Sporting Gender: The History, Science, and Stories of Transgender and Intersex Athletes by Joanna Harper

Sporting Gender: The History, Science, and Stories of Transgender and Intersex Athletes Reviews

• 
  Jacob Rogers

  After reading this, before I engage with anyone on the subject of Transgender/Intersex people in athletics, I'll ask, "Have you ever read anything by Joanna Harper?" It's an incredibly complicated subject and is no where near as straightforward as it appears.
  
  It is quite clear to me after reading this book that most people (particularly state lawmakers) have little to no idea of what they are talking about when discussing trans/intersex athletes. Harper is very detailed and thorough on not only the science behind the subject, but also the history. She does an amazing job of overlaying the science with the athletic and personal stories of intersex/transgender athletes (including herself). Harper also takes very seriously the arguments on both sides of the debate (her own opinions are idiosyncratic, she argued against Caster Semenya being able to compete in the women's category, for example). She argues as a scientist, which I greatly respect, thus avoiding getting into overheated (and uninformed) discussions that so often plague debates around transgender athletes and transgenderism in general.
  
  I think most people assume trans/intersex athletes competing in elite/competitive sport (the book doesn't really spend time on youth sports, it's generally assumed that prior to puberty there shouldn't be any difference) is a new phenomenon but it frankly isn't - intersex in particular. I was also fascinated to learn how varied opinions are within these communities about what should and shouldn't be allowed in sport. Hell, it even depends on the kinds of events and sports we're talking about. I've heard it compared to a trolley problem where it's sadly not possible for everyone to win. But with plenty of thoughtful consideration, we can absolutely have a world where trans/intersex athletes are allowed to compete in ways that are meaningful, while maintaining fair competition.
  
  This book certainly isn't for everyone. It is a quite dense book about sports science and takes some patience to work through, you will need to reference the index to remember all the acronyms for various DSDs (differences in sex development). If you don't want to read this but want to know more, I recommend looking up a panel discussion including Harper lead by Malcolm Gladwell from the Sloan Sports Conference in March 2022.
  
  Only 4 stars because there are a surprising amount of typos (blame the publisher here) and despite the information being fascinating, Harper is no David Epstein (who wrote the foreward) or Malcolm Gladwell in terms of storytelling, her own being the exception. But I will be referencing this book for years and am glad it's on my shelf.
• 
  Shawn

  One of the most contentious issues in sport is that of transgender and intersex athletes. It is an extraordinarily complex and fraught mix that often seems like it pits two important values against each other: opportunity and fairness. Sport should be open to all those who wish to complete and to compete at the highest levels they can. Sport, at its best, also seeks to create fair and meaningful competitions. So, on one hand, sport should be open to all athletes able to complete: it would be wrong to limit the opportunities of transgender and intersex athletes. But, on the other hand, there is a concern that if those opportunities aren’t limited in some way, specifically that if trans and intersex women compete without limitations against cisgender women, it could undermine the fairness of such competitions.
  
  I don’t think there is a straightforward or obvious answer on these issues: and there are good, reasonable arguments (and many bad arguments too) for many different positions on all the various aspects of these issues. That said, my default position is towards the liberty of athletes to compete in the sport of their choice. I don’t mean to say that is the answer: but only that it is my starting point. It is the presumptive position that I think any argument to limit this liberty and opportunity needs to overcome.
  
  Joanna Harper’s Sporting Gender is a good starting point for looking at many of the issues and arguments that might defeat or sustain this presumption. Harper’s book, as the subtitle indicates, takes you through the history, science, and stories of transgender and intersex athletes.
  Starting in the early part of the twentieth century, she presents many stories of the individual trans and intersex women and their struggles to compete in sport. Many of these stories are tragic; too often rooted in ignorance and prejudice. For those that think these issues start and end with Castor Semenya, this history is essential.
  
  Harper also discusses the science of sex and its impact on exercise and athletics. She details the many different ways that one might not fit neatly into either of the more familiar categories of male and female. Biological sex is nowhere near as simple as one might assume. (Not to even get into issues of gender.) There is some technical stuff to wade through, but the general gist should be digestible by those without much science background. This is summary, though; there are better places to look for more detailed discussions of the science (much of which can be found in the book’s endnotes).
  
  Another important element of the book is Harper’s discussion of some of the legal cases that punctuate the history of trans and intersex athletes. The details and decisions of these cases are historically important and they had direct influence on the current regulations and guidelines of the major sport organizations like the IOC and IAAF.
  
  Much of the latter half of the book focuses on two recent important Court of Arbitration cases involving intersex athletes (Chand and Semenya). Harper was involved in both cases as an expert witness. While I appreciated the inside look into these cases, this is where the book was at its weakest. I wasn’t all that interested in Harper’s evaluation of the various lawyers involved and whether their closing remarks were powerful or not. There was a lot of that sort of thing in these sections and that took away from the more important issue of rehearsing the arguments presented.
  Harper is a trans woman and a runner, and she uses her own experiences to help frame parts of the book. This is both a blessing and a curse. It helps to contextualize and humanize much of the more abstract history and science. But it also means that the book is part memoir and so there are various tangents about her own life that were not part of my reasons for reading this book.
  
  Harper’s ultimately position is that elite competitive sports needs to find the right balance of rules and methods to maximize “the possibility that all women can enjoy equitable and meaningful sport” (247). Furthermore, that there are good reasons to keep separating athletes in to male and female divisions and that the use of testosterone levels is the best current method to make this distinction (247). Though she does provide reasons for why this is her position, the book is not really set up to be a clear and cogent argument to support these claims. Its focus is more on presenting the history (both personal and legal) and the science. And on that front, I’d recommend it for those interested in this issue.
  
  I don’t think the book deals enough with the philosophical and ethical aspects of trans and intersex athletes. What makes for fair and meaningful competition? Why are male/female divisions important? If there is a performance advantages by being trans or intersex, why should that matter and how is it different from other kinds of (non-doping) performance advantages? Harper broaches these questions to a degree, but she is not a philosopher and so the discussion is, in my view, too superficial and limited. There is also almost no engagement with the sport philosophy literature that discusses these issues. I still would recommend the book for the history and science angle, but it is not going to answer the meatier questions of philosophy or ethics.
  
  
• 
  James

  For someone who isn't a sports person and definitely not a track and field fan, this was incredibly eye-opening, highly engaging, and balanced read.
  
  The author provides a rich and informative overview of the history of gender issues in sports from the early 20th century to present day (2019). She does this through the lives of many individual athletes along with the sports regulations under which they lived.
  
  She also explains various intersex conditions and provides a chapter on trans 101 (basic info). I never knew much about intersex conditions, so I didn't know that so many different conditions exist under that umbrella term.
  
  How intersex athletes have been treated, even in modern times, is pretty horrifying. It's hard to imagine that intersex athletes were instructed to undergo FGM in order to compete in track and field events.
  
  I wish the parts about the various trials had been more interesting (or a lot shorter), but suspect there's nothing for that.
  
  I enjoyed reading about trans male athletes, who had very different struggles than their feminine counterparts. Most of their names were familiar to me, but I would have struggled to name their sports. I'm glad they were included in the book.
  
  I'm looking forward to the day when trans athletes can compete at the highest level of their respective sports, including earning a spot in the Olympics. This book recounts the obstacles so many athletes have overcome to get there as intersex individuals and hopefully they have paved the way for trans participation as well. I don't think it's far off!
  
  Overall, this is a unique resource for trans athletes (of any age) and their families, as well as coaches and program administrators. I would recommend it to everyone curious about the intersection of sports and social justice, especially in the area of gender and trans rights.
  
• 
  Lene Kretschz

  3.25 stars
  
  Harper, a trans woman and runner, marshals an impressive amount of information on the history of intersex and trans athletes in women's sports (by far the best part of the book). Using her own personal experience, scientific data, and reports from other trans and intersex athletes, she also presents a nuanced argument regarding how these athletes may be fairly allowed to participate in elite contests, always making sure to give opposing arguments an airing and generally coming across as open-minded and compassionate, but she is just such a poor writer that it makes it difficult to recommend this book. The final chapters on the 2019 Caster Semenya vs. IAAF Court of Arbitration for Sport trial, which should in some way have been the culmination of the book and an opportunity for Harper to summarize her arguments and draw from them a unified thesis, are just cringe-inducing. Harper narrates the trial in a voice that varies from naive to sensational, and highlights her own participation in the proceedings in a manner that is embarrassing and to the detriment of the real, very painful dilemma behind the trial. A bit of a disappointment overall.
• 
  Zack

  Very readable, bringing in personal stuff and stories with bits of the development and the science, and the history.
  
  Despite the title, it focusses almost exclusively on high-stakes elite sports. This is where the most public controversies are, and where the most difficult questions are, but it isn't the most important. She does have a decent line on other sports, but I think more should have been said.
  
  Her points on psychology of gender are weak, and overly reductive, I thought.
  
  A reasonably made argument overall, although I don't fully agree with her conclusions. Crucially that is the seeming defense of high stakes sports and with it gender segregation.
  
  Worth a read. A fuller review coming up.
• 
  Elizabeth

  Reads like a memoir in many ways despite textbook type aspects like the title, cover and so many names and dates that it was hard to keep track.
  
  Still, I learned a lot and appreciate the way the issue was presented - in its full complexity with plenty of human examples to ground it. It felt like a jumping off point and I’d recommend it as a good initial read on the subject.
• 
  Danielle

  Really interesting dive into the role of gender and sex in sport. A little heavy on numbers with respect to track and field but great science woven in with stories of different athletes through the years.
• 
  Becky

  Review to come but I loved reading this compelling and informative history of trans and intersex people in elite athletics.
• 
  Joy Davenport

  Previewed for possible purchase for school library. Found it to bog down in the courtoom scenes.
  10/22
• 
  Rori Rockman

  Some positives and negatives. The negatives: (1) the book is incredibly expensive, (2) lots of proofreading errors, (3) the author is a researcher, not a storyteller, and there are parts of the book where I think she goes on too long describing every detail of a person’s athletic accomplishments or all the back-and-forth in a courtroom when it didn’t add anything to the narrative.
  
  The positives: (1) This is a fascinating subject, and it is the most thoroughly researched written publication I have found on the subject. (2) The author does a good job of stating her opinion without letting her opinion overwhelm the narrative. This is not an opinion piece, but the author does hint at her opinion at some points and then gives a clear explanation of her thoughts at the end, which I think is the appropriate way to handle a subject so fraught with strong opinions. (3) I really, really appreciated the deep dive into intersex conditions. While there aren’t many formal studies, there are definitely plenty of YouTubers, activists, and spokespersons being vocal about the transgender community. The intersex community does not have nearly that kind of visibility, so this book had some information you can’t find in many other places (though I have read Dreger’s book).
  
  Overall impression: I recommend the book.
  
  Overall opinion: I think the author wants it to be too easy for transgender women to compete as women, and too hard for intersex people to compete as women.
  
  *********
  
  Not done reading, but I have some thoughts floating around in my head that I just want to get down somewhere. I find the intersex anecdotes and science far more compelling than the transgender science/anecdotes.
  
  From all the research I've done, a transgender female is very much biologically distinct from someone assigned female at birth. Just as a low voice cannot be corrected with hormone injections, a bone thickness, height, differences in pelvic shape, limb length, etc. are not going to change, either. Even if you take puberty blockers and never go through male puberty, transgender females take a constant dosage of hormones which does not mimic the hormonal cycle that ovulating/menstruating women have.
  
  But being intersex is much more interesting. Whereas a trans female is a person getting surgeries and hormone suppressants/injections in an effort to mimic the physical appearance of the female gender, an intersex person is not altering his or her body in any way. But depending on the specific intersex condition, the person may have an inherent biological advantage. And of course, inherent biological advantages are seen all over the place in sports.
  
  The end result is that in high-level sports competition, both trans women and intersex women are allowed to compete if they undergo elective medical procedures that are harmful to their bodies and their health, both in the short-term (elective surgeries on healthy body tissue, such as removal of testicals) and in the long-term (I don't remember the details, but I've heard that preliminary research shows that going on hormones long-term to mimic the opposite gender's secondary sex characteristics can have long-term harmful effects on your physical health). And even once they do this: has the playing field really been leveled? There's some compelling evidence out there to indicate that it has been leveled, which Harper presents in this book, but the jury is very much still out.
  
  Why is it that so far, a little less than halfway through the book, I've read several anecdotes of trans women being competitive and competent, but none of trans men? I would think that a higher proportion of trans men are interested in competitive sports than trans women. If you see a higher proportion of trans women achieving athletic success in spite of the fact that statistically, you would expect the opposite, isn't that significant?
  
  Anyways, what I find sad and thorny is the question of what to do about insanely talented intersex athletes, who legitimately have an advantage of biological women but also a handicap in comparison to biological men. My understanding is that it is far healthier, physically speaking, for a trans woman to socially transition but leave her body alone. A trans woman has a legitimate avenue to compete athletically without having to change her body with hormones or surgery (by competing as a man but socially presenting as a woman). On the other hand, an intersex woman who has tirelessly trained to be a world-class athlete does not have that choice. To be forced to get surgery or alter the hormonal composition of your body to compete against other people who were assigned the same sex at birth that you were seems perverse. To be made to compete against men, against whom you are biologically handicapped, seems unfair. But of course, if it's unfair for intersex people to compete against men, it logically follows that it's also unfair for biological women to compete against intersex people. There's no good answer here, and considering that there seems to be a statistically significant prevalence of intersex athletes competing at the elite level, it's a fascinating issue.
• 
  Kristine

  Sporting Gender by Joanna Harper is a free NetGalley ebook that I read in late November.
  
  I’ve been looking forward to reading this one, especially in this age of strict international/Olympic gender biased athletics. This book covers topics, such as the effect of hormone increasing and suppressing medications, the rise then squelching of cis women in sports throughout history, genetics of those who are intersex, cultural terms for being intersex, transgender, or two-spirit. tests developed to restrict people from the Olympic Games, their restrictions changing from year to year, public response in news articles and court cases, and noted athletes (i.e. Stella Walsh in running, Babe Didrikson in running, basketball, and golf, Mark Weston in field events, tennis player Renee Richards, Zdenek Koubek in running, Heinrich Ratjen in field events, golfer Mianne Bagger, swimmer Schuyler Bailar, artist and model Lili Elbe, boxer Nong Toom, runners Tamara and Irina Press, skier Erik Schinegger, and runner Caster Semenya).
• 
  Susan

  Humans are not just two binary genders and Ms. Harper does an excellent job of explaining that in this book. She also dives deeply into people who at birth are assigned the wrong sex for various reasons. While I knew much of this before, Ms. Harper gave more details and scientific information. This might be interesting to some people and maybe the book was not aimed for me as the audience, but it was well above my personal scientific abilities. (Chemistry and biology are not my forte.) But other than this, and a bit too much jumping around between different athlete's stories, the book was a terrific discussion regarding where these athletes fit, where they should fit, and how the sporting world has treated them in the past, present, and potentially the future. I appreciated that Ms. Harper questioned her own thinking during the journey and was willing to let the reader know she was undecided at points. If you have any interest in the world of sports or gender dynamics, this is a fascinating book!
  
  Thanks to NetGalley and Rowman & Littlefield for a copy of the book. This review is my own opinion.
• 
  Steve

  Interesting but gets bogged down in details
  
  I enjoyed this book. It was informative and the science was well-explained, although that was only part of the book. I feel that author Joanna Harper tried to be objective and where she wasn’t, she was clear about giving her opinion. On the other hand, there was some speculation in the book and the book sometimes got bogged down in detail. Notwithstanding these items, the book gave me a much better understanding of sports and gender. This book covers somewhat the same territory as Alice Dreger’s “Galileo's Middle Finger” which I enjoyed more because of its greater emphasis on science.
  Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book via Netgalley for review purposes.
  
• 
  Nad Venturin

  There is no doubt that gender identity debates have changed how we discuss fair play and meaningful competition in contemporary sports. This book combines historical perspectives with the most current debates on the ethics of including gender diverse participants. There is an extensive review of the science behind the differences in sexual development and the nuances of the existing evidence on the physiological adaptations that trans athletes experience after undergoing medical transition.
  It is a must-read resource for those who are intrigued by the polarising opinions of athletes, sports managers, pro-and anti-trans rights activists, and intersex rights advocates.
• 
  Michael McNulty

  History, science, and politics of gender in athletics. The coverage of many trans- and intersex athletes' stories was fantastic. Drags a bit at times. Found her central concept — 'athletic gender' (as distinct from other sorts) — problematic