“Having an unfair advantage” vs “playing by the rules”: media discourses of trans women’s participation in the Olympics

This study reviews UK news media discourses surrounding New Zealand’s weightlifter Laurel Hubbard’s participation in the 2020 Olympics as the first ever publicly open transgender woman to compete at the Olympic Games. Discourse Analysis of 94 news and opinion articles published in the UK press before and after the Olympics, reveals contradictory portrayals of Hubbard as both having an unfair biological advantage and playing by the rules. While these discursive constructions appear contradictory on the surface, both draw on wider cisgenderist discourses to produce and police normative understandings of gender. We argue that sports media is a heightened site for the production of gendered bodies (in sport and in general), contributing to the production of ignorance around trans people, and influencing policy debates around the topic of trans inclusion.