Law Commons^™

Attorney General V. Miaa At Forty Years: A Critical Examination Of Gender Segregation In High School Athletics In Massachusetts, Erin E. Buzuvis

Faculty Scholarship

Forty years ago, the highest court in Massachusetts ruled in Attorney General v. Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association that the state constitution's newly-added equal rights amendment prohibited the blanket exclusion of boys from girls' athletic teams. The state’s constitutional law departed from Title IX, as well as that of other states, in providing a legal foundation for a wider selection of gender-integrated high school sports. However, most sports remain segregated by sex.

The Author opines that sport organizers in Massachusetts have missed an opportunity to provide students a more balanced menu of athletic opportunities that incorporate both sex-segregated and gender-free sports …

Challenging Gender In Single-Sex Spaces: Lessons From A Feminist Softball League, Erin E. Buzuvis

Faculty Scholarship

This Article explores transgender inclusion within adult recreational women’s leagues by using the example of the Mary Vazquez Women’s Softball League (MVWSL), in Northampton, Massachusetts. A MVWSL policy addressing transgender inclusion became necessary due to a noticeable increase in gender-identity diversity. The resultant policy respects the league’s core lesbian constituency by providing individuals with the freedom to acknowledge openly a gender identity that has or is evolving from lesbian to something else, and reflects the league’s founding feminist principles by refusing to define for others the suitability of a women’s community.

The Author demonstrates the successful creation of a policy …

Better Locker Rooms: It’S Not Just A Transgender Thing, George B. Cunningham, Erin E. Buzuvis

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Hormone Check: Critique Of Olympic Rules On Sex And Gender, Erin E. Buzuvis

Faculty Scholarship

Most sports, including all Olympic sports, are divided into two categories: men's and women's. This Article first presents a history of gender testing in Olympic and international sports to illustrate why past attempts to define eligibility for women's sports have proven unfair to women with intersex conditions. It then describes the shortcomings of the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) first effort to articulate standards of eligibility for transgender athletes. In its second Part, this Article explains the more recent efforts of the IOC and the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) to define eligibility for women's sports solely on the basis …

"As Who They Really Are": Expanding Opportunities For Transgender Athletes To Participate In Youth And Scholastic Sports, Erin E. Buzuvis

Faculty Scholarship

The aim of this Article is to assist the efforts of inclusion of transgender athletes by helping decision-makers in scholastic athletics and youth sports understand why and how to create inclusive policies. These decision-makers include leaders and stakeholders in local, state, and national sport organizations.

This Article begins with an overview of policies already adopted by interscholastic athletic associations and sport governing bodies that regulate youth sport programs. It critiques policies that categorically exclude and otherwise impose limitations on transgender persons who seek to participate in sports in a manner consistent with their gender identities (what this Article will refer …

Including Transgender Athletes In Sex-Segregated Sport, Erin E. Buzuvis

Faculty Scholarship

The Author focuses her chapter on the varying degrees of trans inclusive policies found across the sport spectrum. Presently, private and public policy addressing participation by transgender athletes can be described on a spectrum of least to most inclusive. The Author’s chapter describes and evaluates different ways in which athletic associations and sport organizers are trying to accommodate transgender athletes into single-sex athletic teams. It ends with recommendations for advocacy to promote the inclusion of transgender athletes across all sports.

Reading The Pink Locker Room On Football Culture And Title Ix, Erin E. Buzuvis

Faculty Scholarship

This Article examines the public controversy that erupted after local media reported on a comment the Author made about the University of Iowa's decision to renovate the football stadium's visiting team locker room entirely in pink. The Author submitted a statement in response to the University Steering Committee on NCAA Certification's request for feedback on a draft report and suggested that the "joke" behind the pink decor traded in sexist and homophobic values. As such, the Author concluded that it belonged in the comprehensive analysis of gender equity that the committee was preparing. The Author immediately received hundreds of hateful …

Survey Says ... A Critical Analysis Of The New Title Ix Policy And A Proposal For Reform, Erin E. Buzuvis

Faculty Scholarship

More than thirty years have passed since Congress enacted Title IX, the statute prohibiting sex discrimination by schools, colleges, and universities that receive federal funding. In that time, Congress has confirmed -and reconfirmed- the statute's application to college athletic programs, and the Supreme Court has strengthened the statute's enforcement by construing a private right of action for both injunctive relief and, in certain cases, money damages. Bolstered by these measures, Title IX is duly credited for increasing the number of athletic opportunities for women and girls. But at the college level, female athletes still have far fewer opportunities to participate …