ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates the legal protection of athletes’ gender rights in the context of mega-sporting events (MSEs). A range of groups are connected to MSEs, including support staff and management, volunteers and fans. These groups often experience barriers to access and participation at MSEs. This chapter focuses on the rights of trans athletes and athletes with sex variations, who have faced legal/regulatory, social and sport barriers to MSE inclusion because they challenge the binary gender norms. It will propose three objectives: the removal of harmful gender policies that can act as a barrier to MSEs, refreshing the existing human rights regulatory framework to recognise gender rights and outline opportunities to reimagine the application of athletes’ gender rights at MSEs. MSEs are an interesting setting to examine these themes, because they protect as well as challenge the gender status quo of sport, society and law and regulation. With recent global attention on the participation of trans female athletes and athletes with sex variations in MSEs, this chapter presents the challenges and opportunities for guaranteeing athletes’ gender rights through a reimagined enforcement of human rights provisions at MSEs, augmented visibility of diverse gender identities at events and enhanced education and research.
