In this week’s episode, I was fortunate to sit down for a longer discussion about trans athletes and gender in sport with Dr. Kristy McCray, a sports sociologist and Professor in Otterbein’s Health and Sport Sciences Department. This episode is twice as long as my solo episodes, but it is well worth the time (even if you have to listen in two segments). We discuss the many ways that sports work to reinforce (or challenge) gender norms, why trans women have become the locus of so much social anxiety, the history and context of sex verification testing, the distinction between a trans athlete and an athlete who is living with a difference in sexual development (DID), the importance of ensuring participation in sports for all persons, and the reason that Dr. McCray believes that female trans athletes have become a hot-button political and cultural issue.

Podcast Available On:

Apple

Spotify

Featuring:

Dr. Tammy Birk, Dr. McCray

Dr. McCray mentioned Katie Barnes’s Fair Play: How Sports Shape the Gender Debates, a well-written and accessible text on the history and context of the trans athlete ‘debate.’ I highly recommend it.
She also mentions a short Vox video, ‘The Problem with Sex Testing in Sport,’ that you can watch at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiCftTLUzCI