Why Gender Matters for Safeguarding in Sport

Safeguarding in sport cannot be understood without examining gender.

In this episode, we explore the relationship between gender, violence, and safeguarding in sport, combining lived experience with sociological analysis to examine how sport systems reproduce power, exclusion, and harm.

The conversation begins with the guest’s experience as an elite athlete, where overtraining, forced training while injured, and withheld medical information were normalised in the pursuit of performance. Her health was repeatedly deprioritised, leading to long-term physical and psychological consequences. Dependent on coaches and medical staff, she felt she had little choice but to comply — and leaving sport ultimately meant losing both her career and her identity.

This experience led her to research gender as a system of power that structures institutions, including sport. The episode examines how sport has historically been organised around binary categories that reinforce masculine dominance, and how these foundations continue to shape governance, inclusion, and safeguarding practices today.

The discussion challenges the idea that sport is always a force for good, highlighting how harm and self-harm are often reframed as discipline or toughness. It also addresses contemporary debates around transgender and intersex athletes, including the return of mandatory sex testing, examined here as a serious safeguarding concern.

This episode features Madeleine Pape, sociologist, Olympian, and professor at the University of Lausanne. She specializes in sports integrity, regulation and gender in sport, the politics of inclusion, and the study of sex and gender in biomedical and sports sciences.

This episode was recorded in August 2025.

Further readings recommended by the guest in this episode:

• “Taking the Field: Women, Men, and Sports”. Michael A. Messner. University of Minnesota Press (2002). 

• “Sex Testing: Gender Policing in Women's Sport”. Lindsay Parks Pieper. Illinois: University of Illinois Press (2016). 

• “Fair and Safe Eligibility Criteria for Women's Sport: The Proposed Testing Regime Is Not Justified, Ethical, or Viable”. Williams, Heffernan, Herbert, et al.Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports (2024).

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Trigger warning - This podcast includes references to interpersonal violence, including personal accounts of abuse, harassment, and harm experienced by children and adults. Some listeners may find this distressing. Please take care while listening, pause or step away if needed, and consider accessing appropriate support if these topics affect you.

Credits

• Ideation and hosting: SCORE Sport Think Tank
• Sound, music, and post-production: Ryan Lobigs
• Visual identity: Natalia Plaza Sánchez

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