Sporting Scars

Abstract

Taking inspiration from the ethico-onto-epistemological implications of new materialisms, this poem is a modest and partial attempt at experimenting with new ways of bringing my sporting past-present-future together to reimagine feminist politics, vulnerabilities, and the implications of sporting policies that continue to reinforce gender binaries, harming, and excluding so many. This piece of writing was triggered—in a visceral and unexpected way—by a surge of transphobic discourse in Aotearoa New Zealand society in 2021, with groups of athletes, pseudo-feminists, doctors, politicians, and the public protesting transgender women’s rights to participate in sport at elite and community levels.