Hargie O., Mitchell, D. and Somerville, I.
International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 2015
‘People have a knack of making you feel excluded if they catch on to your difference’:
Transgender experiences of exclusion in sport.
Owen DW Hargie
School of Communication, University of Ulster, UK.
David H Mitchell
Irish School of Ecumenics, Trinity College Dublin at Belfast, UK.
Ian JA Somerville
Media and Communication, University of Leicester, UK.
Citation: Hargie O., Mitchell, D. and Somerville, I. (online first 2015) ‘People have a knack
of making you feel excluded if they catch on to your difference’: Transgender experiences of
exclusion in sport, International Review for the Sociology of Sport
Hargie O., Mitchell, D. and Somerville, I.
International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 2015
Abstract
While there is a growing literature in the field of gender, sexuality and sport, there is a dearth
of research into the lived experiences of transgender people in sport. The present study
addresses this research gap by exploring and analysing the narratives of transgender people in
relation to their experiences of sport and physical activity. These narratives are examined
within the theoretical rubrics of social exclusion and minority stress theory. The findings
from in-depth interviews with ten transgender persons are detailed. Four interconnected
themes emerged from the interviewee accounts: the intimidating nature of the
changing/locker room environment; the impact of alienating sports experiences at school; the
fear of public space and how this drastically constrained their ability to engage in sport and
physical activity; and, the overall effects of being denied the social, health and well-being
aspects of sport. The findings are discussed in relation to the distinctive quality of
transgender exclusion, and the related distal and proximal stressors experienced by this
particular minority group.
Keywords
Transgender people, LGBT, sport, social exclusion, minority stress theory.
Hargie O., Mitchell, D. and Somerville, I.
International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 2015
Introduction
The intersection of gender, sexuality and sport has produced voluminous empirical research
and theoretical reflection (for example, Caudwell and Browne, 2013; Hargreaves and
Anderson, 2014; Scraton and Flintoff, 2002). The practical, political and philosophical issues
surrounding transgender participation in sport are increasingly being recognised. A small
number of qualitative studies, situated in queer and gender theory, have examined the sports
experiences of individuals who do not neatly fit into the two-sex binary (Caudwell, 2014;
Lucas-Carr and Krane, 2011, 2012; Semerjian and Cohen, 2006; Travers, 2006; Travers and
Deri, 2011; Tagg, 2012). However, much of the research on transgender people and sport
focuses upon issues related to gender testing and regulations regarding competitive and elite
sport (Buzuvis, 2011; Reeser, 2005; Sullivan, 2011; Symons and Hemphill, 2006; Wahlert
and Fiester, 2012). Overall while the literature reveals some progress toward greater
inclusivity for transgender people in relation to sport (Buzuviz, 2011; Hargreaves and
Anderson, 2014), it is fair to say that both the public understanding of, and policy responses
to, transgender issues remain in their infancy. General acknowledgment of barriers to
transgender participation is yet to be enriched with deeper understanding of how transgender
people experience sport and physical activity.
The present research helps to redress this deficit. It is concerned with the role of sport
as an everyday agent of social inclusion and exclusion in the lives of transgender people.
While the links between sport and social exclusion have emerged as a key topic of academic
enquiry and policy concern (Collins and Kay, 2014; Spaaij, Magee and Jeanes, 2014), the
role of sport in facilitating or inhibiting the social participation of transgender people has
featured little. The research detailed here formed part of a major Northern Ireland
Government funded research project by the authors, on social exclusion and sport. This paper
Hargie O., Mitchell, D. and Somerville, I.
International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 2015
focuses upon findings pertaining to the nature and impact of exclusion as experienced by
transgender people.
Transgender people, sport and social exclusion
‘Transgender’ is regarded as an ‘umbrella term for people whose gender identity and/or
gender expression differs from what is typically associated with the sex they were assigned at
birth’ (GLAAD, 2014: 14). Not all transgender identifying individuals aspire to physical
transition; Travers (2006) describes ‘gender conformers’ and ‘gender transformers’. The
former exhibit a conservative and essentialist view of gender, feeling they are ‘trapped in the
wrong body’ and desiring hormonal and surgical alteration to realise their identity. They wish
to fit into the two-sex binary. By contrast, ‘gender transformers’ reject the binary, preferring
to view gender as a continuum. They eschew fixed categorisation and do not feel the need to
undergo physical transformation.
The gender conformist challenge, then, is less radical, and, in sport, may be
accommodated by policies such as the International Olympic Committee’s Stockholm
Consensus (2004) which allows for the participation of transgender athletes who can
medically verify that they have completed the physical gender reassignment process
(Cavanagh and Sykes, 2006). But from a transformer perspective, such policies simply
reinforce the two-sex binary and the dubious assumption that all women require protection
from unfair disadvantage through segregation from men in sport, and ignore cultural,
economic and racial inequality in access to gender reassignment surgery (Love, 2014;
Sullivan, 2011; Sykes, 2006). Caudwell (2014: 402) is skeptical of the conformer/transformer
categorization, suggesting ‘it lacks the incompleteness that often accompanies people’s lived
experiences of gender’. Yet the participants in the present study, at least, quite clearly aspired
to or had attained physical transition and passionately wished to ‘blend in’ and be accepted as
Hargie O., Mitchell, D. and Somerville, I.
International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 2015
the sex other than their physical sex at birth – they were gender conformers. The findings of
this study will show that both gender conforming and gender transforming aspirations pose a
significant challenge to the gendered organisation and culture prevalent in the sporting world
and beyond it.
Systemic segregation based upon conventional notions of gender and sexuality, with
designated exclusionary identity groups, has long been part of the organisational and cultural
fabric of sport. Thus, Symons, Sbaraglia, Hillier and Mitchell (2010: 7) noted that, ‘sexuality
is mostly coded as heterosexuality and there is little positive room for alternate sexualities.
Generally, transgression from these norms around gender and sexuality is punished in sport’.
The rigid division of sport into male or female, based upon bio-genetic sex differences, would
seem to have been driven by an ideological and political heterosexual imperative that
privileges masculinity (Brackenridge, Alldred, Jarvis, Maddocks, and Rivers, 2008). Most
sports have therefore traditionally tended to be ‘heteronormative’: exclusively legitimising
and reinforcing heterosexuality (Kauer and Krane, 2013). The imposition of a deterministic
gender bifurcation makes it especially difficult for those who fall outside of the perceived
‘normality’, such as transgender people, to live their true gender identities when participating
in formal sports activities (Sykes, 2011).
The experiences of transgender people in sport reflect the wider problems that they
face in society. For example, Meyer (2003) developed a minority stress model based upon
evidence that LGB individuals suffer from additional social stress over and above the rest of
the population, in the form of stigma and prejudice due to their minority position, and that
this in turn causes an increase in mental disorders. He distinguished between distal stressors
that are external to the person, such as prejudice and discrimination, and proximal stressors
which are internal processes related to distal stressors, including the fear of experiencing
negative events and related preventive vigilance, rumination on negative experiences of