Volleyball athletes’ and coaches’ views on participation of transgender women

Abstract

We aim to investigate the opinion of athletes and volleyball coaches about the participation of trans women in female volleyball from the case of athlete Tifanny Abreu. To guide this objective, we ask: what is the position of those involved regarding this participation and how do they structure and present their point of view? We collected 38 reports from the sports website globoesporte.com that dealt with trans participation in volleyball from the case of Tifanny. Of this total, only 11 covers had the testimony of 9 athletes and 4 coaches, who were analyzed using the speech analysis technique. As a result, we realized that the group studied was, in the majority, opposed to this insertion and performance based on cisheteronormative biomedical and physiological norms. However, there were more cautious demonstrations on the subject, legitimizing participation in accordance with the recommendations of the confederations and federations that govern sports.