Essay on Transgender in Sports

In the late 1950’s to mid-1960’s, the transgender community faced discrimination such as physical and verbal harassment, denial of social spaces, and alienation in the media. This matters to us today because transgender individuals are still existing and are a part of our human population today. The community is also still struggling to find their representation in the media and in society. The transgender community is still facing a wide array of types of discrimination, from nasty looks to denied access of education. Gender identity should not be taken into consideration when determining another person’s worthiness of respect.

When discussing injustices, it is pivotal--for the sake of true progressive social change--to include all oppressed groups into the dialogue. Transgender People tend to be heavily misrepresented and demonized. Because of transphobia, there

Next, male-to-female athletes have an unfair advantage when it comes to having a generally bigger skeletal frame. It is commonly known that men in general are designed to be stronger than women. This is largely due to their bigger bone structure and larger muscle mass. These two anatomical forces when energetically combined become powerful forces of speed, strength, and endurance which are all characteristics of a great athlete. Many transgender individuals choose to undergo hormone therapy to help change their appearance into looking more feminine or masculine. However, in the case of transgender athletes who desire to compete in the Olympics, the IOC has required male-to-female athletes to undergo two years of hormone treatment in

“No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance” (US Dept. of Education). The Education Amendments of 1972 and revised in 2015, including the Title IX segment assures transgender student-athletes obtain impartial, respectful and lawful access to collegiate sports teams based on current and legal medical knowledge. The U.S. Department of Education has issued guidelines regarding Title IX and transgender students that prohibit sex-based discrimination based on gender identity (FindLaw).

The United States is a divided society. We like to categorize ourselves according to political affiliation, race, and religion. We are members of the middle, low-income, or wealthy classes. We choose what seats to sit in during a football game according to the team we are rooting for. It is oddly comforting to know that you belong. All too often, however, transgender youth are denied that sense of ubelonging because they defy society’s categories of male and female. The gender binary divides society into two separate, unequivocal categories that marginalizes transgender youth and directly impacts their emotional health and well-being. Society’s collective response of demeaning, shaming, and violence further increases the divide.

.3 percent of Americans are Transgender, though there isn't exact we estimate there is about 700,000 Trans people in America. When it comes to representation and protection this community is largely ignored. A common excuse for their exclusion is that they are too much of a minority to

Transgenders are being categorized as being mentally ill. Though transgender counseling exists it only focuses on pathology and diagnosis. Transgenders are also severely at risk of hate crimes. In the United States alone, there are 321 transgender hate crimes per year. Transgender hate crimes can be compared to Muslims post-9/11. There’s no law to protect them from these hate crimes and nothing is ever really done to show them that they have rights too. There’s no law protecting them with employment right’s either. Due to discrimination they are vulnerable and led to no job, homelessness, suicide and even no health care. ( Anneliese A. Singh, Danica G. Hays, and Laurel S. Watson 20)

Grossman, Arnold H. Anthony R. D’Augelli. “Transgender Youth: Invisible and Vulnerable.” Journal of Homosexuality. Vol. 51, No. 1 (2006): pages 111-128. Web. 25 June 2015. Arnold H. Grossman, a professor of Applied Psychology at New York University, and Anthony R. D’Augelli, professor of Human Development at Pennsylvania State University, did a study of Transgender youth from ages 15 to 21. The study was designed to determine the factors that affect the youth, who either identify as transgender or their gender does not fit the normal gender descriptions. Focus groups were used as nonthreatening environment to examine the youths’ social and emotional experiences. The study not only provided insight on their emotional and social experiences but

The practice of medicine in the United States sustains the marginalization of transgender people (Catalano et al., 2007). When Christine Jorgensen’s sex change was announced in 1952, many men consulted doctors to pursue successful transitions as a form of self-expression to affirm their sexual identities (Meyerowitz, 2013). However, doctors relied on their own authority to diagnose transgender issues and did not have any proven medical theory to assist the men with transitioning (2013). In addition, transgender issues in the practice of medicine are viewed as a mental disorders or illnesses (Spade, 2013) that are curable through medical transitioning (Catalano et al., 2007). Moreover, Spade (2013) discusses the difficulties in securing low cost medical care. Spade is not a textbook case of gender identity disorder, so he is having issues proving that he is a male at all times based on his lived experiences to his counselor, which undermines his transgender identity. Furthermore, the juvenile judicial system perpetuates the medical assessment of transgender people as suffering from an illness to be treated (Ware, 2013). “Uncontrollable” transgender youth, who do not have access to information about their sexuality (Sears, 1991), is placed in the juvenile judicial system by

The transgender community makes up a controversial, growing culture in America. Promoting the idea of tolerance, self-love and acceptance, the Transgender community helps support a community that is statistically not commonly received well by the American people of 2015. Many view this uprising as a positive, revolutionary movement that aims to not only help the minority groups of America but progress mindset of all people from potentially

The unemployment of transgender people is high mainly because of the fact that they become unemployed since they decide to come out as the gender they truely feel which is the opposite of the sex they’re born with. Nineteen percent of transgender people are denied health care because of their gender and are becoming homeless, which will lead to more abuse once they enter a homeless shelter. Despite the fact that “gender equality” is mentioned in the laws of the United States, it isn’t necessarily true since there is inequality present when a transgender person is present in situations where they shouldn’t be discriminated or treated unfairly to begin with. For things such as going to the bathroom and putting up with being part of the fifty-three percent of transgender people who are verbally attacked to becoming a prostitute or a drug dealer just to get by with some money to survive and pay to transition to fit your gender expression, are issues that could’ve been avoided if the laws improved by explicitly adding transgender people to the list of those being protected in the law. The Title VII of the Civil Rights Act may say that people shouldn’t be discriminated or mistreated based on gender, but it is only most effective if the person is cisgender and not transgender. The discrimination and lack of protection is causing fourty-one percent are attempting suicide because they feel unprotected and therefore depressed, especially since they have no support. In order to diminish the amount of discrimination transgender people in the United States face everyday of their lives in aspects that leave them vulnerable, The United States needs to have laws explicitly stating that the rights of transgender people are being protected by the

Brown, K. D. (2014). The transgender student-athlete: Is there a fourteenth amendment right to participate on the gender-specific team of your choice? Marquette Sports Law Review, 25(1), 311-328.

How does one define gender? Is it in terms of sex or is a distinct term with separate qualities and qualifications? In the past century, sports have wrestled with these questions on how to qualify and quantify gender. By addressing these issues, whether intentional or not, the sports world has certainly broken down some barriers to transgender equality. Nevertheless, there is certainly more work to do to further progress transgender equality in sports and arguably it is the moral obligation of the sports world to pursue such equality. Ultimately, transgender people should have the right to pursue competitive careers that match their gender identity.

In fact, according to studies, although discrimination is prevalent among the majority of the transgender community, a transgender person of color is discriminated against more than a white transgender person, and an African American transgender person has it way worse than any other transgender population. The issue at hand is whether or not transgender individuals deserve to be treated with the same respect as any other person and have laws to protect them. Transgender people deserve to have rights that protect them and make them feel safe in society because they’re forced to use public facilities that don’t match their gender expression which could be dangerous for them, because they’re oppressed, violated and dehumanized only because they’re expressing who they really are, and because they aren’t treated as equal citizens, resulting in the denial of fundamental things like education, housing and employment. On the other hand, some people believe that transgender people shouldn’t have laws put in place for their benefit because they think that allowing transgender people access to facilities that correspond with their gender identity would be an invasion of privacy of the other people using the

In a lot of places around the world more and more people are coming out as “Transgender.” The term transgender means that the person’s gender identity does not correspond with the gender they were assigned as having at birth. From personally having a transgender boyfriend I have since realized that these people experience a lot of discrimination in and from society. Many people simply just do not understand what the term transgender means and they see it as someone just “wants to be a man” or “wants to be a woman.” While there may be people who present it this way, it is more so that the individual just “feels” different, and “feels” as if they are “in the wrong body.” Some people experience this feeling at a young age as my boyfriend did in his elementary age. We live in a world who put these people down for being who they truly are, and no human being wants or needs that.