[OA] Sex in Sport
Doriane Lambelet Coleman & Kimberly D. Krawiec, Foreword, 80 Law and Contemporary Problems 1-5 (2017). Available at: "Foreword" by Doriane Lambelet Coleman and Kimberly D. Krawiec
Historically, debates about what it meant “to be a woman” for purposes of sport were largely confined to elite sports circles. That changed in 2009, when it was announced that South African runner Caster Semenya, the just-crowned world champion in the women’s 800 meters, had been subjected to gender verification testing. Fellow competitors were outspoken: Semenya was not a woman, they said, and it was unfair to allow her to compete in the women’s category. “These kind of people should not run with us,” said Italian runner Elisa Cusma, “For me, she is not a woman. She is a man.”1 “Just look at her,” said Russian runner Mariya Savinova.2
The controversy set off debates around the world about whether and why sex segregated sports are justified and how eligibility determinations for the women’s category should be made. Suddenly, in social media and the popular press, at coffee shops, and in chats at the local grocery store, people who had rarely paused to question issues of biological sex, gender identity, or affirmative action in sports debated Semenya’s case, and what it meant for conceptions of binary sex categories. It also inspired this volume, in which scholars from gender studies, law, philosophy, and biology bring insights to bear on an issue that is important, not only to sport, but to cultural debates about gender and sex more broadly.
…
Taken together, these multidisciplinary approaches to the common question of sex in sport should inform contemporary debates about the relative salience of biology in the different institutional spaces that comprise this world. The issue’s authors provide relevant factual background from their respective areas of expertise and offer arguments from those disciplines about how policymakers within and outside of sport should assess and resolve the debates. Because sport has significant cultural currency and cross-cultural significance, we expect that these contributions and the processes by which they are generated will also have salience as questions about sex and identity are addressed in the non-sporting contexts in which they also arise.
Sex in Sport. Law and Contemporary Problems. 2017;80(4).
Law and Contemporary Problems | Journals | Duke Law
Doriane Lambelet Coleman & Kimberly D. Krawiec, Foreword, 80 Law and Contemporary Problems 1-5 (2017). Available at: "Foreword" by Doriane Lambelet Coleman and Kimberly D. Krawiec
Historically, debates about what it meant “to be a woman” for purposes of sport were largely confined to elite sports circles. That changed in 2009, when it was announced that South African runner Caster Semenya, the just-crowned world champion in the women’s 800 meters, had been subjected to gender verification testing. Fellow competitors were outspoken: Semenya was not a woman, they said, and it was unfair to allow her to compete in the women’s category. “These kind of people should not run with us,” said Italian runner Elisa Cusma, “For me, she is not a woman. She is a man.”1 “Just look at her,” said Russian runner Mariya Savinova.2
The controversy set off debates around the world about whether and why sex segregated sports are justified and how eligibility determinations for the women’s category should be made. Suddenly, in social media and the popular press, at coffee shops, and in chats at the local grocery store, people who had rarely paused to question issues of biological sex, gender identity, or affirmative action in sports debated Semenya’s case, and what it meant for conceptions of binary sex categories. It also inspired this volume, in which scholars from gender studies, law, philosophy, and biology bring insights to bear on an issue that is important, not only to sport, but to cultural debates about gender and sex more broadly.
…
Taken together, these multidisciplinary approaches to the common question of sex in sport should inform contemporary debates about the relative salience of biology in the different institutional spaces that comprise this world. The issue’s authors provide relevant factual background from their respective areas of expertise and offer arguments from those disciplines about how policymakers within and outside of sport should assess and resolve the debates. Because sport has significant cultural currency and cross-cultural significance, we expect that these contributions and the processes by which they are generated will also have salience as questions about sex and identity are addressed in the non-sporting contexts in which they also arise.
Sex in Sport. Law and Contemporary Problems. 2017;80(4).
Law and Contemporary Problems | Journals | Duke Law
