Girls on boys teams. Boys not allowed on girls teams. Who is allowed to use the same dressing rooms? Lack of funding for female athletic programs. Male teams receiving preferential treatment from their sport organization. The place of transgender athletes on minor sports teams. The previously mentioned situations can all constitute some form of controversy regarding athlete participation, a now eternal issue in the sport world. While great strides have been made to improve equality in sports, it does not appear as though gender discrimination and participation issues are subsiding, rather these issues are seemingly becoming more complex.
While attending a recent Sport 4 Ontario Lunch and Learn, I had the pleasure of watching my friend Steven Indig, a sport lawyer, deliver a presentation on gender discrimination in sport. Consistently during his presentation Steven referred back to his opening statement, being that similar decisions are consistently being regarding gender and participation issues. As I listened in, it was easy to sense the frustration Steven was conveying in his message. As his presentation progressed it became evident to me that these same mistakes are being made because there is currently no clear-cut way to avoid gender and participation issues.
Ponder for a moment what a truly complex issue gender discrimination in sports is, especially at the youth and minor sport organization level. In Canada, there is such a diverse range of youth and teenage athletes, comprised of many different types of skill, ethnicity, age and gender. With great diversity comes a need for consensus and concurrence, let alone compliance with applicable human rights legislation. So many people from such different backgrounds all working towards the goal of enjoying and embracing the positive aspects of sport. But with all these different people how could it possible to satisfy everyone?
Consider the following three scenarios:
- Is it fair for a girl to play on a boys’ team when there is no comparable team, in terms of skill and competitiveness, for the girl to play on? What about the boy who loses his spot on the boys team in order to make room for the female participant?
- Is it fair to stop girls from participating on boys teams due to safety concerns? Is it not reasonable to then make female participants liable for assuming their own risks in situations where safety is an issue?
- Is there a justifiable basis to prevent boys from competing on a girls’ team when no boys’ team is available for that sport? ...think ringette.
In these three scenarios of gender discrimination, and there are numerous other examples that could be cited, there is one unfortunate, encompassing aspects of the results in these situations. Someone loses. An athlete is told that they cannot play or can play, but usually at the expense of another athlete's ability to participate. Athletes are competitive by nature, and there is so much emphasis placed on wins and losses in sport that it is easy to lose sight of the end goal for almost all athletes, to have fun. For the vast majority of participants they engage in sports just to have a good time, meet some friends, and make some good memories. If the main goal of participating in sports is to have fun then how are there still so many issues regarding athlete participation. Perhaps we need to ask if the manner in which we segregate our athletes is done properly. Should separation to be done strictly based on skill, age or gender? What about by the size of athletes? Plenty of female athletes are much bigger than their male counterparts throughout their early teens. At the moment Canadian athletes are divided based on skill, age and gender, yet we know that this is an imperfect system. If it was a perfect system, why would the sport community still have all of these problems concerning athlete participation? Really, it is absolutely ridiculous the type of scrutiny minor sport coaches, who are volunteers by the way, have to endure just to pick a team of eleven-year-old athletes, it’s completely asinine!
So I ask myself, if the same decisions are being repeated over and over again, is there nothing the sport community at large can do to finally solve gender and participation issues in sport? Are we forever going to be putting up roadblocks that deter athletes from competing in the leagues and sports that they want to compete in? Of course safety is always going to be a prevalent issue preventing athletes from different skill sets and genders from participating in sport together, but what can we do to find a solution? Is there a solution? I find it troublesome that in 2014 the sport community collectively has not be able to move past gender and participation issues, yet I am also part of the problem since I don't have the answers to my own questions.
In the grand scheme of things, such a minuscule amount of athletes ever play competitively past high school, yet so much emphasis is put on developing high performance athletes, when really shouldn't the bulk of our focus be on increasing participation rates above all else? What can we do to move past the politics of sport and create an environment where athletes compete in a sport because they want to, not because they are told to? Even if we take two steps back in terms of producing high performance athletes, but five steps forward in increasing participation rates, we are all winners in the end. Sport is a beautiful medium, where emotions are on full display and people can detach themselves from the outside world, even if only temporarily. No one should be told they can’t play, not any longer.
If you have any feedback on how we can make sport a more inclusive venue where all people, of all walks of life can participate, play and have fun together please tweet your commentary to @CSIBsports.
-Tyler Tisdale