Abstract
Debates of who is and is not permitted to participate in sport have been magnified in regard to those whose gender identity deviates from traditional heteronormative standards. Former high school transgender athletes Mack Beggs and Andraya Yearwood, in states with different stances toward trans participation, were thrust into media spotlights. A content analysis examined local and national newspaper reporting about the individuals and their states’ policies. Newspapers did not uphold perceived hegemonic ideals associated with sport by negatively depicting each marginalized athlete. Journalists applauded both for driving conversations toward equal opportunity in high school athletics.
Shortly after he captured a regional crown and qualified for the 2017 University Interscholastic League (UIL) tournament, Texas’s high school championships, Mack Beggs was at the center of the amateur wrestling world. He was undefeated in the 110-pound weight class, pinned opponents in record time, and garnered accolades with each passing match (Caplan, 2017). His trot toward the Class 6A state title received the type of media coverage that was unheard of at the high school level, publicity that would typically engross most 17-year olds and make them lose sight of the foreseeable goal. Other grapplers, like Beggs, were accustomed to the occasional postmatch interview with a newspaper reporter or television journalist because it was the final competition of the season in a state that has some of the highest high school wrestling participation numbers (Abbott, 2018).
This was different, though. Unlike his teammates and fellow competitors, virtually every news media outlet that had congregated in the 9,500-seat Berry Center in the Houston suburb of Cypress wanted to talk to Beggs. A reporter from the Associated Press, an international news agency that distributes content worldwide, was there. So were sportswriters from The Dallas Morning News and Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the two daily newspapers in the metroplex—Beggs’ home region. And even ESPN, the self-proclaimed “worldwide leader in sports” (Rinehart, 2008, p. 175), wrote a story on Beggs for its website and later featured the Euless Trinity High School junior in an Outside the Lines segment.
However, the flock of reporters who were assigned to cover Beggs throughout the weekend tournament were not primarily concerned with his win–loss record or whether he claimed victory via a pin, technical fall, or major decision. Rather, they were there to frame Beggs—who transitioned from female to male but wrestled in the girls’ division—within the larger context of fairness and equality in high school sports.
At the same time that Beggs, who identified as a male, was being denied an opportunity to wrestle in the boys’ tournament because his gender identity did not align with the assigned sex indicated on his birth certificate, transgender athlete Andraya Yearwood began running for her high school’s girls’ track and field team in Cromwell, Connecticut. Yearwood, who was born a male yet identified as female, was permitted to run for the girls’ team because of Connecticut’s policy that permits athletes to compete in either the male or female division based exclusively on gender identity, regardless if the individual is on hormone replacement therapy or takes testosterone blockers. It was not that Yearwood, at this time, received more news coverage than Beggs for simply running against cisgender female athletes despite her body’s natural male hormone production (Beggs’ story still drew increased news media attention, most likely since it occurred first). However, she, too, was thrust into the spotlight after capturing the 2017 Connecticut Class M 100-meter title during her freshman campaign, and finishing second in the state open one year later (Fader, 2018) and, subsequently, being the focal point of a civil lawsuit brought about by the families of three students who competed against that was intended to bar transgender athletes from competing on women-only teams in the Constitution State (Barnes, 2020; Megan, 2020).
Although some most likely viewed these two cases through a lens that aligned with their individual gender ideology, it is possible that the mainstream news media, because of their ability to frame subjects and set the public agenda, played a part in the ways in which the masses viewed the issue of transgender athletes at the youth level. Academic research, such as Buzuvis (2011), has scrutinized state athletic association rules and outlined the “legal, medical, and educational” values that should play a part in the formation of trans-friendly policies (p. 3). And other literature, such as Capuzza (2016), uses (qualitative) textual analysis to document the portrayal of the transgender community in U.S. newspaper coverage. However, few scholars—aside from Adams’ (2020) unpublished master’s thesis—have studied how individual transgender athletes, and their participation as a whole, are represented by legacy media outlets in online content.
Since the debate of fairness and equal opportunity in high school athletics is likely to continue, with the Biden administration withdrawing government support for the aforementioned Connecticut lawsuit aimed at banning transgender athletes from girls’ high school athletics in February 2021, and South Dakota initiating an executive order the following month to prohibit trans student-athlete participation (“Biden Administration Withdraws Form Transgender Athlete Case,” 2021; Ennis, 2021), this study examines news framing tactics directed at both Beggs and Yearwood. The online articles analyzed were published by local and national newspapers during 2016 to 2018, a timeframe in which both athletes’ tenure in high school athletics overlapped and the debate surrounding the participation of these two transgender athletes first received widespread press. The local versus national news dynamic was selected because audience consideration and proximity have shown to influence the type, and depth, of coverage that a news story is likely to receive (Jerit et al., 2018). Therefore, by conducting a content analysis that coded for the presence, and absence, of framing descriptors, this study determines how media covered the issue of transgender athlete participation through the lens of both Beggs and Yearwood.
The Participation Debate
As Texas and Connecticut have different rules that dictate the participation of high school transgender athletes, it was difficult for many to understand why Beggs—who transitioned from female to male—had been permitted to wrestle girls, even though he received a minimal dose of self-administered testosterone shots each day to help him achieve the hormone levels of a normal teenage boy. Some perceived him to have an advantage that gave him the ability to easily breeze through the competition. Others, however, claimed that Beggs was simply an athlete who had been trapped by an unusual predicament that was unavoidable on his part. Similarly, the parents of athletes who had to run against Yearwood thought it was unfair that she was able to compete in girls’ track events solely because of her gender identity, hence the lawsuit.
The debate on both sides of the transgender athlete issue ensued because of the somewhat conservative stance of the Texas UIL and the more progressive-leaning policy of the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference (CAIC). Owing to the UIL’s view toward athlete participation, referred to as the “birth certificate” rule, Beggs had no choice (Smith, 2016). His petition to be given the right to be on the boys’ team had been denied (T. Barnes, 2018). Thus, if he wanted to have a high school career, his only option was to wrestle girls. And it was this complicated circumstance that led one opposing parent, a practicing attorney, to file a lawsuit that aimed to ban him from competition (Florek, 2017). Yearwood, on the contrary, who was born a male but identified as female, was able to freely run on the girls’ track team because, according to her school, she is a girl. Unlike the UIL, the CAIC determined gender based on self-identification, and not the box that was checked on one’s birth certificate (Riley, 2018). Thus, as Yearwood identified as female, she did not need hormone replacement therapy or sex reassignment surgery to be eligible for competition.
Since 2018, both athletes have graduated high school and made the jump to college, though Beggs, as of this writing, is the only one to continue his athletic career. Currently, Beggs is a junior grappler at NAIA Life University in Marietta, Georgia, who has yet to compete in collegiate wrestling after redshirting his first year while recovering from “top” surgery (Harding, 2020). Yearwood is presently enrolled at North Carolina Central University, but has decided to not run in college for fear of being in the public spotlight again, not knowing how she would be able to “handle another four years of either the same criticism, or even worse criticism” (Wang, 2021, para. 45). Although both have taken action to fight for transgender rights in scholastic sports over pressure from traditionally conservative states to initiate laws banning the participation of trans student-athletes, Beggs has taken a more vocal approach, telling Outsports, “I don’t want any other kid to go through what I went through. Trans kids need this chance to be who they are, so that [is] why I’m here” (Webb, 2021, para. 3). As of March 2021, according to The New York Times Union, 25 states were considering legislation to legalize the exclusion of transgender youth from amateur athletics (Brassil, 2021).
Masculine Hegemony of Sport
Since the introduction of organized sport as an extracurricular activity (Lewis, 1970), it has been associated with hegemonic culture because it provides a way for social-order dominance to continually be constructed and reconstructed in a manner that ultimately limits opportunity for women (Bryson, 1987). This notion of masculine hegemony has provided a framework for the scrutiny of difficulties that arise whenever the issues of sport and gender clash (Pringle, 2005). Connell (1990) posits that hegemonic masculinity stresses the importance of an aggressive male character through the “subordination of women” and the “marginalization of gay men” (p. 94). Connell and Messerschmidt (2005) later expanded on this view by noting that the concept of hegemony was most powerful in relation to the patriarchal male and the obedience of heterosexual women.
As Creedon (1994) writes, sport serves as a “metaphor for values in American culture” (p. 5), one that positions men as the dominant figures and women as the supporting cast. And it is this common thread between masculinity, heterosexuality, and sport that makes it appear, on the surface, that gay and lesbian athletes are not accepted within the context of athletics (Kian et al., 2008). Furthermore, hegemony is likely to exist because the basic concept of sport strays from the common ideals that are typically associated with femininity. Whereas men are viewed as powerful and physically strong, traits that resonate within the core values of sport, women who possess these characteristics challenge cultural stereotypes and are often perceived to be lesbians, unless they give off a feminine image outside of competition (Dann & Everbach, 2016).
Much of the early research concerned with the breakdown of hegemonic barriers in sport evolved after the passage of Title IX in 1972 (Kaestner & Xu, 2010). In her article for Philosophy & Public Affairs, English (1977) refutes the major arguments against equality in athletics, mainly psychological differences and inherent ability, and states that these factors should not be used to judge the success, and failure, of female athletes. For instance, she writes that the most straightforward ways to separate athletes into competition classes—which have traditionally been age, weight, and sex—do not always have an overarching effect in sports such as equestrian, auto racing, and riflery, where the skill differences between men and women are virtually unnoticeable.
However, English (1977) also contends that the main justification for separate, but equal, teams between men and women is that integration across the board could have an adverse effect on the identity of sport consumers. If men outshined their counterparts on co-ed teams, she argues, there would not be as many star female athletes. This, in turn, could lead the public to believe that women are “naturally inferior” (p. 273). Conversely, those in favor of the hegemonic condition in sport believe, according to Postow (1980), that the status quo must be maintained to preserve the gender roles that have been rooted in society. A recent example of this occurred on November 28, 2020, when Vanderbilt University kicker Sarah Fuller became the first female student-athlete to participate in a Power Five NCAA football game. News coverage of the event, overall, was primarily positive, describing Fuller as a “trailblazing college football player” (Hunt, 2020, para. 1) and a “household name” (Sparks, 2020, para. 13). However, some individuals with viewpoints counter to female inclusion in college football took to social media to describe her kick, writing, “If a guy kicked like that, he wouldn’t be on the team. This is a forced political stunt, not a worthy accomplishment. It’s like encouraging the disabled kid in mock competitions” (MCMXIIC, 2020). This anti-inclusion perspective toward women in male-dominated sports illustrates that regardless of positive attempts aimed at breaking down hegemonic barriers for co-ed sports participation, there will almost always be someone who pushes against it in the public sphere.
The Framing of Female Athletes
As sports journalism is a largely male-dominated industry (Sherwood et al., 2018), it inevitably influences the formation and protection of masculine hegemony in society. As Dann and Everbach (2016) note, the maintenance of the hegemonic pecking order in sport is achieved through the news media tactic of symbolic annihilation, in which female athletes are either absent, trivialized, or sexualized in standard coverage. It has been demonstrated that news media, alone, promote the masculine hegemonic culture through the portrayal of female athletes for their beauty and finesse more than talent or skill (Bernstein & Kian, 2013). Thus, showing women in strong, powerful roles is perceived to be a threat to the male-centric network that is sports news media.
Bernstein and Kian (2013) state that the most common descriptor that sports journalists use in their coverage of female athletes are ones that portray these individuals more as noncompetitive, nurturing beings rather than fierce athletes. This is evident in Shugart’s (2003) analysis of news media coverage that pertained to the 1999 U.S. women’s soccer team and its run to the FIFA World Cup. To frame the players, journalists tended to focus more on their families and personal relationships with men instead of the achievements and accolades garnered on the field. Taking this approach sexualized the players in an attempt to gain a male audience, which ultimately reinforces the stereotype that female athletes are valued more for their personal lives and physical appearance than athletic ability.
Duncan and Messner (1998) also state that most news media depictions of female athletes revolve around their looks. Consequently, to determine if these hegemonic standards are present in sports content catered toward a younger audience, Hardin et al. (2002) conducted a content analysis of editorial photos in Sports Illustrated Kids. The findings from this study, which built on past research that found that news media are a powerful force in terms of shaping “children’s beliefs, attitudes, and perceptions” (Hardin et al., 2002, p. 344), indicate that gender stereotypes and sexual differences continue to be present in visual content.
Media Coverage of LGBTQ Athletes
To understand the significance of the framing of content related to Beggs, Yearwood, and their respective states’ stances on transgender athlete participation, it is important to first consider the representation of past lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) athletes. Although acceptance of this community has become more mainstream due to the increased prevalence of gay and lesbian actors on television and in “emerging new media series” (Billings et al., 2015, p. 145), there is still a hegemonic culture associated with sports journalism, one that is less quick to adapt to social change.
Until recently, there was sparse academic research on LGBTQ issues in sports journalism, mainly because so few athletes had come out as gay in the public spotlight. Dworkin and Wachs (1998) performed one of the first media studies after two athletes—Magic Johnson and Greg Louganis—announced that they are HIV positive. The inquiry found that Johnson, a basketball hall of famer, was covered more extensively than Louganis, which the authors contribute to the fact that diving, because it is a noncontact sport, does not construct hegemonic masculinity (p. 11). (Diving also has fewer participants, fewer fans, and always receives less coverage than basketball, no matter who is involved.)
After Jason Collins became the first gay professional athlete who was an active player at the time of his self-outing in April 2013, Kian et al. (2015) conducted a textual analysis of related coverage from the five most popular U.S. newspapers and online sports sites to analyze the news media frames directed toward the NBA center. The emergent themes illustrate that Collins’s announcement was framed as a significant milestone at the time, which points toward sports news media slowly becoming more accepting of LGBTQ issues.
Dann and Everbach (2016) added another layer of depth to this topic when they examined news coverage of the self-outings of Collins and Brittney Griner, a WNBA player who made her 2013 announcement in SI.com. Although sports news media applauded both athletes for their courage, Collins’s announcement was portrayed as a more important story, whereas Griner’s was seen to be normal. The researchers note that this may be due to the common stereotype that most female basketball players are gay (Kauer & Krane, 2006).
In addition, existing literature centers on transgender athletes and the barriers that they face in regard to equal opportunity, but none has looked at how these individuals are portrayed by sports journalists. Most, like Ziegler and Huntley (2013), document the specific participation policies in place at the high school, intercollegiate, and Olympic levels, and provide recommendations to foster inclusion for transgender athletes. The climate of trans-friendly participation at the youth level has been studied; for instance, Trussell et al. (2018) note that, although parents of LGBTQ athletes were fearful that their child would face homophobia by either a teammate or opposing player, most sport communities were accepting.
Framing
Proposed by Goffman (1974), framing reasons that people use interpretive schemas to classify new information. This, in turn, helps one organize experiences and place ideas within a field of meaning. However, despite this broad theoretical approach to social sciences, there was not a widely applicable way to show “how frames become embedded within and make themselves manifest within a text” until Robert Entman (1993) clarified what he saw as a “fractured paradigm” (p. 51). Entman gave the discipline one of its most cited definitions, outlining what media frames are, how they work, and the perceived benefits that exist whenever gatekeepers frame the news.
Tankard (2001) wrote that media framing allows a journalist to “favor a particular side without showing an explicit bias” (p. 95). Brinson and Stohl (2012) later expanded on this definition by proposing that frames “form the narrative structure through which newsmakers produce, organize, and explain events or issues” (p. 271). Frames provide context to news consumers by disseminating information in a way that emphasizes certain aspects over others. Although framing is still viewed as a somewhat “dysfunctional” concept because no formal way to conceptualize or operationalize it exists (Cacciatore et al., 2016, p. 8), academic research on framing is popular, among other reasons, because of the digital news sources and information disseminators that researchers now have access to via the internet. Traditional framing analysis was long applied only to newspaper or magazine stories and, occasionally, television news broadcasts, although more content could have been studied as suggested by broad applicability of Goffman (1974). Now framing studies also examine everything from blogs to discussion threads, user comments on forums to social media posts.
Therefore, framing is this study’s theoretical framework because it is thought to be “useful for understanding media portrayals that resonate with cultural ideologies” (Cranmer et al., 2014, p. 147). A content analysis that codes for frames is useful for this study because content analysis is “still the most widely used method within the sport communication field” (Sherwood & Nicholson, 2013, p. 85). This study examined how the primary coverage area of a news source can influence the specific frames present within selected content. It aimed to build on previous research that suggests that time, word constraint, organizational policies, and reporter credibility, affect the flow of news into the public sphere by the editorial gatekeepers (Shoemaker et al., 2001). In this study, frames were operationalized by considering source selection, story balance (in terms of supportive and condemning voices), and characteristics of the text, such as whether transgender athletes were described as cheating or having an inherent advantage. The following two questions, thus, guided data collection and analysis.
Method
Data Collection and Content Analysis
As their participation was a hot-button social issue within the news media, this study examines if the reach and coverage area of a traditional news agency had an impact on the framing of these two high-profile transgender athletes, and the specific rules that enable their participation at the high school level. Although academic research has focused on the gender disparity between the coverage of men’s and women’s athletics (Bernstein & Kian, 2013) and the depiction of sports figures who have come out as gay (Kian et al., 2015), none examined framing of successful transgender athletes at the high school level. Therefore, a content analysis was performed for this study; content analysis allows a researcher to systematically assign “communication content to categories” and analyze this relationship using “statistical methods” (Rife et al., 1998, p. 3). Textual analysis was not chosen because it is more subjective, and results are not generalizable (McKee, 2003).
Population of Coverage
This study’s overall goal was to determine how local and national news sources framed the participation of Beggs and Yearwood. Coverage related to Beggs was practical to study because a Google News search of his name yielded 184 results during a one-year span from August 2016, the start of his junior year, to August 2018—the beginning of his collegiate wrestling career at Life University, an NAIA program in Marietta, Georgia.
Although she did not receive as much news media exposure during the same time, a Google News search on Yearwood, who won Class M outdoor state titles in both the 100- and 200-meter dash in 2017, returned 81 results. However, note that articles pertaining to Yearwood were published during her freshman and sophomore track seasons. So, since she still had two years of high school eligibility remaining as of 2018, it was likely her story would continue to be picked up by various news outlets in stories outside the scope of this study.
These two cases were also viable for this study because the athletic associations that govern these two athletes’ home states had different sanctions regarding the specific team (boys or girls) that could be on during competition. As of 2021, according to a New York Times analysis, Connecticut and 16 other states, along with the District of Columbia, permit trans athletes to compete based on their gender identities without needing medical intervention or legal action, like an official name change, while lawmakers in 25 other states, including Texas, have introduced legislation to not only restrict transgender athlete participation in girls’ sports, but also require “any athlete whose gender was questioned to undergo a physical or to provide certain medical information, such as the results of hormone tests or evidence or operations, to certify ability to compete” (Brassil, 2021, para. 21). Finally, coverage included that Beggs’s and Yearwood’s athletic achievements were controversial because both had hormone levels greater than those of their competition.
The sample was articles first published in The Dallas Morning News, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Houston Chronicle, and San Antonio Express-News that centered on Beggs and coverage from the Hartford Courant, New Haven Register, Connecticut Post, and Manchester Journal Inquirer related to Yearwood. These media were selected because they are the largest newspapers, by circulation, in each athlete’s home state (“Top 10 Connecticut newspapers by circulation,” 2021; “Top 10 Texas Daily Newspapers by Circulation,” 2021). National news sources—Associated Press, USA Today, and Washington Post—were selected because they are the three most notable national news agencies that regularly covered both athletes. (The New York Times did not publish any original content that directly referenced Beggs or Yearwood, but ran only Associated Press articles in print and online.)
Data collection required access to NewsBank, an online database that “consolidates current and archived information from thousands of newspaper titles” (NewsBank, Inc., n.d.). Online stories, found after searches by relevant keywords, were used because of limited access to printed versions. Keywords used were the athlete’s name, high school he or she attended, and his or her gender identification, and sport (i.e., “Mack Beggs,” “Trinity High School,” “female-to-male wrestler,” and “Andraya Yearwood,” “Cromwell High School,” “male-to-female track athlete”). The only news source needed for this research that NewsBank did not include was The Dallas Morning News, so coverage related to Beggs was gathered directly from the News’ search engine. Any piece of coverage (hard news, feature, column, letter to the editor, etc.) from each news source that referenced either Beggs or Yearwood was included in the final sample (Table 1). This totaled 137 articles (104 related to Beggs and 33 to Yearwood).
Coverage Included in Sample
Newspaper portrayals of Beggs and Yearwood in local and national news sources were coded using content analysis methods. Articles were saved in .PDF format and, working independently, two coders read each article and filled out a corresponding Qualtrics survey to code type of news article examined (hard news story, feature article, editorial, news brief, or letter to the editor), athlete mentioned in-text (Beggs, Yearwood, or both), mentions in either the headline or body text that the athlete identifies as transgender, and so on. The unit of analysis was the entire story, including headline, and any subhead(s), but excluding photo cutlines. Photo captions were not included as a unit of analysis because it was likely that not all photos were focused on one of the athletes and/or NewsBank did capture all written captions/cutlines.
This study’s codebook also focused on in-text mentions of the athlete’s natural male hormonal production (Yearwood) or being prescribed testosterone supplements (Beggs) and if lawsuits were filed in each athlete’s home state aimed at barring participation of trans athletes. Furthermore, researchers coded for reference to a perceived participation frame, or lack thereof (if it was suggested that the athlete’s participation was a “controversy,” “debate,” or deemed to be “unfair”), and positive (e.g., if the athlete is referenced as “courageous,” “a star,” or “an inspiration”) and negative (e.g., if it was referenced that an athlete’s participation was on an “uneven playing field” or gave him or her an “unfair advantage”) descriptive phrases attached to each transgender athlete and his or her high school participation. Coding for the participation frame and the positive/negative descriptors attached to each athlete was straightforward; each independent coder searched each unit of analysis (article) for the presence of the aforementioned specific phrases. If one of the above phrases was not present, it was not coded as having a negative participation frame/positive and/or negative descriptor present.
Intercoder reliability was acceptable. General percent agreement scores across all categories ranged from 76.2% to 95.2%, with an average agreement of 84%. In addition, Krippendorff’s Alpha ranged from 0.602 to 0.939, with an average of 0.762. Although Krippendorff (2004) suggests that an average agreement of 0.800 or greater is ideal, the researches decided that α ≥ 0.667 is acceptable. Coders first documented a number of identifying characteristics, including the name of the news source, headline, and the online section in which the article appeared. Quote representation, overall focus, and descriptors were analyzed using a customized codebook (See Appendix A). Context was a subjective measurement during the coding process; aside from searching the headline and body text of each article for the presence of the aforementioned frames/descriptors, each researcher made subjective decisions about whether the frame/descriptor was not taken out of context. The intercoder reliability coefficients suggests the two independent coders generally were in sync in regard to the subjective context coding.
Results
Findings indicate that local and national news sources framed participation of these two former transgender high school athletes in a similar manner in terms of descriptors, those who are quoted, and the overall balance and tone of coverage. Virtually every piece of content examined equally presented the transgender athlete debate from a neutral perspective and presented two sides of the issue. Although negative descriptors directed toward the athlete’s participation—such as “unfair,” “uneven playing field,” “advantage,” and “controversy”—were used frequently in coverage (n = 66, or 47.8% of articles), positive descriptors also appeared in-text. More often than not, they described an athlete’s performance, such as “dominating” or “manhandling,” and were not used to frame the participation policies as a whole.
Again, this study’s first research question sought to determine whether national and local news coverage differed in terms of a focus on rules governing the athletic competitions. Every article from a national news source (n = 33) gave a detailed overview of what specific rulebooks stated at that time, compared to only 63.5% (n = 66) of articles from local news sources. A chi-square analysis showed that the difference in proportions was significant, χ2 (1) = 16.686, p = .000. Furthermore, national news sources were more likely to mention that a transgender athlete received testosterone—or that his or her body naturally produced it—than their local counterparts. Of 33 national news articles, 84.8% (n = 28) mentioned “testosterone,” “hormones,” or “steroids.” But local news sources perceived this as relevant information to include in a story only 47.6% (n = 50) of the time. Again, a significant difference emerged between national and local news sources, χ2 (1) = 14.162, p = .000, which illustrated that national news sources were more likely to reference “testosterone.”
Finally, the second research question examined differences between national and local news in terms of challenges to the athletes’ participation. National news sources were more likely to mention a petition or lawsuit that aimed to ban participation of the transgender athlete. About two-thirds (n = 22) of the national coverage related to Beggs and Yearwood referenced a lawsuit or petition, as opposed to 31.7% (n = 33) of the articles from local news sources, χ2 (1) = 12.724, p = .000.
Not every variable coded for showed statistically significant differences. For instance, local and national news sources equally referenced a transgender athlete’s accolades—such as being undefeated or winning a regional or state title. Also, no apparent statistically significant differences emerged between the use of positive and negative descriptors in-text (national positive = 15.2%; local positive = 12.5%; national negative = 57.6%; local negative = 44.8%).
Discussion
Although research shows that sports journalism actively tries to uphold the hegemonic culture associated with sport, this study suggests that current coverage of marginalized social groups within the sphere of athletics strays from this ideal. Instead, both journalists who write for hometown newspapers, and those who report for news sources with a national reach, mostly portray transgender high school athletes similarly. The main findings that showed statistically significant differences were in references of the participation policy, use of athlete testosterone, a local petition or lawsuit, and the mention—in both the headline and body of the article—that the athlete was transgender.
National news sources, for one, were far more likely to include this information in their coverage than the local outlets. In other words, articles from the Associated Press, USA Today, and Washington Post encompassed more background information that pertained to each athlete. Part of this can most likely be attributed to the fact that these journalists catered their content to their intended audience (Pavlik, 2004), many of whom were probably unfamiliar with Beggs and Yearwood prior to reading the coverage. Thus, it makes sense that these journalists were as detailed as possible in their reporting to give the reader all the pertinent information needed to comprehend the context of the issue.
In addition, it can be construed that the local newspapers believed that their readers were more likely up-to-date on the transgender athlete debate in each state and, as a result, did not need to inundate them with information that was already widely known, whether in the headline or body of an article. This coincides with Dor’s (2003) research, which found that newspaper headlines “optimize the relevance” of stories by providing enough information for readers to comprehend context (p. 696). Therefore, if it is an article in a recurring series, there is the chance that a journalist will leave out certain material in the headline if it does not provide adequate background information.
Although it was not originally proposed in the form of a research question prior to the coding process, this analysis reveals that most news coverage did not frame the athlete, nor transgender debate as a whole, in a completely positive or negative light. Rather, articles included in the sample tended to be neutral and represented two sides of the issue by quoting someone who was for, and against, athletic inclusion at the high school level.
In addition, though the circumstances surrounding each athlete’s participation were typically portrayed as a “controversy” because most people took a side, the coders noted that these descriptors were not directed at each individual athlete. Rather than framing Beggs or Yearwood as the problem, the coverage usually deflected blame toward the athletic associations themselves and depicted the problem as the outdated rules that were put in place long before each athlete began to compete. While a lot of the Texas content placed fault on the UIL and its decision to not let Beggs wrestle in the boys’ division, even though he wanted to, Connecticut newspaper articles were more positive toward the CAIC’s policy that enabled an athlete to compete based solely on his or her gender identity.
Overall, results illustrate that both Beggs and Yearwood, as individuals, were never given a negative focus; national and local news sources never portrayed either athlete as being the focal point of this debate in college athletics. Instead, each news article always made it evident that the state athletic association dictated the athlete’s opportunity to compete and not the choice of the athlete him or herself. For instance, three separate Fort Worth Star-Telegram news stories written by the same reporter, Peter Dawson, during Beggs’ 2016 trot to the Texas Class 6A girls state title included the line, “Beggs has previously stated that he’d prefer to compete in the boys division, but UIL rules mandate participants must compete against the gender that appears on their birth certificate” (Dawson, 2018, para. 8). Similarly, while detailing Yearwood’s ability to run on her high schools girls’ track team in a 2017 editorial, Jeff Jacobs (2017) of the Hartford Courant wrote that, “Andraya Yearwood identified as a girl. She is recognized by her school district as a girl. Those are the parameters of the CIACT rules. They are clear. Andraya should be able to compete as a girl” (para. 10). As evident by these two aforementioned examples, newspaper content was generally supportive of both athletes’ right to compete by openly informing readers why they were permitted to participate as transgender athletes based on each state’s specific stance.
Limitations and Suggestions for Future Research
This study is not without limitations. Since much of the local and national coverage tended to focus on Beggs, probably because he was the first high-profile case of a successful transgender athlete at the high school level (and possibly Yearwood’s youth), there was much more coverage of him than of Yearwood. Perhaps we could make more observations about Yearwood’s coverage if there were of it. (The relative lack of coverage of Yearwood may also be attributed to the intersectionality of her race and gender [Crenshaw, 1989]. In sports reporting, when an individual does not fit stereotypical norms [i.e., white, masculine, and heterosexual], there tends to be a lack of coverage [Dorer & Marschik, 2020]. Thus, further research needs to be conducted to examine the intersectionality of race and transgender identity in sports.)
Furthermore, all content analyzed for this research was centered on each athlete’s career at the high school level. Both have graduated and moved onto college since 2018, the timeframe in which Beggs and Yearwood’s high school athletic careers overlapped. Thus, it would be pertinent to examine news content published since then, especially considering the rights of trans amateur athletes is a hot-button issue as more states attempt to pass legislation aimed at barring trans individuals from competing at the high school level.
Although the results from this study cannot be generalized to all transgender athletes, nor each state’s athletic association rules, the results can serve as a starting point when considering the different factors that may contribute to the portrayal of marginalized sport groups. As transgender athlete participation will most likely continue to be a prominent and newsworthy topic, this study can help to guide future academic studies. This research could range from a textual analysis to uncover the hidden themes and frames present in the same sample to another, more in-depth quantitative content analysis that encompasses news coverage related to every publicized high school transgender athlete during a specific timeframe, or both and more.
Footnotes
Appendix A
Article ID
Newspaper
Article type
Article focus
Athletic association rules/policies
Athlete accolades/performance
Identifier 1
Identifier 2
Identifier 3
Testosterone
Lawsuit/court case
Participation frame
Positive descriptors
Negative descriptors