Perceptions of Transgender Athletes studied by St Bricin's students

Younger people more open to transgender athletes in Cavan Monaghan, St Bricin's College study finds.

Students from St Bricin's College have three projects in this year’s BT Young Scientist Exhibition.

As the exhibition hall buzzed with chatter, Keeva Courtney from Redhills and Sinead O’Reilly from Belturbet sat eagerly awaiting the final judges’ arrival, ahead of the awards ceremony beginning at 5.30pm this evening.

The pair felt a little weary from the event so far, but were nonetheless enjoying the experience and looking forward to the big reveal later on this evening.

Their analysis fell into the Social and Behavioural Sciences category, a project entitled ‘Beyond the Binary: Statistical Insights into Inclusion and Perceptions of Transgender Athletes in Competitive Sports'.

They were thrilled when The Anglo-Celt approached their stand to hear more about the project.

“Our project's aim focuses on the big question, should transgender athletes be allowed to compete in a category that they identify as?” explained Keeva, who feels that inclusion in sport should “allow all regardless of their age, their gender, their race or their sporting ability to feel respected, and their voice to be heard".

They sent out a survey to people in Cavan and Monaghan which after 214 responses, found that younger people were “more open to transgender athletes” in comparison to older groups. Their study also found that different sporting categories reflect varied levels of acceptance and support for transgender athletes.

Sinead described why they picked this topic as their focus.

“I’m really into swimming,” she said, describing that she watched the most recent Olympics, which was “really controversial” on the topic.

“We thought it was quite relevant for the time.”