How Sports Shape the Gender Debates

will be released mid next month. And Katie and I get into a conversation largely around how women have been treated in sports, and then move into a conversation about

the demonization of non binary and transgender athletes. And it is a really good and thoughtful conversation because, look, I am not somebody that is saying that there aren't issues to be concerned with, right with regard to expanding who plays sports and how they play sports and the competitive nature, but particularly for those that are in elite sports is very different. Right then we're talking about denying a trans girl or a trans boy access to being able to

find camaraderie and community with their classmates. Very different when we're talking about a D one level athlete that is aspiring to be a professional athlete, and one where we're talking about allowing kids to be kids and be able to play and developed skills, social skills that sports really do help you develop, right, And an understanding of team and individual and all of these things that you learn.

And you know, and I think back to when I was growing up and running track and running cross country and what I learned about being a leader and a teammate, what I learned about discipline and dedication and focus, And shouldn't we want write all kids to experience that? Then you know, you watch recently the Women's World Cup and you see what happened with regard to the amount of people that tuned in the largest audiences that they've ever seen.

You also see the treatment of one of the winning team, Spain's players being kissed on the mouth, right, and you're just like, would this happen any other place? No, So there are so many conversations to be had about what it means to respect people, what it means to expand our thinking. Just because things have been one way doesn't

mean that it stays that way. That's the beauty of progress, that's the beauty of change, and It's the one thing that you can actually count on is that things will change right, and how we change with them will be the differentiator between the experience being good right and one that you can learn from and one being terrible and

feeling like you're being pushed in a different direction. And so the conversation that I get into today with Katie Barnes is really good, and I would love to hear from all of you about how you think about gender and sports and the intersections and the conversations that have come up. Whether it be about equal pay, equal coverage for professional app whether it be about trans kids being allowed or disallowed in sports. What are your feelings about

that intersection of gender and sports. That conversation with Katie Barnes is coming up next, folks. I am very excited to welcome to ook F Daily Katie Barnes, who is the author of the book fair Play, How Sports Shape the Gender Debates. And Katie, I want to start off with saying, let me just put it out there. You know, I played, and I guess I didn't play. You don't play a running sport. I ran track. I ran you know,

I ran track, I ran cross country. You know loved participating in sports when I was growing up, and you know, it was often you know, I am of generation where it was the thing that you put your kids in to like build up their self esteem and to build up, you know, their ability to connect with one another, right, to build up their coping skills, right, and empathy and all of these different things. I find sports in a

lot of ways to be invaluable. And you know what we've seen, though, I would say, particularly, and you tell me, as you have studied this and you've written about this and interviewed folks, is that over the last maybe ten to fifteen years, there has really been a real direct attack by conservatives to one redefined and solidify the gender binary right, to make it certain that only some type of kids get to participate and that everyone else is

left out gender queer, non binary, trans youth and not only left out, but really marginalized, right, really made to carry the burden of their community and be signaled out. Like there was a story, a horrific story a young girl I think I was throwing shot put a couple of months ago, and an onlooker started screaming, she's not a girl, She's not a girl. And her parent like

totally was just like, what is happening? So I just want to get your feeling on kind of where we have gone from sports being the thing that brought people together to it now being one of the flat the biggest flash points of the conservative rights culture war.

pass until Idaho did it in twenty twenty. So this is really only the last few years that we've seen this grow into being such such a large flashpoint that it's receiving a tremendous amount of legislative attention. There are lots of points of cultural difference that don't receive legislative attention, but this is one that really has and it's only been a few years. And I think one of the

reasons why this has happened. Is really to your point about sports being the thing that everybody kind of put their kids into, is that it's of great cultural import for us as a society. People have feelings about sports, right like, whether we're talking about their own like your own you know activity, you know, I can still talk about games that I played in high school, right like, you have your own individual experience, but then you also

have fandom, you have hopes, you have dreams. That people have a real emotional tie to their sporting experiences, whether that be as a participant from an athlete perspective or as a spectator and a fan. And then I think because sports, the way that we are globally organized from a sporting perspective is in a gender binary. And there are many reasons for that. And I don't necessarily think that that is a bad thing when we talk about

elite sports, but that is the truth of it. And so if you're trying to reinforce a gender binary, right then sports gives you a really good opportunity to do so. And it preys upon all of our cultural baggage around sports and around gender in terms of assumptions that we make, feelings that we have all of that is wrapped up in you know, our sporting experiences, and I think it's just playing out in a very you know, tense national drama as it were.

more to that? Because I've had as a as a queer woman, I've had so many debates about how sport, how how who should be allowed in and who shouldn't be allowed in And a a trans woman that is a swimmer shouldn't be able to swim against a field of CIS women and then like sweep all of the all of the metals because of their their different hormone levels and ability and wingspan and all of these things. So talk to me about what you just said, because

I want to dig it, because I get it. I have gotten into this conversation, I like to say, you know, conversation it ended up in a fight. But I got into a conversation and ended up in an argument about that very fat and these were other queer people, mind you, that I was having this conversation with. So was not sitting around with like a bunch of you know, like straight conservatives.

reason that we do that. Like and I give this example in fair Play, where you know Shakari Richardson when she ran a ten point seven to two in the women's hundred meter, it was like the sixth fastest time ever at that moment for women. And you know the kid who won the Connecticut State Open on the boys side in the one hundred meter that year, Connecticut's a small state, did so with a ten point six y nine, right, Like that that's just a those are numbers, Like, that's

just a truth. And so when it comes to think reimagining what's wars looks like, which I think there are a lot of people who want to do that. When it comes to sports like track and swimming and powerlifting, it's really hard to do without essentially removing women from being able to hold world records and win gold medals that are of equal import as what the men are

able to do. So that's why I say that from a leaf perspective, where from a sex separation standpoint, like I don't really have an issue with it when it comes to Olympic level competition because I want women to hold world records and the data would suggest that they would not be able to if we, you know, organize sport by heighten for example. But similarly, right like I also from a capitalistic standpoint, don't trust capitalism to not function in a sexist manner when it comes to prioritizing

girls and women. From a like, you know, from a resource and opportunity standpoint, like, women in the United States are entitled to equal access to sports under the law, and that is not happening whether we're talking about the high school level or the college level. And so I have a hard time believing that if we got rid of gender categories in different ways that women would be would be on the receiving end of resource investment. Even

without such protections. So I have those feelings too, But then I think into like the real heart of your question around having these conversations from an elite level standpoint, Our elite athletes are subject to an intense level of scrutiny, whether you believe that that is okay or not. So we test their urine, for example, to make sure that they're not doping. We know the wing span of Michael Phelps, right,

We know the wing span of these athletes. Like we talk about bone length and density and VO two max and there are all kinds of physical, logical and metabolic indicators that we discuss when it comes to our olympians

because those are the differentiators. And so there's a discussion of bodies when it comes to our elite athletes that regardless of your level of comfort with such a thing, it happens, and that's not I would think that that would be very strange if we were talking about our you know, third grade soccer team in the same way, right, Like,

the stakes are different and the scrutiny mirrors that. And so when we're having those discussions about restrictions and what's appropriate and what isn't appropriate, and we're having that at an elite level, it's a fundamentally different conversation. But what I have found in my reporting is that they're not

treated as fundamentally different conversations. So a discussion about what policy regulation should look like when it comes to Olympic level swimming suddenly becomes a discussion irrelevant discussion in what laws should be passed to regulate elementary school sports. And from a stakes perspective, those two are not the same. So I think, got it. I kind of answer your question, But that's generally those are my feelings about that.

our school systems? Like should should? I guess the question that I have for you is that when it pertains to young people, should it be that unless you're at let's say, the elite gymnastics training camp that your parents send the Simon Biles and the Gabby Douglasses and those people too, because you show exceptional merit, you know, and

scholar in this in this sport. If you're if it's just a bunch of kids that like are playing and learning about competition and their bodies and themselves, like, should we be in this legislative political space around it? And or should we and and should we just say exactly what you said, like the stakes are not really that high. It's so essentially it's not that serious.

you know, being very successful during that swim season. She was competing in Division one sports, and yet I distinctly remember watching a hearing in my home state of Indiana as they were considering passing a restrictive law, which ultimately was passed, you know, and that law was targeting specifically high school age students and younger, and yet Leah Thomas was invoked as the reason for why that needed to happen.

And from my perspective as a journalist and someone who's knowledge about the topic, I'm like, well, wait, Like we can talk about Leah Thomas, but that doesn't have anything to do with why we're restricting participation for fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth graders or you know, non elite high school competition.

And so I think a lot of folks don't necessarily realize the breadth of the legislation has passed, and that it's not just talking about high school, which is messy from a puberty perspective, it's messy in general or from an elite college standpoint, right, Like, you know, it's not just focusing on that. A lot of these laws go all the way down to elementary school. Sometimes they start at fifth or sixth grade. Some of them cover all

elementary school. And they don't just affect competitive college sports. They also affect club level college sports, which is essentially pay to play in college, and even intramurals, which will affect you know, sometimes with intermural sports at large public universities, those aren't just open to students, and again that's also paid to participate. You there's usually a fee. They're also open to they can be open to faculty and staff

and sometimes community members depending on the school. So those are wide reaching laws that have you know, influenced far beyond what we would consider to be compe sport, which when we think about stakes in terms of what is what is relevant when it comes to how sports should be regulated. I think that's far outside the bounds of

what most people would consider to be reasonable. But a lot of folks don't know that that's what these laws do, and so, you know, for me, it was always it's really important to really put a fine, you know, fine point on what it is that is happening when it comes to the passage of these laws and how broad

they are. Well also acknowledging that, sure, we can have different conversations about what appropriate policy is, but that's not the conversation that is happening legislatively in the United States. It's a very broad attack specifically on transgender youth, and I think that tends to surprise folks because they think that it's you know that it's a discussion about Division one sports, and well that's reasonable. It's like, no, it also is a discussion about fifth graders and fourth graders

and you know, intramural level sports. And it begs the question of, you know, when we think about the typical sporting experience for the overhalling majority of US, it's co ed and recreational basically, right, And so at what point then are we going to start having discussions about, well, are we gonna see who plays pick up at the Why? Like, are we going to put restrictions on that? Are we going to put try to put restrictions on who can participate in community level sports?

But there's that really interesting middle eighty percent of folks who have questions, and the issue has become so politicized and there's a ton of misinformation that it can be really hard to judge the quality of information that you have access to, and especially you know, cutting through rhetoric, and so I really wanted to write a book that, you know, cut through that rhetoric, where you hear perspectives from multiple sides of the issue, from a variety of folks,

and then of course I share my own perspective, and I think it's pretty clear what that is. But you know, for me, it was really important to provide a space where folks could ask the questions that they wanted to ask and learn about the topic at hand, separate from all of the rhetoric and the misinformation that's out there.

And I thought it was important because you know, when I originally pitched this book, I thought it was just going to be kind of an exploration of like really fun stories and you know, the stories of trans kids around the country who were playing sports, and then we ended up in a news event and so that was

a little bit different. But to me, it spoke to the urgency of so many of these questions that folks don't know where to turn, and they're you know, desperately looking for answers, and I hope my book is able to provide a starting point for many of them.

we must, you know, like as times change. I just think that it is really important to think expansively, you know, as to what is really being harmed right and what stakes are we to you, to use your word, what stakes are we really talking about here? And I find that the right has just been able to create this you know monster, this boogeyman and you know, and just run wild with it. And I think that your book goes a long way to try and claw back the lies and kind of open people's eyes.

I'm not going to try and minimize that. Like I remember playing for a championship when I was in high school, Like all of that stuff also matters. But I'm not sure it should be the only conversation, and it seems to be the only conversation right now.