Good Hair, Bad Math: Breaking Apart Gender on a Figure Skating Pairs Team

While most policing of gender categorization in sport concerns a human unit of one, I've been maneuvering, since 2019, within a human unit of two, as part of a white, queer, gender-nonconforming pairs team with my figure skating partner Anna Kellar. Situating our training and activism within the growing movement for change in the sport, this piece considers some of our experiences, the challenges, and deep pleasures as we work to advance the skills and rule changes required to test and compete; to navigate racialized gender binarism and cis-heteronormitivity sedimented in training, rule, and custom; and to develop performance vocabularies to legibly represent queer gender.