Abstract

This paper will examine how the justification and enforcement of sex classification in sport has been underpinned by a flexible, inconsistent account of sexual difference that I label ‘athletic sex’. My definition of athletic sex builds on the research of legal theorist Paisley Currah, who understands sex classification as an effect of state actors who classify people as a means to deny them resources. In an effort to expand Currah’s ‘functionalist’ analysis of sex classification beyond the activities of state actors, this paper will argue that athletic sex classification represents political concerns about the natural, biological, stable, and predictable properties of the sexed body in terms of their athletic capability in sporting institutions and regulations. I will explore in detail two functions of athletic sex classification. First, through a critical engagement with sports ethicist Sigmond Loland I will argue that the seemingly ethical value of fair competition substantiates the limits imposed by the idea of natural sexual difference when applied to sex classifications. I contend that athletic classification should instead be based on differing athletic capacities. I will further examine the progressive attempts by international sporting institutions to search for an objective scientific marker that would determine sexual difference and thereby preserve fair competition. Each marker has been based on features of the sexed body that proport to stand for natural feminine weakness, and has broadcast these differences through sporting institutions and popular entertainment in order to justify the restriction of resources for athletes in the female category.