Quidditch and Gender

Introduction

In many respects, quidditch is a leader in how we handle gender in our sport. Title 9¾, which allows people to play as the gender they identify with, is revolutionary in the sporting world. Other sporting bodies are taking notice, with at least some schools and campus recreation groups adopting similar gender rules. Mainstream competitive sports will be taking note of how we are handling athletes outside of the gender binary, especially as practices regarding the sex testing of female athletes are facing public criticism and legal challenges.

That said, IQA is not a leader on all fronts. For a sport that is so progressive and inclusive, we have a disappointing level of diversity on our rosters and on the playing field. For the top teams at both the national and club level, a roster with 15 males and 6 females is not uncommon. On the field, the gender max is often treated as gender always, with 4 of 6 players being male (and 5 of 7 after the seekers are released). This leaves just 2 spots on the field for all other genders. The playing time of non-male players and the roles that they are allowed to play on the field are being limited.

It has also been noticed that the problem has been getting worse over time, as teams and countries become more developed and more competitive. It is clear that this will not get better all on its own.

To improve this situation, the IQA Rules Committee has included two changes regarding gender rules in their proposal for the 2016-2018 rulebook. The first change would be to apply the 4 max rule at all times, rather than switching to 5 max when the seekers are in play. This is the next logical step after IQA modified the gender rule to include seekers last season.

The other step is to include gender maximums on rosters. The goal for future World Cups would be to have a 12 maximum of any one gender on a 21 player roster. In order to allow teams time to adjust, this change would be phased in. The rule for the 2016-2017 season would be 14 max of one gender for a 21 player roster.

Because any change in quidditch is generally met with both surprise and resistance, I thought it was important to outline some of the major reasons behind the change in the gender rule.

1. Legitimacy as a Mixed Gender Sport

Many members would like to see quidditch receive official recognition from the international community. This would open up a number of possibilities to us, including eligibility for funding, participation in multi-sport events like the Commonwealth Games and World Games, and the prospect of full IOC recognition. Being mixed gender does increase our chances of being accepted ahead of sports that split by gender, but our current gender imbalance would be a big problem. We can't be a legitimate mixed gender sport unless we have a better gender balance.

I look to two mixed gender for comparison: Korfball and Ultimate. Korfball has full gender equity on the field and on their rosters. It was demonstrated at two Olympics and is part of the World Games program. Ultimate has a similar origin and trajectory to our own. Mixed Ultimate is normally played with 7 players with a 4 max rule. To enter World Games, they dropped to 6 players with a 3 max rule, with full equity on their rosters. Only recently were they allowed to play their normal 7 vs 7 at World Games, with a max of 7 of any gender on their 13 player rosters. Ultimate received IOC recognition in 2015 and is now pushing for Olympic inclusion as a mixed gender sport.

Gender equity is a big part of IOC's Olympic Agenda 2020. Federations seeking official recognition need to be working to promote women in sport. On this front, we are doing the poorer than most mixed gender sports. It is common for our top teams to have less than 1/3 of their roster consist of female players. Some of the top club teams field "power lines" with only 1 or occasionally even 0 female players on the field. Even at fantasy tournaments where the stakes are low, teams will play lines that minimize the number of females on the field.

Other sports do not fully recognize players outside of the gender binary, so they might promote gender equity by requiring 50% of their players to be female. This would not be an appropriate rule for quidditch. Our gender rule isn't about achieving a perfect 50/50 split inside the traditional binary; it is a rule meant to promote inclusion and diversity. However, given that we do recognize more than two genders in our sport, it is even more inappropriate that one gender currently dominates over 2/3 of the roster spots and receives over 2/3 of the playing time.

I know some will argue that we shouldn't be worrying so much about this issue right now, because official recognition and multi-sport games are a long ways away. That may not be the case. With our rapid growth, and the connections we are making with the wider sports community, these opportunities will be available to us sooner than expected. IQA is in a great position to pursue some amazing opportunities in the near future, if the community is interested in striving towards becoming a legitimate mixed-gender sport.

2. Charitable Status

Quidditch organisations speak to the ideas of inclusion, diversity, and equity when promoting the sport to the public. Most include this somewhere in their goals and mission. Organisations that fail to deliver on those goals will rightly receive some criticism.

For registered charities like USQ and (hopefully) IQA, we risk more than just criticism. IQA's application for charitable status highlights charitable initiatives that promote our values of inclusion, diversity, and gender equity. If IQA is not delivering on its charitable objectives, it risks its status as a charity.

Many of the rosters we saw at World Cup show that we're not achieving the charitable goals of the organisation. I don't blame our NGBs for this, as the rosters we received are a product of the gender rule that we have been enforcing. This is why we need to modify the gender rule.

For a charity to vote against working towards its own charitable objectives would be a dangerous thing to do. IQA needs to show that it is pro-actively pursuing these goals, rather than merely talking about them.

3. It is the Right Thing To Do

Even if we weren't aiming for official recognition as a sport, and even if we didn't have charitable objectives to be concerned with, working towards diversity and equity would be the right thing to do.

These goals are not easy to achieve. If it were easy, there wouldn't be any need to work at it. This community is very capable of achieving difficult tasks when they set their mind to it. It was not easy to take a sport that didn't exist 10 years ago and spread it all across the world. Achieving greater gender diversity amongst our participants should be a very realistic goal, especially given how welcoming and inclusive our community is.

Conclusion

For these reasons, I believe quidditch needs to make it a goal to make changes to the gender rule. The current rulebook proposal from the IQA Rules Committee gives us the best way to make progress towards this goal within a reasonable time frame. The changes being proposed for 2016-2017 are not drastic, but they do show an effort to take steps in the right direction. If we don't make a modest effort for the sake of gender equity, we may miss out on a lot of other important initiatives.

In the long term, fairest solution would be a 3 max gender rule, becoming 4 max when seekers are released. This would put us in line with what other legitimate mixed gender sports do. It is not something we will achieve overnight. It can remain a long term goal for us to keep in mind, while we take reasonable steps to improve in the short term.