Maryana Balezina

Why does resistance to trans inclusion persist even among those who endorse equality in principle? Existing research tends to explain such opposition through prejudice, misinformation, or elite mobilization. However, public opinion consistently defies these accounts, shifting with context and expressed through appeals to fairness and biology rather than outright hostility. Sport is a particularly revealing case: it is a domain where sex segregation is seldom questioned and categorical differences are treated as natural and foundational; it exposes the deeper assumptions that make certain exclusions feel justified rather than discriminatory. This dissertation develops an alternative account, suggesting that resistance to trans inclusion is rooted in widely shared beliefs regarding the naturalness and immutability of gender categories, as well as normative expectations about institutional functioning. Drawing on political psychology, the sociology of sport, and sports philosophy, I argue that opposition is expressed through justification rather than mere affect, and that these justifications are not uniform and static; rather, they vary across contexts, policy designs, and the specific targets of inclusion. Using survey experiments with U.S. adult samples, three studies assess how support for trans inclusion is influenced by linguistic framing, competitive context, and whether the athlete is a trans man or a trans woman. The findings indicate that resistance is maintained by persistent assumptions about bodily difference, is selectively triggered by fairness concerns, and demonstrates a consistent asymmetry in the treatment of trans men and trans women, which is shaped by both essentialist beliefs and gendered hierarchies.

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