The Mabel League
Women's Fastpitch Softball

Why am I conducting this Research?

As some of you know I am a professor of Sociology at Simon Fraser University and, until my recent retirement, served on the executive of the Mabel League.  One of my main professional areas of work concerns the Sociology of Sport. I have the kind of job where I get to conduct research on issues of concern to me.  As a Mabel League executive I anticipated that there would come a time when a discussion of transgender policies would come about and I wanted to find out as much as I could about how other lesbian softball leagues are dealing with the issue. 

I went to the North American Gay Amateur Athletic Alliance Women’s World Series in Washington, D.C. last summer – to attend the Women’s Division meetings and to interview league executives about their transgender policies.  I managed to interview representatives from one third of the approximately 60 teams, many of the Women’s Division executives, and to supplement this research by looking at the constitutions of leagues on websites where available.  If funding that I have applied for comes through, I will be conducting more in-depth studies of a few lesbian softball leagues in North America to learn more about how transgender people and issues are playing out.

I don’t claim to be objective.  Indeed, most sociologists agree that scientific claims to be objective are mythical and simply hide group interests.  I do claim, however, to be thoughtful.

I’m going to speak for no more than 20 minutes.  At the end of my talk, I will be happy to respond to questions or requests for clarification.  Thank you for your attention.

Historical and Contemporary Backdrop

I have no intention or ability at this time to provide an accounting for the origin of the Mabel League.  I can, however, talk about three broad social and cultural developments that supported the development of lesbian softball leagues in North America. 

1.         Gender Binary and Sex Segregation in Sport

Our traditional notion of sex difference in the West is that of the gender binary.  This is the belief that there are only two sexes and that men and women differ considerably from each other.  Organized sport in western society is a key arena for emphasizing sex difference and one of the last formal arenas where sex segregation is considered appropriate and justifiable.  It’s interesting to think that just over 50 years ago racial segregation in major league baseball was not only standard practice but completely legal.  A number of queer and feminist sociologists of sport wonder if 50 years from now we will look back on sex segregation in sport with the same abhorence and disbelief.

2.         Women’s Liberation Movement

Starting in the 1960s and 70s, second wave feminists attempted to raise the consciousness of women as a group with common issues and experiences.  In order to foster opportunities and support for women in the struggle for gender equality, many women’s groups and organizations have insisted on the need for and value of women-only space based on traditional understandings of sex difference.  A variety of social organizations, including lesbian softball leagues, have emerged that affirm the value of women-only space. 

3.         Gay and Lesbian Liberation Movement

Since the late 1960s and early 1970s, the gay and lesbian liberation movement has openly fought to create political and social spaces for gay men and women.  Lesbian softball leagues are an example of such social spaces.  Without a prior political movement aimed at replacing homophobia and silence with Pride and Community, leagues like ours couldn’t exist.

Queer and Feminist Challenges to the Gender Binary

Much queer and feminist writing has raised questions about the naturalness of male and female categories.  Not only do men and women learn how to act appropriately in terms of linking our gender to our biological sex, but an increasing number of queer and feminist theorists assert that what is given biological significance is determined by social forces.  The fact that up to 4% of live births are intersexed, that is, characterized by a mix of so-called male and female genitalia, and that these infants are surgically modified to fit a two-sex system (without their consent) is a key aspect of the argument that the so-called biological naturalness of the two sex system is actually a social product. Many queer and feminist theorists wonder why people are categorized into only two sexes when in fact a continuum of biological and psychological features may be a more accurate way of portraying the diversity of human individuals.  (See Anne-Fausto Sterling, Sexing the Body, 2000.)

That there is an alternative way of organizing people into sex categories is as shocking to many people today as was the idea that gays and lesbians and people of colour deserve to be accorded full human rights not too long ago. Not that those battles are over!

Critics of the gender binary also question the so-called separateness of biological science from cultural assumptions: Scientist and Social Theorist Donna Haraway says:  “Biology is politics by other means.”

The post-Stonewall gay and lesbian liberation movement has combined with feminism to create a range of spaces for people to express a greater diversity of gender identity, albeit predominantly within the taken-for-granted assumptions of a male/female biological binary.  Since the early 1990s in North American society, however, a visible movement for transgender liberation has emerged. 

Queer and feminist theorists and transgender activists challenge the violence perpetrated in the name of the gender binary.  We’ve known for some time that queer youth are at great risk of bullying and suicide; transgender youth are even more at risk.  But the violence that the gender binary supports affects most of us in some way or another. In her book Omnigender, Theologian Virgina Mollenkott (2003) asserts that the “binary gender paradigm is in the process of collapse” (p. 2). 

Transgender athletes who claim an alternate identity to the one assigned to them at birth or who defy categorization inevitably challenge sex segregation in sport and the traditional gender binary in western society if they are to have any place to play.

Lesbian sports organizations provide a space for gay women to celebrate their own gender diversity outside of pressure to conform to orthodox feminine norms.  But to the extent that these spaces continue to define themselves as women-only strictly within a two-sex gender binary, they place limits on players whose non-orthodox sex/gender identities challenge the traditional binary.  This tension between women-only space and rigidly defined gender binaries is being played out in a number of contexts (the recent legal case of a woman excluded from rape counseling by Vancouver Rape Relief because she is a transsexual is a case in point)[1].  The purging of transsexual women from many lesbian organizations has been one response to this tension (Patrick Califia, Sex Changes, 2^nd Edition, 2003).

Study of the North American Gay Athletic Alliance Women’s Division

In my study of the North American Gay Amateur Athletic Alliance Women’s Division, I quickly found out that many lesbian softball leagues affiliated with NAAAGA are in the same position that the Mabel League is:  trying to figure out appropriate policies of inclusion and exclusion in light of the fairly recent visibility of transgender players.  A number of league executives, however, reported that there were no transgender players in their leagues and that none had ever indicated any wish to play.  Several of these leagues were located in Texas… 

Several leagues, and the NAAAGA Constitution as a whole which takes precedence over member leagues, have adopted trans-inclusive policies that are based on legal identity, meaning that if it says you are female on your driver’s license, then you can play. Leagues that had not addressed the issue within their own membership indicated that they were bound to follow the NAAAGA Constitution.

Only one league associated with NAAAGA had adopted transinclusive policies that enable trans people, as a particularly marginalized group, to choose where they feel most comfortable playing.  Not surprisingly, this is Women’s Division of The San Francisco Gay Softball League.  In this city, negotiations between members of trans communities and queer and women’s communities have been occuring since the early 1990s.

The NAAAGA Women’s Division executive made a commitment at their Summer 2003 Meeting to change the Women’s Division Constitution to go beyond legal sex identity to be more trans-inclusive.  Pamela Dunnam, Women’s Commissioner, pledged that the NAAAGA Women’s Division Committee on transgender issues is in the process of re-writing policy to include female to male transgendered persons – to enable them to choose the division they feel most comfortable playing in.  Pam says that it’s important to recognize that transgendered people experience a great deal of marginalization and it’s crucial to be as inclusive as possible by letting them decide where they want to play, to choose wherever they will feel most comfortable.

A recent decision by the International Olympic Committee permits transsexuals to compete after having undergone sex change operations.  The IOC stated that it “will have no discrimination against transsexuals or in anyway violate their human rights.” While this is an important victory for transsexual athletes, many transgender activists and allies are unsatisfied with an accomodation that simply reinforces the either/or categorization of the gender binary.

Recommendations

Writer and activist Leslie Feinberg (Stone Butch Blues, 1993) asserts that the ability to define your own gender is a basic human right.  It is very likely that soon, in the west at least, as a result of the work of transgendered activists and allies, that just as being queer has become at least legally acceptable (I for one never expected we’d be able to get legally married!), our definitions of sex and gender will be multiple and self-defined.  What that means for traditional women-only spaces need not mean “male” invasion or annihilation but greater flexibility and resistance to oppressive social categories that underpin sexism and gender inequality.

Minnie Bruce Pratt on the conflict, now resolved to be trans-inclusive, between the Michigan Womyn’s Festival and Transgender Women:

“I stand on the sandy road that runs between the two encampments, at the boundary of womanhood.  I don’t want woman to be a fortress that has to be defended.  I want it to be a life we constantly braid together from the threads of our existence, a rope we make, a flexible weapon stronger than steal, that we use to pull down walls that imprison us at the borders”.  (Pratt, S/HE, 1995, p. 185).

I suggest that lesbian softball leagues adopt a policy to include all persons who self-identify as queer women as well as accepting a bit of blurring of the boundary of women-only space to allow lesbian to male transgendered persons to continue to be included in our community rather than expelled from it. 

I make two recommendations to the Mabel League:

1.                  that all persons to self-identify as women be eligible to play

2.                  that all lesbian-to-male transgendered persons continue to be included in the Mabel League rather than expelled from a community they have contributed much to and still consider “home.”

Thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to share my work with you.  It has been very useful to me to think through these issues and communicate what I have learned in this forum.

PRESENTATION HAND-OUT

Transgender Policies in North American Lesbian Softball Leagues

Ann Travers

Presentation Format

Food for Thought

“WOMEN”

How are women defined?  Are there only two sexes? Where do we draw the line between women and others? Has this line changed historically? Is this line likely to change further?

Scientist and Social Theorist Donna Haraway:  “Biology is politics by other means.”

“WE”

Who are we? Who do we include? Who do we exclude? Who gets to decide which side of the line you are on?

“OUR LEAGUE”

Who does our league belong to? Who is us? Who is them? Who gets to decide?

QUESTIONS

What might the Mabel League gain by being trans inclusive?

What might the Mabel League lose by being trans inclusive?

What might the Mabel League lose by being trans exclusive?

LESBIAN SOFTBALL PRECEDENTS

MAINSTREAM SPORTS

For further reading

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Berg, Bruce L.  Qualitative Research Methods for the Social Sciences, 3^rd Edition.  Boston:  Allyn and Bacon, 1998.

Bornstein, Kate.  Gender Outlaw:  On Men, Women, and the Rest of Us.  New York: Vintage Books, 1995.

Burke, Phyllis.  Gender Shock:  Exploding the Myths of Male and Female.  New York:  Anchor Books, 1996.

Burton-Nelson, Mariah. The Stronger Women Get the More Men Love Football: Sexism and the American Culture of Sports.  New York: Avon Books, 1885.

Cahn, Susan K.  Coming on Strong:  Gender and Sexuality in Twentieth-Century Women’s Sport.  Boston: Harvard University Press, 1994.

Califia, Patrick.  Sex Changes:  Transgender Politics, 2^nd Edition.  San Francisco:  Cleis Press, 2003.

Cancian, Francesca.  Love in America: Gender and Self-Development. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987.

Coakely, Jay.  Sport in Society: Issues and controversies.  7^th Ed.  Boston: McGraw Hill, 2001.

Connell, R. W.  Masculinities.  Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.

Denzin, Norman K. and Yvonne S. Lincoln, eds.  Handbook of Qualitative Research, 2^nd Edition.  Thousand Oaks, CA:  Sage, 2000.

Disch, Estelle, ed.  Reconstructing Gender:  A Multicultural Anthology, Estelle Disch, editor, Mountain View, California, 1997.

Ekins, Richard and Dave King, eds.  Blending Genders:  Social Aspects of Cross-dressing and Sex-changing.  London and New York: Routledge, 1996.

Fausto-Sterling, Anne.  Sexing the Body:  Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality.  New York, N.Y.:  Basic Books, 2000.

Findlay, Barbara.  “Real Women:  Nixon vs. Vancouver Rape Relief,” in UBC Law Review, 36(1) 2003.

Griffin, Pat.   Strong Women, Deep Closets: Lesbians and homophobia in sport.  Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics, 1998.

Hall, Roberta M. and Bernice R. Sandler.  The Classroom Climate:  A Chilly One for Women? Washington, D.C.: Project on the Status and Education of Women, Association of American Colleges: 1982.

Haraway, Donna J.  Modest_Witness@Second_Millenium.Femaleman©_Meets_OncoMouse™:  Feminism and Technoscience.  New York:  Routledge, 1997.

Hekma, Gert (1998).  “As long as they don't make an issue of it ...": Gay men and lesbians in organized sports in the Netherlands.  Journal of Homosexuality: 35(1), p. 1-23.

Hubbard, Ruth.  The Politics of Women’s Biology.  New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1990.

Himmel, Michael.  Manhood in America: A Cultural History. New York: The Free Press, 1996.

Johnson, R. T., & Johnson, D. W.  “Action research: Cooperative learning in the science classroom”, in Science and Children, 1996, 24, pp. 31-32.

Kemp, Sandra and Judith Squires, eds.  Feminisms.  Oxford and New York:  Oxford University Press, 1997.

Messner, Michael.  Taking the Field: Women, men and sports.  University of Minnesota Press, 2003.

Messner, Michael.   Power at Play: Sports and the problem of masculinity.  Beacon Press: Boston, 1992.

Mollenkott, Virginia Ramey.  Omnigender:  a Trans-Religious Approach.  Cleveland:  Pilgrim Press, 2003.

Pollack, William.   Real Boys: Rescuing our sons from the myth of boyhood.  New York: Henry Holdt and Company, 1999.

Pratt, Minnie Bruce.  S/HE.  U.S.: Firebrand Books, 1995.

Pronger, Brian.  The Arena of Masculinity: Sports, homosexuality, and the meaning of sex.  New York: St. Martin's Press, 1990.

Prosser, Jay.  Second Skins:  The Body Narratives of Transsexuality.  New York:  Columbia University Press, 1998.

Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky.  Epistemology of the closet.  Berkely: University of California Press, 1990.

Strauss, Anselm and Juliet Corbin.  Basics of qualitative research: grounded theory procedures and techniques.  Newbury Park, California:  1990.

Susan Stryker, “The Transgender Issue: An Introduction,” in GLQ, 4:2, pp. 145-158, 1998.

Streitmatter, Janice L.  For Girls Only:  Making a Case for Single-Sex Schooling.  New York:  SUNY Press, 1999.

Travers, Ann.  Writing the Public in Cyberspace:  Redefining Inclusion on the Net.  New York and London: Garland, 2000.