Sports

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Why the Caster Semenya sex eligibility battle confounded sports for 16 years and still isn’t over

One of the most complex current issues in sports can be traced back to a track meet in Germany in 2009, when an unknown 18-year-old from South Africa blew away a field of the best female runners on the planet to win the world title. The teenager was hardly out of breath when she flexed her muscles at the end of it. What quickly became clear is that sports faced an unprecedented dilemma with the arrival of Caster Semenya. Now a two-time Olympic and three-time world champion in the 800 meters, the 34-year-old Semenya has been banned from competing in […]

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Trans athletes can no longer play sports in Indiana starting this month

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Indiana’s new law banning transgender female athletes from competing in college and university sports has gone into effect this month. The ban expands the state’s pre-existing ban on trans female athletes in K-12 school sports; a ban which was passed despite the state only having one trans female high school athlete. The bill — which passed the state Senate in February, the state House in April, and was signed by a Gov. Mike Braun (R) that same month — applies to all public colleges and universities, and any private school competing against a public institution, the Public News Service reported. The law “prohibits […]

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UPenn to ban trans athletes, feds say, ending civil rights case focused on swimmer Lia Thomas

The University of Pennsylvania has agreed to ban transgender women from its women’s sports teams to resolve a federal civil rights case that found the school violated the rights of female athletes. The U.S. Education Department announced the voluntary agreement Tuesday. The case focused on Lia Thomas, the transgender swimmer who last competed for the Ivy League school in Philadelphia in 2022, when she became the first openly transgender athlete to win a Division I title. It’s part of the Trump administration’s broader attempt to remove transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s sports. Under the agreement, Penn agreed to restore […]

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Supreme Court to rule on state bans on transgender students’ participation in girls’ and women’s sports

The Supreme Court on Thursday waded into the legal fight over state laws that ban transgender athletes from competing in girls’ and women’s school and college sports, taking up cases from West Virginia and Idaho. The court will hear cases involving two transgender students, Becky Pepper-Jackson and Lindsay Hecox, who challenged state bans in West Virginia and Idaho, respectively. Both won injunctions that allow them to continue to compete in sports. Pepper-Jackson, now 15, takes puberty blocking medication, while Hecox, a 24-year-old college student, has received testosterone suppression and estrogen treatments. The court’s decision to hear the case comes two weeks after […]

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California defies Trump, won’t ban trans athletes from school sports

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California officials say they will not comply with Donald Trump’s order to keep transgender athletes out of K-12 school sports. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon gave the state 10 days, beginning June 27, to sign on to an agreement “to rescind any trans-inclusionary guidelines and send cisgender female athletes who lost to a trans opponent personalized apologies,” The Sacramento Bee reports. The U.S. Department of Education’sOffice for Civil Rights had determined that California had violated federal nondiscrimination law by letting trans girls and women compete against cis females. Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 bans sex discrimination in educational programs that receive federal funds. Democratic administrations have interpreted it as […]

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Australian hockey stars wear rainbow socks to support gay teammate

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Members of Australia’s national field hockey team have sported rainbow socks to mark Pride month – and support a gay teammate.  Davis Atkin was accidentally outed as gay to his coach at the University of Canberra by a team psychologist in 2021. The following year he told Outsports: “Last year, I was in a pretty dark place.”  The midfielder has now played for the Kookaburras 20 times, including in the 4-3 win over England in an FIH Pro League game on Saturday. A photo of the team posted on Instagram revealed they were all wearing Pride rainbow socks.  Atkin told Hockey Australia: “I said […]

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Trans woman swims topless at meet to protest being forced to compete against cis men

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Anne Isabella Coombes, a 67-year-old transgender female swimmer, swam topless with her breasts exposed at the Cornwall County Masters swim meet as a protest to being forced to compete with cisgender men by Swim England, the UK’s governing body overseeing the country’s competitive swimming. Swim England told Coombes she was no longer eligible to compete in the women’s category, despite her doing so in 2022 and 2023. So the organization placed her in a new “open” category where trans female and nonbinary competitors swim against cis men. Swim England replaced its men’s category with its open category starting in September […]

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World Cup: A Year Out, Growing Attacks on Rights

 The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) should take immediate and demonstrable steps to safeguard human rights for all people involved in the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup, the Sport & Rights Alliance said today. With just one year until the monumental event kicks off across the United States, Canada, and Mexico, and only days until the Club World Cup kicks off on June 14, 2025, escalating attacks on human rights and civil freedoms threaten to undermine FIFA’s human rights commitments and responsibilities. “In 2018, the US, Mexico, and Canada provided clear human rights commitments in their bid documents to host the 2026 FIFA Men’s World […]

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The New York Mets went all out for Pride Night 2025, and homophobes are – predictably – furious

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New York Mets fans have praised the iconic baseball team’s celebration of Pride Month, flying the Progress Pride flag during the national anthem and spotlighting a gay kiss on the jumbotron. On Friday (13 June), the Major League Baseball (MLB) game between the Mets and the Tampa Bay Rays became a showcase of LGBTQ+ acceptance and joy, marking the Mets’ ninth annual Pride Night celebration. As per the Mets website, Pride Night is “one night each year when Citi Field swaps blue and orange for the entire rainbow!” Despite losing the game (9-0), the Mets pleased many fans with their full volume support of LGBTQ+ rights. A couple […]

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In 2025, Why are Men Still Afraid to Come Out in Professional Sports?

When Jason Collins came out in a 2013 Sports Illustrated cover story, he broke down the long-sealed closet in men’s sports by becoming the first openly gay active player in any major league sport. President Barack Obama called him to offer his support, saying he “couldn’t be prouder,” and Oprah Winfrey called him “a pioneer.” “By not having to hide who I am, just being able to live an authentic life, there’s something powerful about being the one to out yourself and step forward and speak your truth,” Collins told Uncloseted Media. “There’s no greater feeling.” Many thought that Collins’ announcement would lead to […]

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