Talk + Debate | SHARP Talks
Can a woman's body speak? Reflections on the Imane Khelif case and what is expected of the female body in elite sport
Ana Lúcia Santos (CES)
October 30, 2024, 15h00 (GMT)
Online event
The evolution of women's participation in sport has been marked by many challenges and few opportunities. In 2024, more than 100 years after the first modern Olympics, Paris hosted the first Olympic Games with gender parity in competition. Although this milestone symbolises progress towards gender equality at the highest level, women with non-normative sexual characteristics, namely trans and intersex women, continue to face considerable obstacles. Examples include the controversy surrounding Algerian boxer Imane Khelif at the Paris Games, the absence of athletics figures such as Caster Semenya and the lack of participation by trans athletes. In this presentation, taking the rules of athletics and the controversy surrounding Khelif in boxing as a case study, we will explore the techniques of managing bodies and maintaining sexual order, focusing on hormonal regulation and sexual characteristics.
Ana Lúcia Santos has been conducting research at the Centre for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra since 2012. She has integrated research projects related to LGBTQ citizenship and disability-related projects. She is currently part of the Research Project REMEMBER - Experiences of LGBTQ Older People in Democratic Portugal (1974-2020). She holds a degree in Philosophy from the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Coimbra and a PhD in Feminist Studies from the same Faculty with a thesis on the regulation of sexually non-normative bodies in sport. Research areas: queer theory, crip theory, feminist studies, intersex studies, trans studies, philosophy, posthumanism, feminist biology. Besides her academic work, she has been involved in LGBTQI activism in Portugal in the past, having been one of the co-founders of the Anti-Homophobia and Transphobia Platform of Coimbra.
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