“Mostly What We Do Is Ride Bikes”

Abstract

As trans visibility grows, the investment in a sex/gender binary gets more entrenched in some cultural institutions, including—and maybe especially—sports. Policies governing gender identity in sports have multiplied since the 1990s. How sports governing bodies have approached policy creation has differed widely in the past two decades, reflecting philosophical differences regarding fairness of competition and ingrained beliefs about sex and gender. This article examines the policy created by an intercollegiate cycling conference using subculture theory to explain the divergence from extant policies. It also looks at the connection to the ongoing sex/gender verification process for elite female athletes and the ways in which all policing of gender is always already a legacy of imperialist practices.