Female Olympians’ voices: Female sports categories and International Olympic Committee Transgender guidelines

The fair inclusion of female athletes at elite and Olympic levels is secured in most sports by way of female categories because of the extensively documented biological and performance-related differences between the sexes. International policy for transgender inclusion is framed by the definitive International Olympic Committee transgender guidelines in which the International Olympic Committee confirms the ‘overriding sporting objective is and remains the guarantee of fair competition’ and transwomen can be excluded from female categories if, in the interests of fairness, this is necessary and proportionate. Feminist theorists argue justice requires that women have equal moral standing in the sociocultural–political structures of society including sport. As such their voices should carry equal democratic weight. However, female elite and Olympic athletes are rarely heard in the sociocultural–political discourses of academic literature or policy formulation for transgender inclusion in female categories by the International Olympic Committee and governing bodies of sport. This empirical study investigated the views and presents the ‘voices’ of 19 female Olympians. The main findings include (1) these athletes thought both female and transgender athletes should be fairly included in elite sport, (2) unanimous agreement there is not enough scientific evidence to show no competitive advantage for transwomen, (3) unanimous agreement that the International Olympic Committee should revisit the rules and scientific evidence for transgender inclusion in female categories, and (4) the majority of athletes felt that they could not ask questions or discuss this issue without being accused of transphobia.

Increasing Access to and Success in Higher Education and the Role of Ethical Leadership

This chapter discusses the importance of access and success in U.S. higher education, particularly positing how marginalized students still, in some ways, fail to both access higher education and succeed in it and stresses the need for the fair inclusion of marginalized student population into higher education, giving them fair chances to succeed. The chapter holds culturally irrelevant pedagogy, educational policy handicaps, income inequities, dwindling education funds, and biased assessment criteria which favor native speakers of English over others responsible for this state and that these should be addressed immediately. The chapter, leaning on scholars like R.W. Rebore, also emphasizes the role of ethical leadership as indispensable to ensure the execution of different policies and actions that align with notions of equity and justice. This will, the chapter argues, help ensure that the disadvantaged student population gets to enjoy the rewards of higher education as much as their white colleagues do.

Fair Subject Selection in Clinical and Social Scientific Research

This chapter provides a critical overview and interpretation of fair subject selection in clinical and social scientific research. It first provides an analytical framework for thinking about the problem of fair subject selection. It then argues that fair subject selection is best understood as a set of four subprinciples, each with normative force and each with distinct and often conflicting implications for the selection of participants: fair inclusion, fair burden sharing, fair opportunity, and fair distribution of third-party risks. It then defends an approach to navigating the conflicting imperatives of these subprinciples, one which privileges the need to include epistemically distinct groups in research, before concluding by considering the most pressing research questions regarding fair subject selection.

The main directions in the historiography of Christianity in Chersonesos and Tauris

This paper is devoted to the historiography of Chersonesus and Taurida. The paper notes that Crimea has a very important spiritual and geopolitical significance. There is a huge layer of scientific research that relates to the history of the Crimea both in the state-political and religious direction. The fair inclusion of Crimea into Russia in 2014 raised fears in NATO countries that Russia would be able to regain its geopolitical weight lost in 1991, when the USSR was criminally liquidated. Many countries dependent on the United States, such as Turkey, still do not recognize Crimea as part of Russia. Now it is necessary to determine in the space of historiography of Christianity in the Crimea geopolitical trends in history and modernity. This article highlights the directions of historiography of this topic, and also draws attention to the need to study how this issue is studied in other countries, including Turkey, where revanchist positions are strong and the tendency to restore the positions held by the Ottoman Empire. The classification of the historiographical trends of Christianity in Crimea at the same time emphasizes the possibilities of potential studies of the history of Crimea and Christianity in it.

Squaring the Circle of Multiculturalism? Religious Freedom and Gender Equality in Canada

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is globally unique in that it includes explicit commitments to the values of multiculturalism and gender equality. Section 27 of the Charter provides that: “[It] shall be interpreted in a manner consistent with the preservation and enhancement of the multicultural heritage of Canadians,” whereas section 28 states that: “Notwithstanding anything in this Charter, the rights and freedoms referred to in it are guaranteed equally to male and female persons.” The Canadian experiment (as I will call it) offers us a rare, living laboratory in which a thriving constitutional system searches for legal and institutional pathways to addressing seemingly incongruous demands, obligations, rights, and protections. This article identifies a range of concrete legal responses developed and articulated by Canadian judges and other policymakers in response to claims for fair inclusion raised by members of religious minority communities. Contributing to ongoing theoretical and legal debates, I will conceptualize three variants of such fair inclusion claims. I will then assess what the Canadian multicultural experiment can teach other comparable countries about principled and pragmatic responses to the challenge of “living together” in shared spaces such as workplaces, schools, courthouses, and during citizenship ceremonies. The discussion will then explore the promises and pitfalls of a jurisprudential approach that resists the hierarchy of rights formulas, and tries instead to cover all grounds so as to neither erase diversity nor sacrifice equality.