ABSTRACT

Although debates about transgender women in sport have been prominent in recent years, there is a much longer history of transgender participation in sport. This article uses oral history interviews and media to examine Australia’s history of transgender women’s participation in sport since the late 1970s. It explores the public debates around gender, sex, the body, and ‘fair play discourse’ as expressed around specific transgender athletes. It also examines the lived experience of those transgender sportswomen and analyses how they used gender presentation to affirm their femininity. Indeed, gender presentation and transgender (in)visibility heavily influenced whether teammates, opponents, sporting associations, and the media accepted transgender athletes in their affirmed gender. The presence of transgender women in sport consistently exposed anxieties around gender, sex, and the body because they exposed rigid understandings of gender binarism. Examining the long history of transgender women in Australian sport reveals how longstanding debates have played out in a variety of settings, with transgender athletes regularly searching for ways to affirm their gender and navigate sporting communities.

摘要

尽管近年来关于跨性别女性参与体育运动的争论非常突出，但跨性别参与体育运动的历史要长得多。本文使用口述历史采访和媒体来审视自 1970 年代后期以来澳大利亚跨性别女性参与体育运动的历史。它探讨了围绕特定跨性别运动员表达的性别、性、身体和“公平竞争话语”的公共辩论。它还考察了这些跨性别女运动员的生活经历，并分析了她们如何利用性别表现来肯定自己的女性气质。事实上，性别呈现和跨性别（不）可见性严重影响了队友、对手、体育协会和媒体是否接受跨性别运动员的确认性别。跨性别女性在运动中的出现始终暴露出对性别、性和身体的焦虑，因为她们暴露了对性别二元论的僵化理解。考察澳大利亚体育界跨性别女性的悠久历史，揭示了长期辩论如何在各种环境中展开，跨性别运动员经常寻找方法来确认自己的性别并驾驭体育社区。