Perceived Meanings and Implications of Transgender Inclusive Policies in Collegiate Recreation: An Exploratory Study

To examine the intersection of trans-identities and collegiate recreation program and services (CRS), this inquiry explored the perceived meanings and implications of gender-related competitive sport policy as interpreted by transgender students. Three trans-identifying students (n = 3) participated in this inquiry; each student reviewed collegiate recreation competitive sport policy excerpts and provided qualitative responses during phenomenological, semi-structured interviews. The resulting transcripts underwent a two-part, cyclical analysis to identify and explore common themes and phenomenological essence. Conclusionary themes indicated that CRS competitive sport policy-while possibly having the intent to be gender inclusive-may not be conclusively perceived as such. In addition, select-yet common-terminology used in CRS lexicon was perceived as being exclusive to trans-identities. These themes suggest that CRS trans-inclusive policy should consider the reception of its content during development and furthermore address a gap in literature by providing practitioners with insight as to the manner of which CRS policy is being perceived by their intended trans-audiences.