If You Build It, "They/Them" Will Come: The Misgendering of Transgender Nonbinary Athletes Is Discrimination on the Basis of Sex
![handle is hein.journals/jlas31 and id is 312 raw text is: Journal of LegalAspects of Sport, 2021, 31, 312 - 334
https:I/doi.org/1.18060/25603
© Kelli Rodriguez Currie
If You Build It, They/Them Will Come:
The Misgendering of Transgender
Nonbinary Athletes Is
Discrimination on the Basis of Sex
Kelli Rodriguez Currie
Introduction
As a freshman at Oberlin College, Leo Ross' celebrated the first conference
championship in the history of the women's basketball program alongside their
teammates. As the team looked ahead to a repeat performance during Leo's
second season, Leo prepared themselves mentally for persistent misgendering.
For two hours a day, six days a week, for five months, [Leo] anticipated a wide
range of people would participate in misgendering [them] 2
Leo was a member of the Oberlin College women's basketball team for the
first three years of their college career.3 During that time, they were also an active
leader in the larger Oberlin community.4 But through these formative years, Leo
reported that their body and their understanding of it changed:
I don't remember exactly when I realized I might be trans.... I'm not
entirely convinced that I was born into the wrong body, rather that I
was born into the wrong society. ... It bends and shifts as my landscapes
Leo Ross previously published under a different name. Abby Bellows & Leo Ross, From the
Perspective ofNon-Binary Athletes, THE OBERLIN REVIEW (Dec. 7, 2018), https://oberlinreview.
org/17668/sports/from-the-perspective-of-non-binarv-athletes/
2 Id.
3 Leo Ross - 2019-20 Women's Basketball Roster, OBERLIN COLLEGE ATHLETICS, httpns//goyeo.com/
snorts/womens-basketball/roster/leo-ross/7434 (last visited July 14, 2021).
4 See generally Abby Bellows & Leo Ross, From the Perspective of Non-Binary Athletes, THE
OBERLIN REVIEW (Dec. 7, 2018), https://oberlinreview.org/17668/sports/from-the-nerspective-
of-non-binary-athletes/; Jackie Brant & Jane Agler, Leo Ross and Bethany Gen, Queer Varsity
Athletes, THE OBERLIN REVIEW (Sep. 13, 2019), https://oberlinreview.org/19214/sports/leo-ross-and-
bethany-gen-oueer-varsity-athletes/.
Kelli Rodriguez Currie, JD, MSAL, is a lecturer at Seattle University and Seattle University
School of Law. Her research interests include the student-athlete experience and collegiate athlet-
ics compliance. Kelli uses she/her pronouns. Email: rodrig31@seattleu.edu
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