Which bodies are allowed on the platform? In the May and June, 2021 issues of Performance Menu, I explored attitudes surrounding trans athletes in strength sports, and discussed USA Weightlifting’s Policy for Transgender Inclusion. (Notably, two other Performance Menu contributors wrote an article for the July, 2021 issue, also making the case for trans inclusion.) In my articles, titled “Share the Platform, Parts I and II,” I unflinchingly state that trans athletes belong in sports. Full stop.
 
Beyond policies specific to individual sports, the way that athletes are treated both officially and socially within a given sports community reflects our broader society. As I pointed out in “Share the Platform,” “discrimination [against trans athletes], beginning in the already gendered sphere of sport, can easily bleed into other areas of life, including general access to healthcare, gender-affirming programs, and other activities.” This same paradigm applies to cis athletes who for reasons beyond their gender challenge dominant culture norms. (For a more robust exploration of gender- and sex-related terms, please refer to the abovementioned articles. For now, please note that to be cisgender means to identify as the gender you were assigned at birth and to be transgender means to identify as a gender other than that you were assigned at birth.)
 
Let’s now return to this exploration of who is welcome on the platform. Who is welcome in strength sport? Which bodies are valued in sports? Which bodies are able to move through the world in a particular way? Whose bodies do we judge and denigrate, and whose do we laud?
 
I began, in my prior articles, with a discussion of trans athletes because anti-trans legislation has been particularly virulent lately. However, there have been some amazing victories for trans athletes, too. In the weightlifting world, Laurel Hubbard competed at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics in the +87 weight class, making her the first openly trans female athlete to compete at the Olympics in any sport. Interestingly, Laurel did not win a medal, undoubtedly disappointing transphobes who insist that trans women have an unfair advantage over cis women in athletic competition. What Laurel did do, however, was gracefully occupy the platform and perform to the best of her abilities. A job well done.
 
I now want to explore a very interesting phenomenon I’ve witnessed at a variety of weightlifting competitions, which I feel sits under the same umbrella of sport representing a microcosm of broader societal patterns, attitudes, and behaviors, and which begets the same questions of which bodies are valued in sports, and how are they judged?
 
I began weightlifting not too long ago, right at the cusp of my 30s. As I began attending meets, I noticed that many of the women of color competing at said meets were donning amazing, bright, oftentimes legless singlets for competition. Intriguing, I thought!
 
However! Before we go any further, there are few important things to note: Throughout these articles, I will use the terms “women,” “of color,” and the acronym “BIPOC.” BIPOC stands for Black, Indigenous, People of Color. I know that many BIPOC folx choose the term “People of the Global Majority (PGM).” Indeed, BIPOC folx are statistically the majority of humans in the world! And, I love that the term PGM plants itself firmly in that status and power. However, after discussing this term at length with BIPOC humans in my life, and others engaged in critical race theory, I have gleaned that many people prefer “BIPOC” or “people of color” because it reflects their experience being oppressed by a privileged white majority operating within a violent system of white supremacy. Additionally, in my experience as an academic in the western, American context, I have found that the term “people of the global majority” oftentimes circulates within academic circles as a “more informed than thou art” term used by white folx to distance themselves from white guilt. For these reasons, I will be using “people of color” and “BIPOC” instead of “people of the global majority.” I will also be using “woman” and “women,” instead of “womyn” or “womxn,” because they are the spellings used by strength sports themselves, which do still operate predominantly within a binary gender system. I may even use “BIWOC” to indicate “Black and Indigenous Women of Color,” because it’s simple and everyone loves a good portmanteau. Furthermore, I myself am white, and I identify as queer and gender-expansive. However, gender is somewhat nonsense (again, please see “Share the Platform”), and I love being a woman in a strength sport. I also acknowledge that I have passing privilege, meaning I often appear as straight and cis, and given that I am also able-bodied, English-speaking, and indeed white, I hold a lot of privilege that it is my ethical duty to acknowledge as we discuss this topic. Onward!
 
When I noticed these BIWOC wearing outstanding singlets, I immediately thought of #blackgirlmagic. This hashtag, coined by CaShawn Thompson in 2013 as a simplification of “black girls are magic,” captures the utter badassery and miraculous resilience of black women. While I believe in the power of a hashtag that uplifts the experience of black women specifically, I also think the beauty and resilience of all women of color deserves celebrating. As I carried on observing who was wearing the bold singlets, I did indeed notice that many BIWOC women, including Afro-Latina, black African, and other brown women, were sporting such spandex. I also began noticing that it was many of the women in the heavier weight classes wearing these singlets, and a sweet Venn Diagram took form in my mind. At the overlap of the brown body and the heavier body sits a group of women who are viciously judged by the cis-hetero patriarchy for the way they look and the way they literally occupy space. What better way to smash that system than by wearing a bright singlet to highlight that amazing body and how much weight it can lift?
 
The author and academic Kristen J. Sollée explores the fascinating intersections of gender, sexuality, and the occult, and she writes at length about the way the female form is judged by the male gaze in her various (and outstanding) works. She states “[w]omen and femininity have historically been judged for how pleasing they are to the eye,” and goes on to discuss the various ways fem-folx might eschew patriarchal judgement. One of those ways is to simply not care, to reclaim what beautiful is, and to be unapologetically visible. I believe these bright singlets are a means for these women of color to do so. Women in strength sports are already eschewing feminine norms, both those in heavier weight classes and those deemed “too muscular” by problematic standards of feminine beauty. BIPOC women’s bodies have historically literally been commodified, and BIPOC women continue to be judged within a paradigm that is rooted in slavery and fetishization. I think it is glorious and revolutionary to claim power within those systems by wearing shiny, legless singlets on the platform. Regardless of how much you may ultimately lift, to even exist in such a way is an amazing expression of the power of the “other,” of women, and of strong women of color.