Public Policy as Trans Harm: Troubling Administrative Governance through Transfeminist Sports Studies

The observation that systems of state governance are more apt to do harm or violence to transgender and gender-diverse people is foundational to the field of trans studies. This article argues that public policy—including policy design, implementation, governance, and administration—is an important target for transfeminist sports studies. It illustrates the importance of attending to Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, a federal sex nondiscrimination policy in the United States. This case underscores how public policy through its widespread enactment in American school-sponsored sports and overreliance on binary logics of sex-segregated categories remains paramount, though underanalyzed, as a vehicle for trans harm.