Equality, Equity and Inclusion: Transgender Athletes' Participation in Competitive Sports - a New Era

Abstract

This review manifests an attempt towards the conceptual study of gender identity issues in competitive sports, foregrounding the genesis of policy matters in relation to transgender athletes. The study explores the motif of inter-relational dynamics between participation in sports of transgender athletes and medico-legal information related to transgender athletes, as the inclusion of transgender athletes is one of the latest and prominent equality challenges across the globe. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has taken up the issue with regard to participation of sex-reassigned transsexuals and it has resulted in a heated debate for which a changing notion of gender verification came out. The issue under consideration has multi-faceted dimensions of interpretations centering on a desire to ‘deconstruct’ the present structuration of acceptance of sex and gender terminology. The resultant aim is to create a world-view of equality, respect for the ‘other’, and competitive fairness. The latent attempt of the paper is to deconstruct the binary of inequality in the field of sports with a view to give vibrational impetus for attaining the ideals of equality in sports which constitutes the basis of "authentic living", to quote Jean Paul Sartre.