The last decade has seen significant changes in global attitudes, policies and practices that impact the lives of trans people, but the world of sport has been slow to follow these initiatives. Contributors to this book document the formidable social-cultural and legal challenges facing trans athletes, particularly girls and women, at the global, national, and local levels, in contexts ranging from school sport to international competition. They demonstrate how proponents of trans exclusion rely on flawed or inconclusive science, selectively employed to support their purported goal of 'protecting women's sport'. Politicians in the US, UK, and elsewhere who have shown little interest in women or in sport exploit the issue to advance broader conservative agendas, while hostile mainstream and social media coverage exacerbates the problem. Bringing insights from sociology, philosophy, science and law, contributors present cogent analyses of these developments and explore the way forward, providing thoughtful and original recommendations for changes to policies and practices that are inclusive, innovative and democratic.

Despite International Olympic Committee president Juan Antonio Samarach's proclaiming the Sydney 2000 Olympics as the "best ever, " the truth of the matter is much less one-sided. In The Best Olympics Ever? Helen Jefferson Lenskyj discloses what the Sydney 2000 Olympic industry suppressed: the real costs and impacts.

In a startling expose of the Olympic industry, Helen Jefferson Lenskyj goes beyond the media hype of international goodwill and spirited competition to uncover a darker side of the global games. She reports on the pre- and post-Olympic impacts from recent host cities, bribery investigations and their outcomes, grassroots resistance movements, and the role of the mass media in the controversy. A highly accessible book about a complex subject that touches the hearts of sports fan everywhere, Inside the Olympic Industry is a must-read, behind-the-scenes look at the politics surrounding the choice of Sydney, Australia as host city of the 2000 Summer Olympic games.

With sport representing one of the last bastions of binary thinking, trans and nonbinary athletes face formidable hurdles in their struggles for inclusion, acceptance, and freedom. Trans Athletes’ Resistance: The Struggle for Justice in Sport documents and analyses individual and collective resistance initiated by trans and nonbinary athletes and allies across a range of social-cultural and geopolitical contexts, from community sport to high-performance competition. In addition to sociological investigations of global, national, and local resistance, contributors present case studies and first-person accounts of struggles to challenge structural barriers and interpersonal hostility. Challenging policy-makers' binary definitions of males and females, the dominance of the achievement model, and toxic masculinity within sporting subcultures, the book explores how trans and nonbinary athletes not only resist transphobic policies and practices but also create new models of inclusive sport. The book has important implications for gender-inclusive policy development. Contributors present new methodologies and ways of theorizing the complex relationships among sex, gender, and sexuality in the equally complex terrain of sport and physical activity.

Over the last forty years, running has grown from a niche sport for a handful of committed club athletes into one of the Western world's most popular pastimes. In Running, Identity and Meaning, Neil Baxter asks: What kinds of people have been drawn to running in such numbers? What do they seek from the sport? And what does running's popularity tell us about ourselves and the society we live in today? Delving into the great paradox of running: that despite its low cost of entry and inclusive ethos, the sport remains riven by inequalities, Baxter showcases how gender, class, age and ethnicity influence whether and how different groups participate in the sport, and explores its role in the reproduction of social structure and the search for distinction. By considering running simultaneously as a technique of self-cultivation, a social field in which forms of capital and status are at stake, and an important source of meaning and identity for millions of people across the world, this book equips readers to understand the many diverse links between the sport, society, and individual identities.

Disputes over gender, doping, and eligibility in Olympic sport are widely covered in sport studies and in the mainstream media. Less well known are the functions of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), and the threat it poses to athletes' rights by depriving them of access to their own countries' court systems. CAS loosely follows the model of international arbitration tribunals. As in forced arbitration outside of sport, employees - in this case, high performance athletes - sign contracts agreeing to arbitration rather than litigation as the sole means of dispute resolution. Promoting the concept of sport exceptionalism, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) justifies the power it exercises through CAS by claiming that sport must be autonomous and self-regulating, with disputes settled by specialist arbitrators. Arguments in support of this position point to lex sportiva (global sports law) as a valid legal principle in sport-related disputes, which, it is claimed, cannot be understood or resolved by non-specialists. Self-regulation works effectively to protect the Olympic industry brand by keeping disputes 'in the family'. This critical analysis of CAS's history and functions demonstrates how athletes' rights are threatened by the forced arbitration process at CAS. In particular, CAS decisions involving female and gender-variant athletes, and racialized men and women, reflect numerous injustices. As well as the chronic problem of CAS's lack of independence, other issues examined here include confidentiality, lex sportiva, non-precedential awards, the closed list of specialist arbitrators, and, in doping cases, questions concerning strict liability and burden of proof.

Do the Olympic Games really live up to their glowing reputation? As the biggest global sport mega-event, the Olympics command public attention, while Olympic mythology obscures their underlying function as a profit-making business. Unlike terms such as 'Olympic movement' and 'Olympic family', the concept of 'Olympic industry' focuses on sport as an economic and political enterprise, with its beneficiaries including sponsors, media rights holders, developers, and politicians. Negative impacts on host cities disproportionately threaten the lives and well-being of disadvantaged minorities. Citizens' Olympic resistance campaigns address a range of human rights abuses, while recent athlete activism also focuses on the doping problem and the sexual abuse of girls and women. Female athletes with 'differences of sexual development' face discriminatory gender policies that disqualify them from women's events. All of these issues are analysed through a feminist, anti-racist lens.