Tag: Lina von Petersdorff

Abby Barras discusses transgender people’s inclusion in amateur and recreational sports in the United Kingdom in her new book Transgender and Non-Binary People in Everyday Sport: A Trans Feminist Approach to Improving Inclusion (Routledge). Her focus is the perspective of transgender athletes themselves to ex-plore the barriers to participation. It’s a great read, says Lina von Petersdorff, and an important perspective that scholars and others involved in the transgender debates should take into consideration.

The International Journal of the History of Sport is the world’s leading sport history academic periodical with fully-refereed global coverage of the subject. The Forum Editor’s pick from the current issue: The Bumpy Road to World Athletics: Foundation, People, Policies by Lina von Petersdorff & Jörg Krieger (open access).

Analysing 16 transgender eligibility policies of different international sports federations, this article makes the case for a human rights-based approach towards participation in competitive sports in accordance with a person’s gender identity. It does so by focussing on specific human rights and utilising feminist theories. The analysis identifies that the policies frame transgender athletes as a “problem”. The use of language and, in particular concepts, play a crucial role in the policies. Therefore, the argument is made for redefining the concepts of sex and gender in the context of sport.