“If You Let Me Play”

This chapter examines (cisgender) girl empowerment discourses in American sports, as well as concurrent legislative debates in US politics about exclusion of trans girls from gender-affirming teams. I use discourse analysis to examine Nike advertisements featuring sportswomen and female athletes, as well as political debates in state legislatures about transgender inclusion in sports. One discourse is based on the affective circulation of hope and positivity generated by the image of the cis white girl, while the other is based on fear and hyperbole in order to disenfranchise trans athletes. These transmisogynistic legal measures exclude trans girls in the name of protecting cis white girl athletes from “biological men” who might hurt or steal their confidence and opportunities. I argue that patriarchal notions of protecting cis girls fuel a strategic link, or discursive formation, between cis girls’ empowerment and trans exclusion. This formation primarily works by infantilizing cis white women while adultifying trans and cis Black girls. As a result, feel-good representations of cis white girls serve as justification for the continued subjugation of all women and girls by shifting the source of gender inequality away from the cis white supremacist patriarchy and onto trans girls, particularly Black trans girls.

Developmental psychology · Empowerment · Girl · Inclusion (mineral) · Patriarchy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Transgender · White (mutation) · Gender Studies · Law · Psychology · Sports, Gender, and Society