‘This Bill Is About Fairness’: An Argument Against the Prioritization of Competitive Fairness at the Expense of Justice in US School Sport

Abstract

The aim of this chapter is to examine and challenge the fairness rhetoric used by many US lawmakers to prevent trans girls and women from participating in school sports. Legislators embrace faulty scientific claims to assert unfairness based on physiology and many sport philosophers work from the premise that the first priority of sport is to be competitively fair. We argue that this is a misguided notion and that sport must be just before it can be fair. Using Iris Marion Young's framework of justice, we contend that excluding trans athletes from school sport is an injustice. We propose that focusing on the eradication of injustice is the ethical path forward for the inclusion and full participation of trans people in sport.

Citation

English, C. and Pieper, L.P. (2022), "‘This Bill Is About Fairness’: An Argument Against the Prioritization of Competitive Fairness at the Expense of Justice in US School Sport", Greey, A.D. and Lenskyj, H.J. (Ed.) Justice for Trans Athletes (Emerald Studies in Sport and Gender), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 109-133. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-80262-985-920221008