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Youth sports serve as a critical component in the healthy development of all children. Athletic programs offer essential opportunities for young people to build social skills, enhance self-confidence, and improve physical fitness. These environments foster a strong sense of belonging, which is vital for healthy growth. However, a pressing question emerges: What happens to these developmental spaces when adults are granted permission to inspect a child’s body to determine their gender?
Recent Supreme Court rulings in the cases of Little v. Hecox and West Virginia v. B.P.J. have decided that transgender girls cannot participate in sports that align with their gender identity. This decision does more than simply prohibit transgender children from joining most youth sports teams. It codifies the exclusion that this vulnerable population already experiences. Furthermore, it places all children at risk of the harmful consequences of body surveillance.
As a social work scholar who studies LGBTQ+ belonging and organizational climate, I have observed the impacts of these policies closely. I am also a former NCAA Division II women’s volleyball athlete. I know firsthand what it is like to face uninvited scrutiny of your body because strangers doubt your gender. My research and personal experience suggest that when policies allow for bodily surveillance of children, all children are at risk of losing the benefits of youth sports, not just transgender children.
School sports are not merely about competition. They provide children with an important developmental space that supports their overall well-being.
Youth sports help children improve their sense of competence and confidence. They offer opportunities to practice life skills, such as setting goals, solving problems, and thinking positively. Sports also protect against depression and stress by bringing supportive adults and positive role models into children’s lives. The developmental value of youth sports depends heavily on the environment they create. It follows that ensuring youth sports spaces have as many positive influences as possible is in the best interest of all children. Research suggests that policies legalizing bodily surveillance are not a positive influence for any child in youth sports.
Bodily surveillance plays out in significant ways for all children in youth sports, not just transgender youth. Policies that legalize bodily surveillance for youth open the door to causing harm in unsuspecting children.
Researchers define bodily surveillance as viewing the body as an outside observer through active judgments of a person’s physicality, superficial appearance, or perceived gender presentation. While bodily surveillance claims to regulate women’s sports in the name of fairness, experts contest the scientific basis of these claims. Women’s sports have been the site of bodily surveillance for decades. Cisgender women involved in these sports are all too aware of the ways their bodies are judged through the lens of sexism. Often, how their bodies are judged are influenced by a definition of femininity based primarily on white bodies.
Bodily surveillance can involve assessing questions such as: How tall is too tall for someone to be a girl? How strong is too strong? How fast is too fast? Who decides when a child exceeds that threshold, and what happens to that child if they do?
Children who compete at the top of their division or class will have to contend with invasive procedures. To evaluate claims of unfair advantages, strangers may request hormone or genetic testing to look for common biological variations. These variations are ones that cisgender children and their parents may not even be aware of. Testing may also include genital or pelvic inspection to look for the presence or absence of a penis, or even transvaginal ultrasounds to detect the presence of ovaries.
Bodily scrutiny is not restricted to just transgender children. It already affects cisgender children, too.
In 2022, a high school athlete in Utah was secretly investigated after she defeated other children in a sports competition. Parents of the second- and third-place finishers raised a complaint. This led the high school athletics association to analyze her school records back to kindergarten to determine the child’s gender. This was done without consulting her parents. This is a strong example of how people can initiate investigations simply because the child does not look feminine enough. In this case, the child in question was indeed a cisgender girl.
In 2023, two adults harassed a 9-year-old child at an elementary school track meet. The adults claimed the girl was transgender. They stopped the entire event and demanded she show certification of her sex. This was also a cisgender female child.
Strong, athletic women are often subject to suspicion because of their so-called masculine traits. As a taller-than-average person who was assigned female at birth, I personally experienced countless moments of bodily scrutiny during my time as an NCAA Division II women’s volleyball athlete. These experiences made me want to shrink out of public view. They did not give me confidence in my athletic performance. Moreover, the effects of this scrutiny bled into my personal life. It significantly affected my self-esteem and self-perception throughout my young adulthood.
Imagine if that scrutiny happened when I was much younger, when I did not yet possess the emotional maturity or life experiences to cope with it. Research shows that such bodily scrutiny is already damaging transgender youth. Bodily shame can significantly affect young people’s mental health, leading to disordered eating and other physical and psychological harm.
When societies give formal permission to scrutinize a child’s body and question whether they belong in a sport, it opens the door to potential harm against all children. Children’s bodies, regardless of their gender identity, become open for people to inspect. They become open for people to create rumors about or render public judgment against them, often without any recourse for the children experiencing harm. Children who had previously never faced the harms of bodily surveillance may soon be subject to its violence because of this law.
Just as all children can potentially suffer from bodily surveillance regardless of their gender identity, embracing inclusivity can improve the well-being of all children.
Research shows that LGBTQ+-inclusive environments can help all children succeed in school. A 2012 study of nearly 16,000 students in 45 schools found that the presence of a gay-straight alliance reduced truancy, smoking, drinking, and suicide attempts. A 2020 study of over 895,000 children found that those in LGBTQ+-inclusive environments reported doing better in school. They also reported lower substance use and better mental health.
On the other hand, a 2024 study found that anti-LGBTQ+ language in youth sports negatively affected the self-esteem of all children, including those who do not identify as LGBTQ+.
Youth sports, just like schools and churches, are not just places where children compete, learn facts, or practice their faith. These community institutions are places where children build the confidence, relationships, and sense of belonging that can shape their adult lives. They also shape the impact children will have on their family and community in the future.
The scope of sex-based bodily surveillance by necessity extends beyond transgender students. The effects of this surveillance negatively affect all children involved in youth sports, regardless of identity.