How do we Decide Who Competes in Women’s Sport? | Madeleine Pape | TEDxOshkosh

From a young age, we are taught that separate categories defined on the basis of “biological sex” are necessary to ensure the integrity of sports competition for women and girls. It turns out, however, that drawing a clean line around the female athlete category is far more complex than many of us might presume. From variation in sex-linked traits to the increasing visibility of trans people, sports administrators and advocates of women’s sport are grappling with the reality that neither biology nor social identity map neatly onto binary female/male categories.

In this context, where even science fails to provide us with a straightforward solution, how do we decide who gets to compete as a woman in sport, particularly at the elite level? Expect to come away with more questions than answers: this talk is an invitation to challenge your assumptions and embrace the complexity of sexed bodies, sporting ability, and gender equity.


Madeleine Pape is one of those rare people whose email signature includes both PhD and OLY: she is an Olympian who competed for Australia in track-and-field at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, and she obtained her PhD in Sociology in 2019 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

With the question of inclusion in women's sport now becoming one of the hottest gender equality topics of our time, Pape has been uniquely positioned to offer the perspective of both a sociologist and an athlete with intimate knowledge of the world of elite sport. Her research on the contentious responses of sports governing bodies to the quandary of inclusion in women's sport have appeared in top academic journals. Pape has also used her unique platform to contribute a nuanced perspective to public debates surrounding the place of both transgender women and women with high testosterone in sport in a wide range of media outlets including The Guardian, 1A, PBS NewsHour, NPR Weekend Edition, and BBC Newshour. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx