Jayne Caudwell

This paper explores past and present conceptual aspects of sport feminisms to understand trans women and/in sport. The adverse treatment of trans sportswomen now runs through governing bodies, sport media, individuals who are in decision-making roles, policy formation, and public social attitude. The move to exclude and/or restrict trans women from sport is apparent at national and international levels and demonstrates shifts in sport policy. The aim of the paper is to explore past and present developments in sport feminism to highlight the value of its dynamism to explain, critique, and challenge the current treatment of trans women athletes. The paper highlights the need to further develop, within sport sociology, a de-colonial transfeminism. De-colonial in this context involves postcolonial feminism, Black feminism, and queer of color critical approaches.

This paper draws from a research project that was initiated in 2017 and continued in to 2020. It followed on from previous University-LGBT + community projects (e.g., football versus homophobia 2012–2018) and involved working with a local transgender social group, specifically, their engagement with once-a-month recreational swim sessions. The research findings that are discussed come from sixty-three research participant's ‘drawings’, three focus groups including a professionally drawn illustration of two of these focus groups, and nine semi-structured interviews. The analysis of the qualitative data demonstrates the significance of play and pleasure, feeling free, and transgender and non-binary imaginations to physical activity participation, and wellbeing. These three themes are presented through the lens of queer/queering and transfeminism. As such, the paper has two aims: to document the experiences of physical activity by an often-excluded group; and to evaluate the concept of queering to an understanding of indoor recreational swimming and wellbeing.

This paper draws from the findings of research that was initiated as a consequence of previous research activities related to University-LGBT community physical activity projects (2012–2018). Specifically, the research underpinning this paper centers transgender and non-binary experiences of recreational swimming and aquatic activity (2017–2020). To date, the research has received small amounts of funding from four sources and resulted in two public engagement activities (two art exhibitions). The findings that inform the discussion are taken from nine semi-structured interviews, three focus groups including a professionally drawn illustration of two of these focus groups, and sixty-three research participant's “drawings” as well as informal conversations with eight stakeholders. The findings concern transgender and non-binary people's feelings of un/safety in the public spaces of an indoor swimming pool and the accompanying display of their embodied self. These two elements of un/safety—spatiality and embodiment—are critically discussed in relation to physical activity and in/equality. In this way, the work contributes to sustained University-LGBT community links and provides possibility for evidenced-based intervention to address inequality.

‘And if our human rights laws stop us from doing it,we will change the laws so we can do it’PM Theresa May 6th June 2017(in Pasha-Robinson, 2017, ¶ 7)Theresa May’s interpolation of human rights leg...

Events, predominantly sport mega-events, have received an abundance of academic scrutiny. Some of these commentaries have critiqued how the staging of mega-events can violate a range of universal human rights. Far less is available that is concerned with how events are mobilised for human rights advocacy. This paper, drawing from an ongoing qualitative research project (Baltic Pride 2015–2017), focuses on the venacularisation of human rights to offer a view of the intricacies of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) activism at the level of the local. Discussion starts with an appraisal of existing universal human rights policies surrounding sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI), specifically United Nations (UN) and European Union (EU) legislative frameworks. This legislative premise is followed by a focus on vernacularisation; a concept that reveals the complicated processes of human rights claiming. A brief history of Baltic Pride provides the context for EuroPride 2015 as well as the subsequent analyses of research findings, which are explored through the themes: EuroPride 2015 Pride House and EUroPride’s Super VIPs. Methodologically, the research relies on a combination of ethnography and autoethnogarphy, and findings are embedded within the critical analyses. Photographs, field notes that are more akin to autoethnographic narrative and commentary from the interview participants help highlight the conceptual value of vernacularisation to research on human rights.