A history of transgender women in Australian Sports, 1976–2017

ABSTRACT

Although debates about transgender women in sport have been prominent in recent years, there is a much longer history of transgender participation in sport. This article uses oral history interviews and media to examine Australia’s history of transgender women’s participation in sport since the late 1970s. It explores the public debates around gender, sex, the body, and ‘fair play discourse’ as expressed around specific transgender athletes. It also examines the lived experience of those transgender sportswomen and analyses how they used gender presentation to affirm their femininity. Indeed, gender presentation and transgender (in)visibility heavily influenced whether teammates, opponents, sporting associations, and the media accepted transgender athletes in their affirmed gender. The presence of transgender women in sport consistently exposed anxieties around gender, sex, and the body because they exposed rigid understandings of gender binarism. Examining the long history of transgender women in Australian sport reveals how longstanding debates have played out in a variety of settings, with transgender athletes regularly searching for ways to affirm their gender and navigate sporting communities.

Acknowledgements

The author gratefully acknowledges the generous participation of oral history interviewees Ricki Coughlan, Mianne Bagger, Kirsti Miller and Caroline Layt, as well as other transgender informants who have been interviewed in the broader project. He also thanks colleagues Nell Musgrove and Lorinda Cramer for feedback on earlier drafts of this article and the two referees for their constructive suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Chloe Hart, ‘Cricket Australia Reveals Guidelines for Inclusion of Transgender Players in Community and Elite Cricket’, ABC News, August 8, 2019, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-08/ca-reveals-rules-transgender-players-in-elite-community-cricket/11393860 (accessed May 28, 2020). The full announcement and guidelines are available from https://www.cricketvictoria.com.au/cricket-australia-takes-action-include-transgender-gender-diverse-people/.

2 ‘Fresh code for women’s cricket’, Canberra Times, November 18, 1995, 68.

3 Angela Burroughs, Liz Ashburn, and Leonie Seebohm, ‘“Add Sex and Stir”: Homophobic Coverage of Women's Cricket in Australia’, Journal of Sport and Social Issues 19, no. 3 (1995): 266–84; Angela Burroughs, Leonie Seebohm, and Liz Ashburn, ‘“A Leso Story”: A Case Study of Australian Women's Cricket and its Media Experience’, Sporting Traditions 12, no. 1 (1995): 27–46.

4 Noah Riseman, ‘Transgender Inclusion and Australia's Failed Sexuality Discrimination Bill’, Australian Journal of Politics and History 65, no. 2 (2019): 271–75.

5 Chip Le Grand, ‘AFL Right to Ban Mouncey, Says Transgender Advocate’, The Australian, October 18, 2017, 3; Caden Helmers, Steven Trask and Eamonn Tiernan, ‘Transgender Player to Kick on in ACT Australian Football Athletes, Lobbyists Rally Round Hannah Mouncey’, Canberra Times, October 19, 2017, 40.

6 Fiona McLachlan, ‘It’s Boom Time! (Again): Progress Narratives and Women’s Sport in Australia’, Journal of Australian Studies 43, no. 1 (2019): 7–21.

7 It is not the purpose of this article to engage with the science or contemporary debates around trans women in sport, particularly as the science is unsettled. A few articles which address these topics are: Andria Bianchi, ‘Transgender Women in Sport’, Journal of the Philosophy of Sport 44, no. 2 (2017): 229–42; Jon Pike, ‘Safety, Fairness, and Inclusion: Transgender Athletes and the Essence of Rugby’, Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (20 December 2020), https://doi.org/10.1080/00948705.2020.1863814; Joanna Harper et al., ‘How Does Hormone Transition in Transgender Women Change Body Composition, Muscle Strength and Haemoglobin? Systematic Review with a Focus on the Implications for Sport Participation’, British Journal of Sports Medicine (4 February 2021), https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2020-103106.

8 This article does not address trans men, whose stories have been less frequent in the media. Three Australian examples are: Jill Stark, ‘I'm Just an Ordinary Guy Who Wants to Play Footy’, Sunday Age, June 7, 2009: 3; Eryk Bagshaw, ‘Once a Woman, Now a Transsexual Rugby-playing Carpenter’, Sydney Morning Herald, August 30, 2014: 16; Monique Schafter, ‘Transgender: One Man’s Journey of Becoming His True Self’, ABC Transcripts, January 22, 2016.

9 Kelly Jacob Rawson and Cristan Williams, ‘Transgender*: The Rhetorical Landscape of a Term’, Present Tense 3, no. 2 (2014): 1.

10 Susan Stryker, Transgender History: The Roots of Today's Revolution, 2nd ed. (New York: Seal Press, 2017), 1.

11 TransHub, https://www.transhub.org.au/language (accessed October 19, 2020).

12 See Stryker, Transgender History: The Roots of Today's Revolution, 12–40. See also Transgender Studies Quarterly 1, no. 1 (2014), which presents several short essays exploring key concepts and terminology around transgender studies.

13 See David Haig, ‘The Inexorable Rise of Gender and the Decline of Sex: Social Change in Academic Titles, 1945–2001’, Archives of Sexual Behavior 33, no. 2 (April 2004): 87–96; Charlene L. Muehlenhard and Zoe D. Peterson, ‘Distinguishing Between Sex and Gender: History, Current Conceptualizations, and Implications’, Sex Roles 64, no. 11 (2011): 791–803.

14 Surya Monro, Gender Politics: Citizenship, Activism and Sexual Diversity (London and Ann Arbor: Pluto Press, 2015).

15 Susan Birrell and Cheryl Cole, ‘Double Fault: Renee Richards and the Construction and Naturalization of Difference’, Sociology of Sport Journal 7, no. 1 (1990): 18.

16 Claire F. Sullivan, ‘Gender Verification and Gender Policies in Elite Sport: Eligibility and “Fair Play”’, Journal of Sport and Social Issues 35, no. 4 (2011): 402; Andrew Sharpe, ‘Naturalising Sex Difference through Sport: An Examination of the New South Wales Transgender Legislation’, Alternative Law Journal 22, no. 1 (1997): 40; Heather Sykes, ‘Transsexual and Transgender Policies in Sport’, Women in Sport & Physical Activity Journal 15, no. 1 (2006): 8.

17 Stryker, Transgender History: The Roots of Today's Revolution, 25.

18 Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, 3rd ed. (New York and London: Routledge, 2007).

19 Noah Riseman, ‘Representing Transgender in the 1970s Australian Media’, Gender and History 33, no. 1 (2021): 227–48; Dave King, The Transvestite and the Transsexual: Public Categories and Private Identities (Aldershot, UK: Avebury, 1993), 101–09.

20 Lindsay Parks Pieper, ‘Gender Regulation: Renée Richards Revisited’, The International Journal of the History of Sport 29, no. 5 (2012): 675–90; Birrell and Cole, ‘Double Fault: Renee Richards and the Construction and Naturalization of Difference’, 1–21; Renée Richards, No Way Renée (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007); Renée Richards and John Ames, Second Serve: The Renée Richards Story (New York: Stein and Day, 1983).

21 Birrell and Cole, ‘Double Fault: Renee Richards and the Construction and Naturalization of Difference’, 7.

22 Pieper, ‘Gender Regulation: Renée Richards Revisited’, 680–81.

23 Birrell and Cole, ‘Double Fault: Renee Richards and the Construction and Naturalization of Difference’, 18.

24 ‘Sex tests: LTAA decides’, The Age (Melbourne), October 7, 1976, 30. On the history of the sex test, see James L. Rupert, ‘Genitals to Genes: The History and Biology of Gender Verification in the Olympics’, Canadian Bulletin of Medical History 28 (2011): 339–65; Ian Ritchie, ‘Sex Tested, Gender Verified: Controlling Female Sexuality in the Age of Containment’, Sport History Review 34 (2003): 80–98.

25 ‘Ban on Renee’, Sunday Sun (Brisbane), 28 November 1976; ‘I just want to prove I’m human’ and ‘Margaret too busy for challenge from Renee’, unknown dates and newspapers, c. 1976, John Hewson Collection, notebook 2, Australian Queer Archives (hereafter AQuA).

26 Cisgender refers to people whose gender identity is the same as that presumed at birth.

27 ‘Sex-change Leigh’s the talk of the town’, Truth (Melbourne), unknown date, c. 1976, John Hewson Collection, notebook 3, AQuA. Interestingly, later in life Leigh would return to sex work. She owned a brothel in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, and made global headlines when she was the first person in the world to offer tours of a working brothel. In 1999 Leigh was the first transgender woman elected to the Kalgoorlie-Boulder City Council. Leigh passed away in early 2020 before she could be interviewed for this project.

28 ‘Sex-change Leigh’s the Talk of the Town’,Truth (Melbourne), unknown date, c. 1976, John Hewson Collection, notebook 3, AQuA.

29 ‘They won’t bowl me out’, Herald (Melbourne), unknown date, November 1982; ‘Barred Bowler to Challenge Sex Ruling’, News (Perth), November 26, 1982.

30 ‘Sex-change row: Noelina [sic] asks: is it bias … ’, Sun (Melbourne), November 26, 1982, 17.

31 On the popular stereotypes perpetuated in media, see Riseman, ‘Representing Transgender in the 1970s Australian Media’, 234–35; King, The Transvestite and the Transsexual: Public Categories and Private Identities, 104–09; 23–24; Joelle Ryan, ‘Reel Gender: Examining the Politics of Trans Images in Film and Media’ (Doctor of Philosophy Bowling Green State University, 2009), 65.

32 ‘They won’t bowl me out’; ‘Barred bowler to challenge sex ruling’; Liz Hickson, ‘Sex change grandma – “I was born into a male body”’, Woman’s Day, January 17, 1983, 29, John Hewson Collection, notebook 5, AQuA.

33 Hickson, ‘Sex Change Grandma’, 29–30.

34 ‘Sex Change Row’, 17; ‘Women Bowlers Bar Transexual [sic] from Rink’, The Age, November 26, 1982; Notes for the Attorney General: Re: Mrs. Noelena Tame and Transsexualism’, November 23, 1983, National Archives of Australia (hereafter NAA) A432, 1983/005019/01.

35 Noelena Tame to Gareth Evans, Commonwealth Attorney General, 9 March 1983 and Noelena Tame to Prime Minister Bob Hawke, 28 July 1983, NAA A463, 1987/G1019.

36 Hickson, ‘Sex Change Grandma’, 29.

37 Jesse Hooley, ‘Normalising Transgender and Policing Transgression: Anti-discrimination Law Reform Ten Years On’, Australian Feminist Law Journal 25 (2006): 79–98; Stryker, Transgender History: The Roots of Today's Revolution, 153–84.

38 Tamar Z. Semerjian and Jodi H. Cohen, ‘“FTM Means Female to Me”: Transgender Athletes Performing Gender’, Women in Sport & Physical Activity Journal 15, no. 2 (2006): 28–43; Cathryn Lucas-Carr and Vikki Krane, ‘Troubling Sport or Troubled by Sport’, Journal for the Study of Sports and Athletes in Education 6, no. 1 (2012): 21–44; Jodi H. Cohen and Tamar Z. Semerjian, ‘The Collision of Trans-Experience and the Politics of Women's Ice Hockey’, International Journal of Transgenderism 10, no. 3–4 (2008): 139–40.

39 Ricki Coughlan, interview with author, 26 April 2019, Sydney.

40 See Amanda Nicole Schweinbenz and Alexandria Cronk, ‘Femininity Control at the Olympic Games’, Thirdspace: A Journal of Feminist Theory & Culture 9, no. 2 (2010), http://journals.sfu.ca/thirdspace/index.php/journal/article/view/schweinbenzcronk; Sullivan, ‘Gender Verification and Gender Policies in Elite Sport: Eligibility and “Fair Play”’, 406; M.A. Ferguson-Smith and Elizabeth A. Ferris, ‘Gender Verification in Sport: The Need for Change?’, British Journal of Sports Medicine 25, no. 1 (1991): 19.

41 Ron Carter, ‘Women Runners Threaten Protest Over an Athlete Who Changed Sex’, The Age, April 16, 1991: 16.

42 Nick Bideau, ‘Sex Change Uproar’, Herald-Sun (Melbourne), April 17, 1991: 98.

43 Mark Harding, ‘Sport’s New Sex Hurdle’, Herald-Sun, April 17, 1991: 12.

44 Adele Horn, ‘Sex Change Athlete Out of the Race’, Sydney Morning Herald, April 17, 1991: 2; Bideau, ‘Sex Change Uproar’, 98.

45 Ricki Coughlan interview.

46 Michael Cockerill, ‘Sex Row Athlete Allowed to Run’, Sydney Morning Herald, August 30, 1991: 42.

47 Ricki Coughlan interview.

48 Mike Hurst, ‘Sex Changing the Face of Sport’, Daily Telegraph, December 3, 1991.

49 Sarah Teetzel, ‘On Transgendered Athletes, Fairness and Doping: An International Challenge’, Sport in Society 9, no. 2 (2006): 229.

50 Ric Chapman, ‘Petition on Sex Change Runner’, Sydney Morning Herald, December 1, 1991: 3.

51 Joanne Jones, ‘Ballerina FitzSimons’, Sydney Morning Herald, December 14, 1991: 18.

52 Jeff Wells, ‘Sort Out Categories and Olympics Might Run Six Months’, The Australian, December 16, 1991: 20.

53 Ricki Coughlan interview; Michael Sheather, ‘Sex-change Athlete’s Private Hell’, Woman’s Day, March 24, 1992: 11.

54 Anne Musgrave, ‘What Makes Ricki Run?’, Ita, January 1993: 31–32.

55 Ricki Coughlan interview.

56 Ali Gripper, ‘Sporting Bodies’, unknown source or date but c.1996–97, John Hewson Collection, notebook 40, AQuA.

57 Tom Salom, ‘Gender Bender – Golf Transsexuals to Vie for Female Contests’, Herald-Sun, December 4, 1997: 9.

58 Mianne Bagger, interview with author, 21 May 2019, Melbourne.

59 Charles Happell, ‘Golf Gets Bagger, Better’, The Age, June 30, 1999: 4; Mianne Bagger interview.

60 Miranda Wood, ‘Sex Change Suits Golfer To A Tee’, Sydney Morning Herald, July 4, 1999: 3.

61 Warren Partland, ‘She's the Women's Golf Champion Who Used to be a Man’, Adelaide Advertiser, June 12, 1999: 3.

62 Happell, ‘Golf Gets Bagger, Better’, 4.

63 Mianne Bagger interview.

64 Brendan Maloney, ‘Born A Man, But Now in the Women's Open’, Sun Herald, February 15, 2004: 10. See also Patricia Davies, ‘Bagger Experiences Another Life Change’, The Australian, November 5, 2004: 34.

65 See https://miannebagger.com/; Jim Tucker, ‘Mianne Looks to Future – Battle to Overcome Ridicule’, Courier-Mail (Brisbane), December 14, 2004: 31.

66 Peter Stone, ‘Pioneer Ready To Take Her First Step Down The Fairway’, Sydney Morning Herald, March 3, 2004: 34; ‘Golfer's Swing at History’, Hobart Mercury, March 3, 2004: 47.

67 Kristy Sexton, ‘“I am Just Another One of the Girls Out there Playing”: Sex-swap Golfer in Title First’, Sunday Mail, February 15, 2004: 52.

68 Tucker, ‘Mianne Looks to Future’, 31.

69 Sexton, ‘“I am Just Another One of the Girls Out there Playing”’, 52.

70 Brendan Maloney, ‘Born A Man, But Now in the Women's Open’, Sun Herald, February 15, 2004: 10.

71 Stone, ‘Pioneer Ready To Take Her First Step Down The Fairway’, 34.

72 Steve Wilstien, ‘Pioneer Knows Bagger's Challenge’, Sunday Mail, March 7, 2004: 7; ‘Sex Change an Added Handicap for Pro Golfer’, New Zealand Herald, March 6, 2004: D06.

73 Mianne Bagger interview.

74 Several scholars have written about the Stockholm Consensus. For comprehensive analysis, see Sheila L. Cavanagh and Heather Sykes, ‘Transsexual Bodies at the Olympics: The International Olympic Committee's Policy on Transsexual Athletes at the 2004 Athens Summer Games’, Body & Society 12, no. 3 (2006): 75–102.

75 Bruce Mathews, ‘Just One of Girls’, Herald-Sun, November 5, 2004: 99; ‘Mianne Makes Golf History’, Daily Telegraph, November 5, 2004: 90; ‘Bagger Delighted to Qualify for Tour’, Adelaide Advertiser, November 6, 2004: 127; AAP, ‘Bagger's Acceptance is Now in the Bag’, The Australian, November 27, 2004: 55.

76 ‘British Open the Door for Bagger’, Gold Coast Bulletin, February 11, 2005: B40; ‘Bagger Finds an Open Path’, Daily Telegraph, February 11, 2005: 87.

77 Martin Blake, ‘Transsexual Fabulous for Golf: Tour’, The Age, November 6, 2004: 6.

78 Tucker, ‘Mianne Looks to Future’, 31.

79 Lisa Dawn Bavington, ‘Preserving the Essence of Man in Women's Athletics: Discourses of Testosterone and Transsexual Sport Policy’ (M.A., University of Alberta, 2007).

80 Mianne Bagger interview.

81 Richards, No Way Renée.

82 Caroline Symons, The Gay Games: A History (London and New York: Routledge, 2010), 209–10.

83 Norrie-May Welby, ‘Trany Set to Play Ball’, Capital Q (Sydney), February 24, 1995: 4; Senate Legal and Constitutional References Committee, Sexuality Discrimination Inquiry, submission 45, Team Sydney Inc., July 15, 1996.

84 Symons, The Gay Games: A History, 211–15.

85 Sullivan, ‘Gender Verification and Gender Policies in Elite Sport: Eligibility and “Fair Play”’, 411.

86 Symons, The Gay Games: A History, 215.

87 Sykes, ‘Transsexual and Transgender Policies in Sport’, 9. See also Cavanagh and Sykes, ‘Transsexual Bodies at the Olympics: The International Olympic Committee's Policy on Transsexual Athletes at the 2004 Athens Summer Games’, 91.

88 Elizabeth Riley, ‘Manager’s Report’, Polaré, October 2002.

89 Debbie Sims, ‘Transgender and Sport’, Polaré 56, March 2004.

90 Elizabeth Riley, ‘Manager’s Report’, Polaré 58, July 2004.

91 James Bresnehan, ‘Opponents Call Foul on Sex-change Player’, Hobart Mercury, June 22, 2005: 1.

92 Matthew Denholm, ‘Rivals in Uproar as Martine Bends It’, The Australian, June 23, 2005.

93 Nick Dalton, ‘He's Really Just One of the Girls: Transgender Male Bowled over by Warm Support of City Sports Club’, Cairns Post, October 17, 2009: 3.

94 Caroline Layt, interview with author, 28 April 2019, Sydney. See also Cassandra Guidice, ‘Transwomen in Sport: Interviewing Transgender Athlete Lauren Stewart’, Polaré 103, April/June 2005: 27; Cohen and Semerjian, ‘The Collision of Trans-Experience and the Politics of Women's Ice Hockey’, 139–40.

95 Caroline Layt interview.

96 Caroline Layt, ‘A Response’, Polaré 16, 1997: 4.

97 Caroline Layt interview.

98 Peter FitzSimons, ‘First try to Martha’, Sydney Morning Herald, September 13, 2000: 73.

99 Caroline Layt interview.

100 Ibid.

101 Lucas-Carr and Krane, ‘Troubling Sport or Troubled by Sport’, 29–30.

102 Caroline Layt interview.

103 Brandon Miller and Elizabeth Behm-Morawitz, ‘Exploring Social Television, Opinion Leaders, and Twitter Audience Reactions to Diane Sawyer's Coming out Interview with Caitlyn Jenner’, International Journal of Transgenderism 18, no. 2 (2017): 140–53.

104 Stephen Kerry, ‘Australian News Media’s Representation of Cate McGregor, the Highest Ranking Australian Transgender Military Officer’, Journal of Gender Studies 27, no. 6 (2018): 683–93.

105 Caroline Symons et al., Come Out to Play: The Sports experiences of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) people in Victoria, Institue of Sport, Excerise and Active Living (ISEAL) and the School of Sport and Exercise at Victoria University (Melbourne, May 2010), 57.

106 Kirsti Miller, interview with author, April 27, 2019, Sydney.

107 John Casey, ‘BH Transgender AFL Player Divides Opinion’, ABC Broken Hill, April 26, 2013, https://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2013/04/26/3746249.htm, accessed 9 May 2020.

108 Kirsti Miller interview.

109 Samantha Lane, ‘AFL in Talks with Transgender Player Over Vilification’, The Age, June 13, 2013: 49. See also ‘Mediation Ordered for AFL and Transgender Player’, ABC News, June 10, 2013; Samantha Lane, ‘Transgender Footballer Mediation Nearing Resolution: AFL’, The Age, June 14, 2013: 48.

110 Kirsti Miller interview.

111 Jesse Jones, ‘Meet the Athletes Turned Cabbies Changing Minds about Trans People in Outback Australia’, Star Observer, July 23, 2018, https://www.starobserver.com.au/news/national-news/meet-the-athletes-turned-cabbies-changing-minds-about-trans-people-in-outback-australia/170616, accessed 9 May 2020.

112 Paul Toohey, ‘Queen of the Desert’, Northern Territory News, July 16, 2016: 22; Paul Toohey, ‘Town Ban’s No Game for Me’, Daily Telegraph, July 17, 2016: 104. See also Kirsti Miller, ‘I Don’t Mind Being a Man Sometimes, Now I’m a Woman’, Daily Telegraph, July 18, 2016, https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/rendezview/i-dont-mind-being-a-man-sometimes-now-im-a-woman/news-story/c2c6bdad8cfbce61e9e56994fe814ed4 (accessed May 11, 2020). Marriage equality was only legalised in Australia in December 2017, so at the time of the interview Kirsti could not marry her partner.

113 Kirsti Miller interview.

114 Jones, ‘Meet the Athletes Turned Cabbies Changing Minds about Trans People in Outback Australia’.

115 Rebecca Fist, ‘Don’t Hate the Player: Wagga Soccer Club Stands Behind Transgender Team Member’, Wagga Daily Advertiser (Wagga Wagga, NSW), May 26, 2017: 46, 48; Rebecca Fist, ‘Captain Stands Behind Conroy’, Wagga Daily Advertiser, May 27, 2017: 46.

116 ‘Web words’, Wagga Daily Advertiser, July 20, 2017: 19.

117 Nicolas Junger, ‘Australian-first: Holly Spearheads Transgender Inclusion Round’, Wagga Daily Advertiser, July 19, 2017: 26; ‘Trans Inclusion Round Arrives’, Wagga Daily Advertiser, August 24, 2017: 25.

118 ‘Transgender Round a Hit’, Wagga Daily Advertiser, August 28, 2017: 25.

119 ‘Guideline: Trans and Gender Diverse Inclusion in Sport’, Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission, https://www.humanrights.vic.gov.au/resources/trans-and-gender-diverse-inclusion-in-sport-guideline/ (accessed October 20, 2020); ‘Guidelines for the Inclusion of Transgender and Gender Diverse People in Sport’, Australian Human Rights Commission, July 2019, https://humanrights.gov.au/our-work/lgbti/publications/guidelines-inclusion-transgender-and-gender-diverse-people-sport-2019 (accessed October 20, 2020); ‘Transgender and Gender Diverse Governance in Sport’, pride in sport, https://www.prideinsport.com.au/trans/ (accessed October 20, 2020).

120 Ricki Coughlan interview.

 

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Australian Research Council [grant number DP180100322].

Notes on contributors

Noah Riseman

Noah Riseman is a Professor of History at Australian Catholic University, where he specialises in histories of gender, sexuality, and race. This article derives from an Australian Research Council Discovery project exploring the history of transgender people in Australia.