Assessing the Lack of Transgender Participation in Sports

Transgender athletes face many challenges when attempting to participate in sport competitions. Facing these challenges causes many transgender athletes to abandon their sport. Whether it be a lack of adequate locker rooms, or fearing to show themselves in public, transgender athletes face many roadblocks on their path to sport achievement. Many of these roadblocks cause a transgender athlete to lose interest in the sport they love and create the potential to affect participation in sports and physical activity all together. It is clear sports and physical activity participation is lower in transgender athletes than participation by cisgender athletes due to sociological and psychological factors, as well as restrictive sport policies. This paper reviews the relevant literature examining trans-athlete experiences through a sociological and psychological lens, that leads to a lack of sport participation