Stakeholder Attitudes in US College Sport toward Transgender Inclusion: A multi-year study

The struggle for gender equality in the U.S. has a history of marginalizing the interests of minority sub-groups. Emblematic of these dynamics is the uneven political incorporation of transgender and gender-diverse people. Namely, neither women’s nor LGBTQ+ advocacy organizations/movements have organized centrally to seek transgender rights (Strolovitch 2007) and in US federal law, there are limited gender identity non-discrimination protections. Although sex equity policies have undeniably opened access to education, the workplace, and competitive athletics for many American women, these policies have also become a vector for processes of what literature on group politics call “secondary marginalization” (Cohen 1999). This paper seeks insights into the pathways and barriers to support for transgender inclusion under sex equity policy in the US. Intercollegiate athletics is ground zero for these debates. Policies, including Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, nominally address discrimination “on the basis of sex” and stem from attempts to curtail sex discrimination with cisgender women in mind (Sharrow 2017). We explore policy beneficiary opinion (i.e., college athletes, coaches, and administrators) toward the inclusion of disadvantaged minority subgroups (i.e., transgender women and transgender men) compared with mass opinion. We draw on multiple unique and new datasets collected between 2018-24, to analyze the main trends that shape attitudes among the dominant stakeholders in college sports (i.e., cisgender athletes, coaches, and administrators) versus the general public. Our purpose is not to explore the legitimacy of trans exclusionary logics but instead to identify the dynamics. Both mass and stakeholder attitudes can play a role in shaping policy (Campbell 2003; Mettler and Soss 2004). We find that policy beneficiary groups are more likely to be opposed to transgender inclusion in collegiate sport on both men’s and women’s teams. However, by exploring the correlates of opposition, we delineate that secondary marginalization is driven primarily by conservative and sexist attitudes among beneficiaries more so than the general public, and is more pronounced on the question of including transgender women on women’s teams. We argue that these findings provide important insights into the future of gender equality debates.