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Queering Sport

Lesbian Softball Leagues and the Transgender Challenge

Simon Fraser University, Canada, atravers{at}sfu.ca

This article introduces a distinction between gender conforming and gender transforming elements in the transgender liberation movement and explores the way in which lesbian softball leagues have responded to these challenges. The transgender inclusive policies of a sample of North American lesbian softball leagues are examined within the context of a queer feminist challenge to the gender binary and the role of sport in normalizing the two sex system. The research reveals the emergence of policy that achieves some transgender inclusion while remaining within the framework of the gender binary. The potential for lesbian softball leagues to model a queering of sport requires that such organizations address the tensions between women-only sporting spaces and a hetero-normative gender binary.

Key Words: gender • lesbian softball • transgender

International Review for the Sociology of Sport, Vol. 41, No. 3-4, 431-446 (2006)
DOI: 10.1177/1012690207078070


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