Bringing Canadian Human Rights Laws to the Centre of the Field: Addressing Policies That Restrict the Participation of Transgender Women in Women’s Sport Categories
Author: Jennifer A. Orange
Abstract
The inclusion of transgender women and girls in women and girls’ sports is one of the most divisive issues in international sport today. Despite the promulgation of policies by sport organizations that regulate if and when a transgender woman or girl may compete in the women’s or girls’ category, there is little Canadian jurisprudence or legal literature on whether these policies violate athletes’ human rights. The goal of this article is to re-centre the Canadian discourse within a human rights legal lens. Using analogies from human rights law cases and human rights policies in the areas of services and employment, the author concludes that to justify a policy that discriminates on its face, a sport organization must prove, using evidence and not stereotypes, that there is a bona fide justification for the policy.
Resume
Jennifer A. Orange is an Assistant Professor at the Lincoln Alexander School of Law at Toronto Metropolitan University in Dish with One Spoon Territory. She acknowledges with gratitude research funding for this project provided by The Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport and the guidance of Dr. Cheri Bradish. She also thanks J. James, Julia MacDonald, and Noelle Sagher for their research assistance, and her colleagues, Professors Hilary Evans Cameron and Luke Taylor, as well as Daniel Simonian, Simon Gooding-Townsend and other generous readers and discussants, for their helpful comments. The author is grateful for the time and expert comments of the anonymous peer reviewers and for the work of the Canadian Journal of Human Rights editorial team. All views and any errors contained in this article are solely her own.
Recommended Citation
Jennifer A. Orange, “Bringing Canadian Human Rights Laws to the Centre of the Field: Addressing Policies That Restrict the Participation of Transgender Women in Women’s Sport Categories” (2024) 12:1 Can J Hum Rts 65, online: <https://cjhr.ca/download/3079/?tmstv=1732633692&v=3080>.