Discrimination In Sport Essay

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Sport has historically been a segregated activity assuming the presence of two universal but opposite sexes (Birrell & Cole, 1990, p.3). When an athlete does not align with the perceived idea of male and female, sporting federations attempt to mould athletes to fit a rigid two-sex binary (Bohuon, 2015, p.965). This practice is justified by claiming protection from an unfair athletic advantage (Karkazis & Jordan-Young, 2015, p. 858). This essay argues that segregation and gender testing in sport reinforces the idea of an exclusive two sex binary where only male and female exist. The disruption caused by anomalies to this binary challenge social and scientific beliefs about ‘sex’, creating a myriad of ethical and legal issues for regulatory …show more content…

Sport should encourage the acceptance of all participants and promote a discrimination free environment. The IOC charter (2015, p.13) reinforces this with the principle that ‘every individual must have the possibility of practicing sport without discrimination of any kind’. This essay shows that equality in sport is challenged when an athlete falls outside of the socially constructed gender binary. Regulatory institutes such as the IOC and IAAF attempt to ‘rein’ these competitors in (Zaccone, 2010, p.427) even though such processes accentuate the discriminatory belief that all humans must align with a two-sex model. There are serious implications arising from such narrow views about gender in sport which have been highlighted in the recent court findings relative to Dutee Chand. The evidence in relation to androgen levels and athletic advantage is unconvincing and the testing policies are deeply entrenched in the strict dual binary idea. While the CAS finding is a victory for the inclusion of athletes with high levels of naturally occurring androgen, significant shifts in social perspectives are required to abandon the rigid two-sex

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