and controversy when intending to play the U.S. Open in 1976. In their critical analysis, Birrell and Cole (1990) conclude that the Richards incident “is not only about tennis and trans-sexualism, not only about the construction of woman, but about the construction of difference itself” (p. 19). Sports works to differentiate between competitors and determine winners based on physical superiority. In so doing, “it is a major site for the naturalization of sex and gender differences” (Birrell & Cole, 1990, p. 18). We contend that competitive sports not only affect the view of gender and gendered bodies, but they also affect what it means to be human, which have repercussions far beyond competitive sports itself.
Challenging the binary system has been a recurrent theme in research on transgender and sports since the 1990s (e.g., Kane, 1995; Kavoura et al., 2022; Tagg, 2012). The issue has also been politized along these lines. Martin and Rahilly (2023) describe how supporters of the banning of transgender girls from competing in teams matching their gender identity used arguments of tradition, fairness, and equal opportunity as discursive ways in which justice was presented. By way of these rhetorical strategies, trans identities were undermined, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning, and others’ rights were restricted in state-level legislation in the United States of America. Similarly, Desjardins et al. (2022) argue that this type of legislature produced essentialist gendered subjects and opposed trans- and cisgender girls. This rhetorical work justified transphobic discrimination. To participate in sports and exercise as a trans person may, in other words, mean challenging not only legislation, and value systems, but also the binary system and what it even means to be human. Thus, for trans individuals, “Just Existing Is Activism” (Kavoura et al., 2022).
Everyone’s right to participate means that all who want to participate can participate based on their conditions. Anyone who wants to, regardless of gender, gender identity and expression, ethnic and social background, religion/belief, functional ability, sexual orientation, or age, may take part in association-run sports activities. (SSC, 2019, p. 11; author translation)
The Sport for All ambition has great support in Swedish sports at the political and grassroots levels. It is an ambition that resonates well with the Swedish and Nordic public imagination of a progressive Nordic utopia regarding human rights, gender equality, and LGBTQ rights (Kehl, 2020; Kjaran, 2017).
In a previous publication (Larsson & Auran, 2023), however, several trans individuals testified that the Sport for All ambitions sometimes fall short. Like the research participants in Kavoura et al.’s (2022) study, these trans persons developed different strategies to simultaneously enable their participation and existence as trans persons, strategies that involved taking responsibility to tackle a cis- and heteronormativity that otherwise threatened to exclude or marginalize them; a normativity that contributed to trans people appearing unintelligible in the context of sports and exercise. However, unlike Kavoura et al. (2022), we do not focus primarily on exclusion and inclusion. We attempt, instead, to deepen the understanding of trans oppression as a symptom of cis- and heteronormativity. Thus, the purpose of this article is to explore how trans individuals struggle to make themselves intelligible as humans in a cis- and heteronormative context of sports and exercise thereby contributing to their inclusion.
The following sections present the theoretical framework drawn from Butler (1990, 2004) and Foucault (1978, 1982, 1998), which is related to more recently published queer studies. Further, we describe the interview method employed in the study. Subsequently, the results are presented, and we show the three ways the trans people in our study struggle to make themselves intelligible as humans. This is followed by a discussion on the limits of intelligibility in sports, and beyond.
Theoretical Perspective
Despite Sport for All ambitions, research shows that some groups, including trans people, have historically been excluded from sports and exercise, directly and indirectly (Bianchi, 2017; Pérez-Samaniego et al., 2019; Storr et al., 2022). Even if the exclusion of trans people is not isolated to sports, few institutions maintain such a rigorous sex-segregated structure as sports (Love, 2014). Sports are based on a structure built upon the idea, or myth, that humanity can be neatly divided into two separate categories and that a person must be either male or female (Love, 2014; Wackwitz, 2003). What we refer to herein, as the myth of the two opposite cisgendered sexes, are rooted in Judith Butler’s thoughts on gender performativity (Butler, 1990), that is, “a set of repeated acts within a highly rigid regulatory frame that congeal over time to produce the appearance of substance, of a natural sort of being” (p. 33). Butler (1990) names the regulatory frame the heterosexual matrix, or more generally: heteronormativity, which is one of a series of techniques of power in contemporary societies that contribute to normalizing people (Foucault, 1978). Heteronormativity produces (cis) men and women as opposite, that is, cisnormativity. Cisnormativity refers to “the belief that gender is a binary category that naturally flows from one’s sex assigned at birth” (Frohard-Dourlent, 2016, p. 4). However, not everyone conforms to heteronormativity.
Trans persons cannot, or will not, conform to heteronormativity, thus contributing to producing queer spaces (Carter & Baliko, 2017; Halberstam, 2005; Linghede & Larsson, 2017). However, the queering of heteronormativity always takes place within the framework of the heterosexual matrix itself, which means that the phenomenon of trans is also understood based on heteronormativity. In part, trans may become intelligible in terms of gender-affirming care, which refers to medical services that aim to bring the physical sex characteristics of trans persons “into alignment with their gender identity—their inner sense of self as male or female . . . .” (Lee & Rosenthal, 2023, p. 107). Though partially, trans, for example, nonbinarism, typically ends up outside the horizon of what is intelligible. As Butler (2004) makes explicit, the workings of power in this way contribute to producing intelligible and unintelligible persons/bodies, where, ultimately, straight (i.e., heterosexual) cis people are intelligible while trans people are deemed abject, even disposable. Through data from 30 years of murdered trans people, Westbrook (2023) makes visible a pattern they call the matrix of violence, which enables “violence against particular groups while safeguarding others” (p. 416). This system of violence defines “who matters and who does not, who is disposable and who is not” (Mbembé & Meintjes, 2003, p. 27; original emphasis).
To be oppressed means that you already exist as a subject of some kind, you are there as visible and the oppressed other for the master subject, as a possible, or potential subject, but to be unreal is something else again. To be oppressed you must first become intelligible. To find that you are fundamentally unintelligible (indeed, that the laws of culture and of language find you to be an impossibility) is to find that you have not yet achieved access to the human, to find yourself speaking only and always as if you were human. (Butler, 2004, p. 30; our emphasis)
Butler’s point here about who is human or not has decisive consequences for any attempt to include trans people in social enterprises, including the Sport for All ambition. Results from a previous publication indicated that most attempts to include trans people in sports and exercise forced trans persons to abide by binary norms (Larsson & Auran, 2023). Similarly, Buzuvis’ (2012) analysis of various trans-inclusion policies indicates that no policy offers any apparent critical analysis of the binary categorization or the need for binary gender separation.
In Barras et al.’s (2021) study, the failure to acknowledge heteronormativity and binarism becomes evident as the authors show how trans people often must pause their participation during their transition. This is a time when they assume a materiality that is beyond what cis- and heteronormativity allows for. They can return to sports only when they, yet again, are intelligible through a normative binary lens.
Arguably, also, the social change strategies that Kavoura et al. (2022) document can be seen as attempts by trans people to make themselves intelligible given the heteronormative framework that constantly works to deny their humanity. Linked to Sport for All, not being considered human is tantamount to not being included in the all, which excludes trans people, or at least some variants, or aspects of trans.
In this article, the purpose of exploring trans people’s struggle to make themselves intelligible as humans in a cis- and heteronormative context serves as a way of gaining a deeper understanding of the workings of trans exclusion and inclusion (or oppression). Through the notion of normalization (Foucault) and (un)intelligibility (Butler), we shift focus toward the conditions that produce trans exclusion in a seemingly progressive and equality-oriented (i.e., Swedish) context.
Method
To explore how trans individuals struggle to make themselves intelligible as humans in a cis- and heteronormative context of sports and exercise, we interviewed 10 trans people. To recruit research participants, the Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Intersex Rights provided help to promote our research via their social media platforms. Additionally, we advertised in specific queer groups on Facebook. The advertisement called for trans people’s experience of sport and exercise, both present and past. The 10 people who participated in the study varied in age between 20 and 60 years. Three participants identified as nonbinary, four identified as male or trans man, two identified as female or trans woman, and one responded: “I don’t” to the question, “How do you identify?”: The participants had experiences of different sports and movement cultures, such as gym, team sports, individual sports, combat sports, dance, and outdoor activities. Several of the participants had experience from a variety of sports and movement cultures. Their engagement spanned from recreational to elite. As Sweden is a small country, there is a limited number of trans athletes. For this reason, we have refrained from a more systematic presentation of the research participants, as it could be enough to identify them.
Because of proximity restrictions due to the pandemic, the interviews had to take place digitally via the videoconference application Zoom. Other than that, the proximity restrictions did, to some extent, impact some of the participants’ current access to sports and exercise. However, as the interview focus was their overall sports and exercise experience, including in retrospect, the impact of the pandemic was limited. The interviews were conducted in the spring and summer of 2021 and lasted between 1 and 2 hr and 15 min. They contained open-ended questions with optional follow-up questions (Hesse-Biber, 2007). Within the topics of sports, exercise, and physical movement, the interviews were designed to allow agency for the participant to guide the direction of the interview (DeVault & Gross, 2012; Kvale & Brinkmann, 2009). The questions mainly focused on the participant’s past and present sports and exercise experiences. A few questions were directed toward trans-specific experiences and thoughts. The interviews were recorded, pseudonymized, and transcribed verbatim (Kvale & Brinkmann, 2009). The recordings are stored on a password-protected server at the responsible university. The study was approved by the Swedish Ethics Review Authority (2021-01393).
[T]he more or less deliberate, more or less finalized ways of doing things, through which can be seen both what was constituted as real for those who sought to think it and manage it and the way in which the latter constituted themselves as subjects capable of knowing, analyzing, and ultimately altering reality. (Foucault, 1998, p. 463)
The theoretically driven analysis of the interviews focused particularly on instances where the research participants attempted to think and manage their reality (or perhaps, intelligibility) of being trans in sports and exercise thereby also trying to constitute themselves as trans subjects capable of knowing, analyzing, and altering the reality of trans in sports and exercise. The iterative coding process revolved around wordings, such as hiding, letting oneself be misjudged, someone vouching, educating, looking for help, preparing, being kind, complaining, arguing, and taking a stance. By interpreting the content through our theoretical lens, we eventually constructed three ways in which the research participants struggled to make themselves intelligible as humans: passing (e.g., hiding, letting oneself be misjudged); mediating (e.g., someone vouching, preparing, educating); and challenging (e.g., complaining, arguing, taking a stance).
Results
Focusing on trans people’s participation in sports and exercise, our sample, to no surprise, indicates the importance of physical movement for trans people (Kavoura et al., 2022; Pérez-Samaniego et al., 2019). All the research participants had been or were engaged in sports or exercise activities. However, avoiding certain spaces, such as large public sports and exercise settings was common. Instead, exercising in nature where other people are sparse or exercising with friends or in pronounced queer settings were the designated choices. Thus, the types of activity varied, as well as the way the research participants experienced taking part in sports and exercise.
Although the trans people in our study generally highly valued physical movement, it did not necessarily mean that they felt included in sports and exercise contexts. Contrarily, taking part in public activities such as sports clubs required adjustment from most of the research participants.
All research participants were aware that they inhabit a marginalized position as trans people, and one central topic in the interviews was trans related to cis- and heteronormativity. The interviews demonstrate that there is often no room to do nothing, and, no option to just be. Rather, cis- and heteronormativity was omnipresent and saturated every situation, thus imposing a heightened awareness of being trans. Like in Kavoura et al. (2022), the ways our research participants dealt with this omnipresent cis- and heteronormativity mainly revolved around the removal of oneself or hiding one’s transness.
If you go to sports institutions, or sports centers, or whatever, everything is gendered. Or yoga, changing rooms, and all those sorts of things. Already, when you enter, it’s like violence. Also, having to choose to accept it for the moment, or to speak up, or to re-organize, or to create something else yourself. (Jamie)
All attempts by trans people to participate must, in other words, be understood as part of handling the discursive oppression from the heterosexual matrix. This involves acts of making themselves intelligible relative to this matrix. In the following, we demonstrate the three ways our research participants mainly struggle to make themselves intelligible as humans to be able to participate in sports and exercise.
Passing
In places [fitness centers] where [. . .] to reach the gym, you must go through it [the changing room], it becomes very clear that you come from there. I’m read more as a cis girl when I’m in those contexts [. . .] You become invisible in those contexts if you don’t look queer enough. (Arden)
In the excerpt, it becomes clear that Arden may pass as a cis girl simply because of going through the women’s changing room. It may seem unproblematic that someone is unambiguously defined as female (or male), but not for someone who does not identify as either. To Arden, passing as cis is not comfortable. Arden wants to pass as trans, that is, be intelligible as the person they identifies as.
Like Arden’s description of the regulatory processes of changing rooms and the organization of physical space in gendered zones, sporting garments seem to have a similar effect. Cleo (trans man) describes how he tried different ways to hide his body during practice by using extra garments or binding his chest. Importantly for Cleo, this was not a way to pass as cis but rather a way to handle his gender dysphoria while wearing sporting garments because the sports garments worked to gender him as female. Cleo describes how, after masculinizing chest surgery (top surgery), his sports suit fits as he wishes and helps him pass as a male. “When I had my top surgery, I felt: ‘Yes, now the suit will fit the way I want it to.’” (Cleo). It also worked to exaggerate his sense of being male, and even further, it turned his gender dysphoria into gender euphoria, a term describing “positive gender-related emotions that might emerge from transitioning” (Jacobsen & Devor, 2022, p. 120).
At the same time, the quote demonstrates the limitations or hindrances sporting garments may pose, as well as the regulative normative gendered binary separation of bodies into either male or female. As shown, the discursive understanding of the binary may work for or against trans people depending on the specific morphology of the individual. In other words, clothes are highly gendered, and when passing is possible, sports clothing may help to exaggerate binary gender. For nonbinary people, however, the exaggerated effect this type of clothing has may become a hindrance.
It was very difficult to maintain it [the girly mask] all the time. I can feel that I put on a mask in some way, disguised myself, or did a lot of girly things to hide something. (Jamie)
Jamie points to how they could participate in movement by adopting a girly attire, but this requires much energy. Thus, to let go is not a viable option for everyone, even if passing is a way to exist in the world more smoothly. Nevertheless, as Gray (who refrained from identifying as a specific gender) stated in the article’s opening quote, passing is a privilege, a way to be understood as human without first needing to prove yourself.
Because it feels much easier to walk into a changing room when she (the girlfriend) is there, it somehow becomes like she’s vouching for the fact that I’m not some weird deviant. (Billie)
Jamie and Billie recounted how they try to make their presence easier for their surroundings. Billie makes herself more human and, thus less of a threat through somebody who is not perceived as “weird” or “deviant.” Her girlfriend’s presence as normal helps to rub off on, and change how Billie occupies space.
In this section, we have shown how passing constitutes one way that trans people attempt to become intelligible. We have also pointed to some of the conditions that regulate if and how the research participants manage to pass as cis persons. While some bodies are normalized as cis (i.e., they are made visible as cis), others are instead made invisible as queer. Being normalized as cis is, at least to some extent, about letting oneself be misgendered, thus becoming less threatening.
Mediating
The second way our research participants make themselves intelligible as human is through mediating. Unlike passing, mediating is a way among trans people of (pro)actively handling (un)intelligibility. In other research (e.g., Barr et al., 2016; Cogan et al., 2021; White Hughto et al., 2017), the notion of mediating is often used in psychological studies mainly to designate factors that have a mediating (sometimes remedying) effect on mental well-being among trans people: community belongingness and coping avoidance, for example. In our research, mediating rather refers to acts that trans persons themselves do to appear (more) intelligible. Such mediating resembles practices that Pattinson et al. (2022) and Lewis and Johnson (2011) call “negotiating.” In this article, however, we prefer the term mediating because the research participants not only negotiate, as in bring about discussion, but try to create bridges, as in remedying their transness through education. In contrast to passing, mediating does not necessarily imply compliance with cisnormativity, but it does imply compromise, explanation, and remedying. In other words, mediating is self-assertiveness without directly opposing normativity.
Because it relates to not being seen or being misgendered, every contact is a yes but also a no. So, for me, it’s always like it becomes a little, well, that dysphoria or that feeling of pain in the body because I also know that it’s connected with not being understood. (Jamie)
Similar to Kavoura et al. (2022), Eddie explains there is no option to “just be”; rather, Eddie describes how they must “work to become visible.” Through various efforts, Eddie can make themself intelligible, at least to some extent, as a nonbinary person. One way of mediating employed by Eddie is to inform when approaching a new sports activity. They emailed the sports club to present themself as nonbinary to make the encounter smoother.
I didn’t even know if they would know what trans was. I didn’t come out to them at a training session; I came out on Facebook, and I put a link there so people could read about trans. (Cleo)
Other participants describe similar ways of coming out and simultaneously mediating. Both Eddie (nonbinary) and Cleo (trans man) routinely inform people about themselves as trans, and about trans in general, in a nonconfrontative manner. They use social media to relieve tension from being unintelligible when meeting others face-to-face. In this way, they offer people time to learn about trans and respond thoughtfully. The trans persons assert themselves, but at the same time provide information that works to help mediate any possible inconvenience that the transness may pose.
Yes, so, I always feel like I want to educate people a little bit and talk about it. It still hurts, though. However, that one guy really asked all the questions that are on the list of questions not to ask a trans person. He ticked every box. And then I said to him: “You’re asking very private questions, and I’m answering them because I think you, as a gay person, should know this. But you must be aware that this is not ok, so think twice about it.” (Falcon)
When Falcon becomes an object of what he feels is unregulated and inappropriate curiosity toward something unintelligible to be examined, he tries to dissociate from the approach and instead steps into the role of educator. In this role, the focus is not on Falcon himself and what he needs to be or do as an intelligible human being but rather on other people’s understanding.
Eddie, Cleo, and Falcon all aspire to inform and educate others about what trans means (including what it means to be trans) in a benevolent, forgiving, and pragmatic manner. They aspire to become intelligible in a nice way, thus mediating the potential inconvenience that their transness may pose to the majority culture.
In this section, we have discussed mediating as an attempt to become intelligible and, thus, conceivable as a person and participant in a specific sport and exercise practice. A focus has been the act of coming out, as it is an act that paradoxically is a way to both assert one’s existence and marginalize oneself. This paradox is even more clear regarding the nonbinary participants, as not coming out made them invisible while coming out positioned them as unintelligible (outside of cisnormativity). Consequently, there was no way to just be. Rather, coming out required work. It required that the research participants mediated their existence in a benevolent manner.
Challenging
The third and final way our research participants make themselves intelligible is by challenging people, contexts, and organizations in the realm of sports and exercise. In the literature, challenging the gender binary in sports and exercise comes in different forms. One common focus is challenging the way competitive sports are organized (Erikainen et al., 2022; Martínková, 2020; Zanin et al., 2023). While Martínková (2020) presents philosophically grounded arguments for unisex sports, that is, competitions that are organized through other means than binary sex, Zanin et al. (2023) offer empirical examples of how trans persons challenge “master narratives” that contribute to (re)producing binarized structures in sports. Concerning exercise activities, Erikainen et al. (2022) point to ways of challenging the spatial organization of gym equipment that works to exclude those who do not conform to the binary gender system. In this article, challenging binary gender is neither about passing nicely nor explaining one’s condition. Rather, it designates a confrontational approach, explicitly asserting one’s rights, needs, or oneself as an intelligible human being.
[the coach] had introduced some sort of pink lists for girls and green lists for boys. And he was very much about dividing up the sparring, that you had separate girls and boys, and the problem was that there weren’t many girls in the club. But he didn’t care that much. He was very much “guys and girls,” so it wasn’t that important to him. It was the same with the name change and stuff. It wasn’t like they were listening, especially not the coach. (Hollis)
Hollis did not consciously challenge heteronormativity; rather, through his existence as a queer body, he became a disruption that was met with countermeasures. Initially, Hollis did not back down, but continued to argue with, and challenge his coach.
It was some kind of love-hate relationship because he was very determined and patriarchal [. . .], which I never tolerated, so we argued pretty often, especially in the beginning because I couldn’t be silent. (Indigo)
Both Hollis and Indigo challenged their coaches. As Indigo took part in a sex-segregated female sport, he was firmly located within the gender binary thus, he did not challenge heteronormativity, rather, he challenged sexism. As such, Indigo’s complaints earned him respect from the coach, in contrast to Hollis, who was ridiculed as a failed woman: ”He [i.e., the coach] called me flat-chested because I had a flat torso, which of course I wanted to have.” Apparently, in the eyes of his coach, Hollis’s body was unintelligible outside the gender binary.
I told the people that I had trained with for many years: “Hey, I’m the same person you’ve always known, but I have a different pronoun, and I was thinking, like, in a week or so, I’ll start changing among, well, among the women.” And then the club kind of kicked back and, yes . . . [. . .] they called for lots of [board] meetings where they banned male genitalia. “Exposed male genitalia” was probably their first writing. They said that everyone is welcome to the training, but it is an extra offer to be allowed to use the changing rooms at the club. (Billie)
Billie did not ask nicely. She did not try to lessen the impact of her clash against cisnormativity. Nor did she make room for the club to process her transness or provide information on trans before making her claims. Consequently, Billie’s claim to use the women’s changing room was understood as a violation by the club board. Her queer body or her unapologetic coming out as trans made her a fearful threat. Thus, she was not understood as a woman but, arguably, as a man who wanted to invade the women’s changing room. Billie attempted to come to an agreement with the sports club by arranging meetings between the club and representatives of various organizations, such as the local municipality, the Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Intersex Rights, and the SSC, but this led nowhere, and Billie ended up leaving the club.
Not all research participants were met with the same initial skepticism or outright negativism. Dylan (trans woman) had a different response from her sports club, at least initially. The club promised that her being trans would not pose a problem. However, when the coach misgendered her and refused to abide by “ridiculous identity politics,” Dylan was asked by the club board to put up with the coach’s behavior. For the club, the issue was not understood as a trans issue, i.e., a structural problem, but an issue of two overreacting individuals. Dylan’s choice to stand her ground breached the border of intelligibility to the club board. Her feelings were understood as excessive, disproportional, and unintelligible. On a personal level, this was upsetting for Dylan, and structurally, it can be interpreted as a way of normalizing her actions according to binary gender.
I wrote to the National Federation, it is one of the federations that has tried to be at the forefront of this or at least profiled themselves as being at the forefront. But they were not interested in solving this problem. (Cleo)
Cleo’s claim was not understood as an urgent issue. In contrast to Dylan and Billie’s (both trans women) former sports clubs, Cleo was not normalized as cis; rather, his claim was downplayed.
In this section, we have discussed challenging as a way to unapologetically claim one’s rights and needs as a trans person—of becoming intelligible as trans. Similar to mediating, challenging involves a balancing act between being too unintelligible or making too uncompromisable claims. Being too confrontational risks resulting in becoming a fearful threat; and not being noticeable, or loud enough and risks becoming invisible, or disregarded.
Discussion and Conclusions
The purpose of the article was to explore how trans individuals struggle to make themselves intelligible as humans in a cis- and heteronormative context of sports and exercise thereby contributing to their inclusion. Butler’s insights that trans people are not primarily oppressed but rather unthinkable—unintelligible (Butler, 2004)—served as an important theoretical starting point. In the analysis, we focused on how trans people discursively (Foucault, 1998) try to make themselves understood as humans to thereby be included in the Sport for All idea (Elling et al., 2001).
The study shows that the research participants make themselves intelligible in three ways: by passing as cis, by coming out as trans yet mediating any potential inconvenience this may pose to the majority culture, and by coming out as trans paired with challenging cis- and heteronormativity. The first way, passing, means, in this case, to be perceived by others as cis, or at least as nondeviant. It means that trans individuals became intelligible for their cis surroundings by allowing themselves to be understood as cis, or flying under the radar. As such, no disruption of power was made. Cisnormativity was not questioned; rather, intelligibility was granted due to their normalization as cis- and heteronormative subjects (Foucault, 1978). In the specific context of sports and exercise, the normalizing of queer bodies is engaged actively through the strict binary gendering of spaces, clothing, and movements. Similar to the research participants in Barras et al. (2021), ours had to adjust to cis- and heteronormativity to be able to participate. Passing results in the disappearance of queerness. Despite this, the disappearance of the queer body could be a means to alleviate the workings of power, at least for some of the research participants. While nonresistance contributes to a structural status quo, it can contribute to opportunities for participation/inclusion on the individual level.
The second way the research participants made themselves intelligible was by coming out as trans yet mediating any potential inconvenience this may pose to the majority culture. Mediating implies the negotiation of one’s existence in a benevolent manner. In our study, mediating often involves trans people educating others of gender issues. It is an act of taking steps to be able to exist as trans in cis- and heteronormative sports and exercise contexts without coming across as confrontational. The center of concern for the research participants was other people’s feelings, reactions, and judgment in order to become intelligible as humans. What is significant is the self-abnegation both in passing and the mediation of themselves and their transness. It makes visible the balancing act that trans individuals face in trying to legitimate their existence with the power that renders them unintelligible. It is an act of balancing between confronting cisnormativity (Foucault, 1978) while at the same time, working to become intelligible as human (Butler, 2004).
The third way, challenging cis- and heteronormativity, refers to the act of asserting oneself as an intelligible trans or queer person and simultaneously pointing out the wrongness or injustice of cis- and heteronormativity. The central issue has been how the act of challenging normativity appears to equate with unintelligibility. Sometimes, a challenge or a claim becomes too much, that is, besides stirring up people’s feelings, it risks reinforcing the unintelligibility. The result for the research participants is ridicule, disregard, or negligence of them and their claim, and the continued exclusion of them as persons.
Similar to Kavoura et al. (2022) and Lewis and Johnson (2011), this study shows how trans people employ different tactics to take “responsibility (individually or collectively) to ‘solve the problem’ of cis- and heteronormativity that otherwise threatened to exclude or marginalize them” (Kavoura et al., 2022, p. 202). However, this study makes evident how (un)intelligibility is central to trans individuals’ chance to participate in sports and exercise. By focusing on (un)intelligibility, there is a possibility to move the focus from trans people’s marginalization to how meaning is allocated in sports and exercise, that is, how cisnormativity creates a matrix of (un)intelligibility that forecloses trans people’s (among others) participation (Butler, 2004). Arguably, bodily aspects are central to how trans people or queer bodies can move through the world. Gender-affirming care can support intelligibility, but not necessarily as a queer body. Like Westbrook (2023), we emphasize how different queer bodies are exposed to different patterns of (un)intelligibility and thereby underline the need for more research on the bodily aspects of trans (un)intelligibility.
This article brings forth the conditional aspects of being considered human, that there are limits to how people can become human subjects (Butler, 1990). Hence, it is not enough to just be; you need to be intelligible to be eligible for the rights human subjects are entitled to. Thus, we want to highlight the need to scrutinize equality policies and practices to make visible how normalcy constitutes some people as intelligible. Furthermore, equality policies and practices can better account for the (re)production of normality and how they render some people unintelligible, that is, less human than others. The persistent question is how trans people can participate in sports and exercise as, precisely trans people, without having to be camouflaged as cis people nor having to take responsibility for explaining themselves as humans.
Acknowledgment
Funding: The Swedish Research Council for Sport Science funded this study.
References
Anderson, E., & Travers, A. (Eds.). (2017). Transgender athletes in competitive sport. Taylor & Francis.
Barr, S.M., Budge, S.L., & Adelson, J.L. (2016). Transgender community belongingness as a mediator between strength of transgender identity and well-being. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 63(1), 87–97.
Barras, A., Frith, H., Jarvis, N., & Lucena, R. (2021). Timelines and transitions: Understanding transgender and non-binary people’s participation in everyday sport and physical exercise through a temporal lens. In B.C. Clift, J. Gore, S. Gustafsson, S. Bekker, I.C. Batlle, & J. Hatchard (Eds.), Temporality in qualitative inquiry (pp. 57–71). Routledge.
Bianchi, A. (2017). Transgender women in sport. Journal of the Philosophy of Sport, 44(2), 229–242.
Birrell, S & Cole, C.L. (1990). Double fault: Renee Richards and the construction and naturalization of difference. Sociology of Sport Journal, 7(1), 1–21.
Butler, J. (1990). Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. Routledge.
Butler, J. (2004). Undoing gender. Routledge
Buzuvis, E. (2012). Including transgender athletes in sex-segregated sport. In G.B. Cunningham (Ed.), Sexual orientation and gender identity in sport: Essays from activists, coaches, and scholars (pp. 23–34). Center for Sport Management Research and Education.
Carter, C., & Baliko, K. (2017). ‘These are not my people’: Queer sport spaces and the complexities of community. Leisure Studies, 36(5), 696–707.
Cogan, C.M., Scholl, J.A., Lee, J.Y., Cole, H.E., & Davis, J.L. (2021). Sexual violence and suicide risk in the transgender population: The mediating role of proximal stressors. Psychology & Sexuality, 12(1–2), 129–140.
Desjardins, B.M., Ketterling, J., & Hepburn, T. (2022). It’s not fair! Constructing gendered legal subjects via trans-exclusionary sport legislation. International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics, 14(4), 673–687.
DeVault, M., & Gross, G. (2012). Feminist qualitative interviewing: Experience, talk, and knowledge. In S. Hesse-Biber (Ed.), Handbook of feminist research: Theory and praxis (2nd ed., pp. 206–236). SAGE Publications.
Elling, A., De Knop, P., & Knoppers, A. (2001). The integrating and differentiating significance of sport. Values and Norms in Sport. Critical Reflections Om the Position and Meanings of Sport in Society, 10, 73–94.
Erikainen, S., Vincent, B., & Hopkins, A. (2022). Specific detriment: Barriers and opportunities for non-binary inclusive sports in Scotland. Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 46(1), 75–102.
Ferguson, L., & Russell, K. (2023). Gender performance in the sporting lives of young trans* people. Journal of Homosexuality, 70(4), 587–611.
Foucault, M. (1978). The history of sexuality. An introduction (R. Hurley, Trans.). Pantheon Books. (Original work published 1976)
Foucault, M. (1982). The subject and power. Critical Inquiry, 8(4), 777–795.
Foucault, M. (1998). Foucault. In J.D. Faubion (Ed.), Michel Foucault. aesthetics, method, and epistemology, (pp. 459–463). The New Press.
Frohard-Dourlent, H. (2016). ‘Muddling through together’: Educators navigating cisnormativity while working with trans and gender-nonconforming students (Ph.D. dissertation). University of British Columbia.
Halberstam, J. (2005). In a queer time and place: Transgender bodies, subcultural lives. New York University Press.
Hesse-Biber, S. (2007). The practice of feminist in-depth interviewing. In S. Hesse-Biber & P.L. Leavy (Eds.), Feminist research practice: A primer (pp. 110–148). SAGE Publications, Inc.
Jacobsen, K., & Devor, A. (2022). Moving from gender dysphoria to gender euphoria: Trans experiences of positive gender-related emotions. Bulletin of Applied Transgender Studies, 1(1–2), 119–143.
Jones, B.A., Arcelus, J., Bouman, W.P., & Haycraft, E. (2017). Barriers and facilitators of physical activity and sport participation among young transgender adults who are medically transitioning. International Journal of Transgenderism, 18(2), 227–238.
Kane, M.J. (1995). Resistance/transformation of the oppositional binary: Exposing sport as a continuum. Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 19(2), 191–218.
Kavoura, A., Channon, A., & Kokkonen, M. (2022). “Just existing is activism”: Transgender experiences in martial arts. Sociology of Sport Journal, 39(2), 196–204.
Kehl, K. (2020). The right kind of queer: Race, sexuality, and gender in contemporary constructions of Swedishness (PhD dissertation). Göteborgs Univeristy.
Kjaran, J.I. (2017). Constructing sexualities and gendered bodies in school spaces nordic insights on queer and transgender students. Palgrave Macmillan US.
Knoester, C., Allison, R., & Fields, V.T. (2023). Reconstructing, challenging, and negotiating sex/gender in sport: US public opinion about transgender Athletes’ rights, rights for athletes with varied sex characteristics, sex testing, and gender segregation. Sociology of Sport Journal, 41(1), 12–16.
Kvale, S., & Brinkmann, S. (2009). InterViews: Learning the craft of qualitative research interviewing (2nd ed.). Sage Publications.
Larsson, H., & Auran, I. (2023). Trans* inclusion and gender equality in sport and exercise—An (im)possible equation? Sport in Society, 27(1), 52–67. https://doi.org/10.1080/17430437.2023.2233439
Lee, J.Y., & Rosenthal, S.M. (2023). Gender-affirming care of transgender and gender-diverse youth: Current concepts. Annual Review of Medicine, 74(1), 107–116.
Lewis, S.T., & Johnson, C.W. (2011). “But it’s not that easy”: Negotiating (trans) gender expressions in leisure spaces. Leisure, 35(2), 115–132.
Linghede, E., & Larsson, H. (2017). Figuring more livable elsewheres: Queering acts, moments, and spaces in sport (studies). Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 41(4), 290–306.
López-Cañada, E., Devis-Devis, J., Pereira-Garcia, S., & Perez-Samaniego, V. (2021). Socio-ecological analysis of trans people’s participation in physical activity and sport. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 56(1), 62–80.
Love, A. (2014). Transgender exclusion and inclusion in sport. In J. Hargreaves & E. Anderson (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of Sport, Gender and Sexuality (pp. 376–383). Routledge.
Martin, K., & Rahilly, E. (2023). Value frames in discourse supporting transgender athlete bans. Discourse & Society, 34(6), 732–751.
Martínková, I. (2020). Unisex sports: Challenging the binary. Journal of the Philosophy of Sport, 47(2), 248–265.
Mbembé, J.A., & Meintjes, L. (2003). Necropolitics. Public Culture, 15(1), 11–40.
Müller, J., & Böhlke, N. (2023). Physical education from LGBTQ+ students’ perspective. A systematic review of qualitative studies. Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy, 28(6), 601–616.
Pattinson, E., Newman, H., & Kiemle-Gabbay, L. (2022). Challenges accessing physical activity from a transgender perspective: A systematic review. Sport & Exercise Psychology Review, 17(2), Article 19.
Pérez-Samaniego, V., Fuentes-Miguel, J., Pereira-García, S., López-Cañada, E., & Devís-Devís, J. (2019). Experiences of trans persons in physical activity and sport: A qualitative meta-synthesis. Sport Management Review, 22(4), 439–451.
Posbergh, A. (2023). Contradiction or cohesion? Tracing questions of protection and fairness in scientifically driven elite sport policies. Sociology of Sport Journal, 1, 1–11.
SSC. (2019). Idrotten vill: Idrottsrörelsens idéprogram. Riksidrottsförbundet.
Storr, R., Nicholas, L., Robinson, K., & Davies, C. (2022). ‘Game to play?’ Barriers and facilitators to sexuality and gender diverse young people’s participation in sport and physical activity. Sport, Education and Society, 27(5), 604–617.
Stryker, S. (1994). My words to Victor Frankenstein above the village of Chamounix: Performing transgender rage. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, 1(3), 237–254.
Tagg, B. (2012). Transgender netballers: Ethical issues and lived realities. Sociology of Sport Journal, 29(2), 151–167.
Wackwitz, L.A. (2003). Verifying the myth: Olympic sex testing and the category “woman”. Women’s Studies International Forum, 26(6), 553–560.
Westbrook, L. (2023). The matrix of violence: Intersectionality and necropolitics in the murder of transgender people in the United States, 1990–2019. Gender & Society, 37(3), 413–446.
White Hughto, J.M., Pachankis, J.E., Willie, T.C., & Reisner, S.L. (2017). Victimization and depressive symptomology in transgender adults: The mediating role of avoidant coping. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 64(1), 41–51.
Zanin, A.C., LeMaster, L.T., Niess, L.C., & Lucero, H. (2023). Storying the gender binary in sport: Narrative motifs among transgender, gender non-conforming athletes. Communication & Sport, 11(5), 879–904.
