The University of Connecticut welcomed Katie Barnes for an author event on their first-ever book publication “Fair Play: How Sports Shape the Gender Debates” on Monday, Feb. 12. Barnes is an award-winning journalist for ESPN and covers the intersectionality of sports and gender. Their work has spanned from profiling individual athletes like Paige Bueckers to covering legislation relating to transgender athletes. The event was sponsored by UConn’s Sport Management Program, the Gladstein Family Human Rights Institute, the Division of Athletics and the Department of Journalism. Along with these programs, various cultural centers sponsored the event as well.
To begin the event, Barnes read aloud the first section of their book. It described the policy that is Title IX, which prohibits sex-based discrimination in schools or any academic programs that receive federal funding. This landmark law is prevalent in women’s sports. Barnes described the first few chapters as being “anchored in my love for women’s sports.”
A case that Barnes described in their book was the 2021 controversy with the women’s weight rooms in the NCAA. Sedona Prince — who at the time was a basketball player for the University of Oregon — posted a video on TikTok showcasing how sparse the women’s training area was. Amidst the outcry from the public, the NCAA spent thousands of dollars to refurbish their training room, but Barnes warned that the disparity in funding between men’s and women’s sports was only one aspect of what needs to change.
The next section Barnes wanted to go over in their book was about Andraya Yearwood, a trans athlete from Connecticut. Barnes’ first story in regards to trans athletes was on Yearwood in 2020; while Yearwood was competing, the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) was filing a federal lawsuit challenging the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference (CIAC) policy. The policy is what makes Connecticut one of the few states that allows trans students to participate in athletic programs. Their arguments were based on Title IX, which has been used by both sides of the issue to push for either trans inclusion or exclusion.
Another athlete that Barnes mentioned was Lia Thomas, a swimmer who is also the first openly trans athlete to win a NCAA Division I national championship. The issues that Thomas faced were from fellow athletes who wanted her to use a separate locker room. Because of the complaints and media coverage, Barnes described Thomas’ situation as having “her accomplishments lost, along with any semblance of her humanity.” The issues surrounding trans students don’t stop at the sports level, though. “This is going to be something schools have to grapple with,” Barnes stated.
It influences how we talk about the relationship between men and women more broadly. I want all kids to get the chance to play, we sex-segregate our schools and sports so young. We separate you because ‘boys are better than girls,’ that’s what we are teaching them. Sports could be inclusive for longer.
Katie Barnes
On a personal level, Barnes spoke about the trials and tribulations they faced when writing their book or covering these types of issues. “It’s an incredibly intense news environment,” Barnes said in regards to gender in sports. As a non-binary individual, Barnes found themself reeling with interviews in which individuals would openly state how they felt about members of the LGBTQ+ community. “A core tenet of dialogue is that dialogue has no winners,” Barnes noted. “At some point, I wondered if their attention would turn to me. It was the only time I felt in danger for my job.”
To cope with the stress and hateful comments, Barnes learned to “fundamentally recognize what is important and what is not.” They stated that if the people weren’t those they care about personally, then their words and perspectives mean nothing to them.
When asked about solutions to the issues surrounding trans people in sports, Barnes said that blanket restriction is immoral and doesn’t work. This refers to policies that completely bar trans athletes from competing, which is supposedly based around biology and sex. “The science doesn’t support that decision,” Barnes said. Policies such as this will adopt the underlying assumption that assigned males at birth are naturally stronger or faster than females at birth. Yet there are aspects that Barnes disagrees with on the other side, where pro-trans activists will downplay the accomplishments of trans athletes, making it seem that their deeds are not comparable to that of cisgender athletes. “You either believe it or you don’t,” Barnes commented.
There is more at play than just gender identity, however; Barnes mentioned that race intersects with both gender and sports regularly. “Black women are generally masculinized,” Barnes said. “If you are tall, have muscles or are too fast, and you are in girls’ sports you can be subject to a challenge.” An example that they talked about is members of the public calling Serena Williams a man because she is tall and muscular. Barnes touched upon various instances where student-athletes would be accused of being trans because of their skill in their respective sports, requiring investigations that would eventually prove them being cisgender.
These problems go deeper than just Olympic-level or Division I sports. “It influences how we talk about the relationship between men and women more broadly,” Barnes stated. “I want all kids to get the chance to play, we sex-segregate our schools and sports so young.” They said that the matter starts from our youth and kindergarten. We as a society send implicit messages to children. “We separate you because ‘boys are better than girls,’ that’s what we are teaching them,” Barnes declared. “Sports could be more inclusive for longer.”