Sex, Gender Identity and Sport - Book launch

This event will celebrate the publication of Sex, Gender Identity and Sport edited by Cathy Devine. The book features the work of leading international scholars and practitioners working in a variety of disciplines, including sport history, sport medicine, sport philosophy, sport physiology, sport policy and sport sociology, as well as equality, discrimination and human rights law.

Centring the female athlete as the majority stakeholder in decisions regarding eligibility for the female category, this book is essential reading for anybody with an interest in women’s sport, social issues in sport, sport science, sport policy or gender studies. It takes a critical look at the relationship between biological sex and gender identity in the context of sport and considers the consequent implications for sport policy.

It argues that biological sex is essential to an understanding of female athletes and sport participants, including the sex gap in sports performance, the history of female exclusion from sport, and the importance of the female sport category in relation to equal human rights, competitive opportunities and fairness for girls and women.

Speakers

Cathy Devine is a freelance academic, former senior lecturer at the University of Cumbria, UK (1995–2017), and erstwhile secretary of the British Philosophy of Sport Association. She previously worked at the National Coaching Foundation, and at the National Federation of Women’s Institutes as Head of Sport. Her research focuses on the human rights of girls and women in sport. She has authored several academic papers in this area including, ‘Female Olympians’ Voices: Female Sport Categories and IOC Transgender Guidelines‘ (2021, International Review for the Sociology of Sport), ‘Female Sports Participation, Gender Identity and the British 2010 Equality Act’ (2021, Sport, Ethics and Philosophy) and ‘Sex, Gender Identity and Sport’ (2023) in ‘Sex and Gender Identity: A Reader’. She has also co-authored journal articles and letters in the area including, ‘The International Olympic Committee framework on fairness, inclusion and non-discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sex variations does not protect fairness for female athletes’ (2024, Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports), ‘Fair and Safe Eligibility Criteria for Women's Sport’ (2024, Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports) and ‘Reply to Williams et al.: Fair and Safe Eligibility Criteria for Women's Sport’ (2024, Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports). Cathy has advised a number of international and UK sport organisations and other national and international organisations (usually confidentially) on transgender inclusion policies that do not compromise equal human rights for girls and women in sport.

Kerry McGawley is a professor in sports science at the Swedish Winter Sports Research Centre, Mid Sweden University, and the senior manager of the female athlete program at Orreco Ltd. Kerry completed her PhD at the University of Brighton, England, on the applications of critical power in endurance cycling, and her MRes at the University of Western Australia, investigating repeated-sprint ability in female soccer players. Kerry leads an international MSc program in sports performance and athlete health, which is also the focus of her research, particularly in relation to female athletes. Much of Kerry’s work has been conducted in collaboration with national and international sports federations and she contributes to various high-performance skiing, biathlon and triathlon coaching programs internationally. Kerry has published more than 70 peer-reviewed scientific articles and several book chapters and serves on the editorial board of the International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance (IJSPP). Kerry is a competitive triathlete and has won multiple World, European and national age-group titles.

Mara Yamauchi is a British former elite athlete in endurance running, and former diplomat. She is a two-time Olympian, Commonwealth Games bronze medallist, and winner of the 2008 Osaka International Ladies Marathon. Her sixth place in the Beijing Olympics women's marathon is still the joint-best performance by a British woman in the Olympic marathon. In 2009 she was ranked second in the world in women's road running and set her PB, 2:23:12, when finishing 2nd in the London Marathon. That time was the second fastest by a British woman until 2022. Before becoming an elite athlete, she worked for HM Diplomatic Service for ten years, including being posted to the British Embassy in Tokyo.

In recent years, Mara has campaigned for fair and safe sport for women and girls, and for the female category to be reserved for females only. She strongly believes that this must apply at all levels, given that all elite athletes start as beginners, and to prevent obstruction to the development pathway for females from beginner to elite level. She has mainly spoken up about males in the female category in her own sport, running, including in parkrun. Since 2022 she has been an Advisory Group member of the human rights charity Sex Matters.

Chair

Alice Sullivan is Professor of Sociology at the UCL Social Research Institute.

Order your copy now from https://www.routledge.com/Sex-Gender-Identity-and-Sport/Devine/p/book/9781032901237

20% Discount with Code 26AFLY1

Bring your copy if you would like it signed after the panel discussion.

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