When Olympic gold medalist Mark Tewksbury came out in 1998, he challenged people’s perceptions of sexual identity and sport: he was masculine, a competitive athlete and he was gay. Since his announcement, much progress has been made in gender equity and sexual diversity in sport.
But there’s still a long way to go. The dialogue he started 18 years ago continued as he moderated the Faculty’s Sport, Sex and Identity Symposium.
Held at the Isabel Bader Theatre on April 6, the symposium featured four of the Faculty’s leading researchers who discussed how sport reflects and defines our cultural identity, shapes gender roles and impacts human rights. This year’s event, the ninth instalment of the public lecture series, encouraged U of T students, staff, faculty, alumni and community partners to join the discussion.
“This symposium showcases the Faculty’s ground-breaking research, which affects every Canadian from the community level to the highest level of competitive sport,” said Associate Professor Luc Tremblay, who is also the Faculty’s associate dean of research and the chair of the symposium organizing committee. “We want to stimulate debate and break down the barriers that prevent people from being physically active.”
Kicking off the event, Associate Professor Margaret MacNeill described sport media as a barrier that reinforces strict gender stereotypes and excludes minorities. “We tease apart sex and gender in sport and the media — there are the men’s and women’s events in the Olympics. But in reality, an individual experiences culture and biology together and their identity is often fluid.” MacNeill urged the audience to use social media to celebrate individuality and diversity and create a more inclusive dialogue.
Beyond the media, masculine stereotypes create another barrier in sport and often prevent depressed male athletes from seeking help. “Males are expected to be strong, aggressive and resilient, but emotionality is not a stigma and masculinity is neither singular nor directly tied to athleticism,” said Professor Michael Atkinson, who is the Faculty’s acting vice-dean of academic affairs. “We need to question the assumptions we’ve made about gender, sexuality and sport.”
Also questioning these assumptions, Associate Professor Caroline Fusco presented the Change Room Project, an exhibition that combatted exclusion by reflecting LGBTQ students’ experiences in the locker room. Fusco showed a vinyl installation from an undergraduate student that read, “I’m self-conscious about what I do and say in the locker room…Then I thought, when people say or do something homophobic in there, do they really care how I feel?”
Keynote speaker Professor Bruce Kidd wrapped up the evening by describing how sport policies can lead to gender policing in competitive sport. He presented the ongoing struggle against sex testing and the discrimination against Dutee Chand, a female sprinter with naturally high testosterone levels. Chand’s coach, manager and the Indian Athletic Federation encouraged her to undergo medical treatment to lower her testosterone to comply with the IOC and IAAF’s regulations, but she refused. With Kidd’s help, she is now seeking to abolish this policy.
“We should respect the essential right of gender self-identity, which is fundamental to human rights and the ideal of self-expression that is the basis of sport,” said Kidd, former dean of the Faculty and vice-president and principal of University of Toronto Scarborough. “Dutee said it best, ‘I still do not understand why the IOC or IAAF think they may need such a rule at all. I should be able to run the way I was born’.”
While the struggle for gender equity and sexual diversity continues, the symposium represented a key opportunity to advance the discussion, showcase leading-edge research and promote individuality, physical activity and human rights.
“Conversations make the world change,” said Tewksbury. “I’d like to salute U of T for hosting this public forum for the betterment of society and for shining a light on these challenging issues.”
This symposium was generously sponsored by U of T Affinity Partners MBNA and TD Insurance.