by Kristin Vindhol Evensen, Håkan Larsson & Elise Strømman
Vol. 16 2025, pages 75–97
Published May 6, 2025
https://doi.org/10.24834/sssf.16.75
Abstract
Research that investigates the impact of heteronormativity on physical education (PE) is extensive. In this paper, we expand previous knowledge that describes PE as heteronormative, binary, and hierarchical by offering phenomenological analyses of transgender people’s experiences of PE. The paper builds on data presented in the third author’s master’s project (Strømman, 2022), in which she explores trans experiences in PE in a firstperson perspective. This paper, however, expands on embodiment, as it appears to be an underexplored approach when we seek to understand minority experiences. We bring attention to how the moving body is at the core of every human experience. In our analysis, we present five themes: 1) PE causes discomfort; “It’s like you wait to explode”; 2) It feels good to forget the troublesome presence of the body; 3) PE- still a subject with masculine connotations; 4) Even when binaries are challenged, discomfort persists; 5) Bittersweet solutions. In these themes, the moving body is accredited as an approach to understand the body as object and subject at the same time.
Methodologically, we combine embodied phenomenology and phenomenology of practice to get close to the embodied experiences of our participants. Where previous research has focused on structural binary arrangements in PE, we describe the embodied experiences of such arrangements. In other words, the occurrence of binary arrangements is not a new finding; rather, our contribution is how binary arrangements shape lived embodied experiences.
About the Authors
KRISTIN VINDHOL EVENSEN is an associate professor of sport sciences at the Department for Physical Education and Outdoor studies at The Norwegian School of Sport Sciences (NSSS). She has been the leader of the Committee of Equality, Inclusion and Diversity, and the Committe of Practical Adaptations. Before joining the NSSS she worked as a kindergarten teacher and as a special needs educator in primary and secondary school. Her main fields of interest are special needs education, intellectual disabilities, adapted physical activity and embodied phenomenology.
HÅKAN LARSSON is a professor of sport sciences, specialisation education, at the Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences, Stockholm. He conducts research primarily in two areas, sport and gender, and school physical education, and sometimes the two areas converge. Håkan’s latest books are New Perspectives of Movement Learning (Routledge, 2021) and Gender Performativity in Sport and Physical Education (Common Ground, 2024).
ELISE STRØMMAN completed her master’s degree in sport sciences in 2022. In her everyday life, she works as a high school teacher at an upper secondary school in central Oslo. She is interested in outdoor life, and has studied this before she studied to become a teacher at The Norwegian School of Sport Sciences. Further, Elise has her background from the army, and she has combined working for the army with studies as well as with her work in high school.
