By Rhys Wright, Amy Blay and Shan Heyworth
With the start of the Summer Olympics, Wimbledon and the Euros, July has been quite an eventful one in the world of championship sports. We’d like to take the opportunity to recommend some books that highlight LGBTQIA+ stories in professional sports.
The Race to Be Myself by Caster Semenya
For anyone who doesn’t fit neatly onto one side of a gender binary, getting to participate as yourself in professional sports is no easy task – something Caster Semenya can attest to. In her memoir, The Race to Be Myself, the champion runner tells the story of her remarkable life and career: the triumphs, the struggles and her fight to compete as herself.
Born in a South African village in 1991, Semenya was assigned female at birth and seen as a woman throughout her childhood. Determined to accomplish her dreams and race on the world stage, she won the gold medal at her first World Athletics Championships in 2009 for the women’s 800 metres. What should’ve been a celebrated victory was overshadowed by the fallout that came after.
Semenya was asked by World Athletics to take a sex verification test. She was diagnosed with an intersex condition that gives her high testosterone levels. Enduring even more invasive tests – some performed without her consent – and enormous media scrutiny of her body, she reluctantly took testosterone-suppressing medication to be allowed to compete again and suffered harmful side effects.
Going on to win four more gold medals in the women’s 800 metres, two at the World Athletic Championships and two at the Olympics, her extraordinary career was cut short in 2018 by a rule change mandating that any athletes with intersex conditions like hers must take testosterone-suppressing drugs.
Her memoir details the legal challenges she’s brought against World Athletics and her battle to compete again as herself without the drugs that once made her ill. Throughout it all, she’s resilient and unashamed of what makes her different. It’s a defiant piece of writing that’s more necessary now than ever.
Like Real People Do by E. L. Massey
If you’re in the mood for an uplifting queer story about an ice hockey player and figure skater falling in love, look no further than E.L. Massey’s debut, Like Real People Do.
Alexander Price is a rising star in the world of hockey. Though on camera he presents himself as a stereotypically reckless, young athlete, the pressure he experiences and the struggles of his anxiety disorder are beginning to weigh him down. Enter Elijah Rodriguez, a college freshman recovering from a devastating injury that sent his dreams of competing in the Olympics screeching to a halt.
Disabled, openly queer and unafraid to speak his mind, Elijah is comfortable in his own skin. The same cannot be said for Alex, who Elijah doesn’t have the most favourable first introduction to – but as they get to know each other and work past each other's inhibitions and fears, the pair begin to feel something much deeper than friendship.
But, Alex is the NHL’s (National Hockey League) youngest captain, permanently in the spotlight and under scrutiny. He is so used to ‘gay’ being the punchline that he isn’t certain he could ever embrace it as much as Elijah does. With the world and the internet breathing down their necks, can Alex and Elijah navigate their budding relationship?
The first book in the Breakaway series, Like Real People Do is an idealistic, easy-going read with a heartwarming friends-to-lovers arc complimented by a varied cast of side characters.
Fair Play: How Sports Shape the Gender Debates by Katie Barnes
Over the last few years, the question of transgender athletes’ participation in sports has been a topic of debate, mobilised in the overarching ‘culture wars’ putting transgender rights at risk. But, as Katie Barnes explains in Fair Play, this argument is nothing new. In fact, the question of gender and fairness has always been at play in the world of sports.
Barnes traces the history of women’s sports, highlighting that misleading interpretations of science and binary and essentialist views on gender have been leveraged against women for a long time. They bring compassion, nuance and passion for sport to this in-depth and well-researched book, which also brings together accounts from numerous transgender athletes. An award-winning ESPN journalist, Barnes has a personal and rich understanding of sports, which shines through in Fair Play. Despite its depth, the prose is accessible and engaging for sports fans and non-fans alike, no matter how familiar you already are with the questions discussed.
Released in 2023, this is a timely and important book that approaches an often-misunderstood subject in a thorough and well-balanced way, examining the past and present of gender in sport, and making recommendations for the future.