“They Just Dash Us to the Side”: Race, Gender, and Negotiating Access to Basketball Spaces

Using Black Feminist Theory and qualitative data gathered from 20 Black Canadian female U.S. athletic scholarship recipients, this article identifies race–gender barriers to accessing informal athletic spaces for athletic training such as recreation centers and public gyms. I argue that these access barriers are rooted in a sexist anti-Blackness, while also examining the resistance and navigational strategies employed by the participants such as playing back and avoidance and considering how those efforts often led to additional financial expense and psychological and navigational labor. In so doing, I elucidate how the race and gender of the participants intersected to create social and athletic experiences and opportunities that are distinct from existing dominant discourses in collegiate athlete research, which tend to center American and Black males, while often neglecting the specific and more granular experiences of Black (Canadian) female athletes.