Fair Play?
Fair Play?
Imagine training for something for multiple years, spending countless hours adhering to a demanding schedule that dictates everything about your life, from how you must work out each muscle in your body, to what you consume, and even when you must sleep…For Ann, everything seemed to be going incredibly well – until the moment that all changed.
Fair Play by Ella Road and directed by Monique Touko, is a complex and emotional insight into the world of women’s sport. Following the friendship and sporting careers of two young women. As they both train towards their biggest competition to date, we see how two very different competitive runners, Ann (Nick King) and Sophie (Charlotte Beaumont), are confronted with major hurdles that change the trajectory of their entire lives.
I first found out about Fair Play a few months ago, from a fellow intersex activist Holly Greenbury (intersexUK), who has been supporting the creative team on Ann’s story. When a person is born with a variation of sex development that does not fit the average expectations for male and female bodies, they’re sometimes described as intersex – or more commonly, they are given a clinical explanation and diagnosis under the umbrella term ‘DSD’ (Differences in Sex Development). Terminology in this area is complicated and contentious, there is not always consensus between fields of medicine and society on what ‘counts’ as different enough to be described as intersex/DSD.
Without giving away too much away, Fair Play serves as a poignant reminder of the damage and harm that comes with people making uninformed comments about people with complex variations in sex development. Currently, all of the women who have been penalised for not meeting the stringent requirements of the current sex testing all have one thing in common: they are people of colour. All women who have DSDs are told that they must medically alter their bodies to compete.
For some variations, this is supposedly achieved through hormone treatment, but for others, a more complex series of lifelong surgeries and medical plans are advised. Results for ‘treating’ intersex/DSD are debatable and the impact on their personal lives and their careers is devasting. There is also a lack of awareness in the general public and amongst other athletes on what having an intersex variation/DSD means, which leads to bullying, further ostracising, and a distinct lack of empathy. It makes me wonder what the future of women’s sport looks like, as finding out this kind of information during the games is far too late.
Why is this kind of personal information about a person’s body even discussed by anyone other than the individual and those involved in their care? Indeed, the occurrence of ‘DSD Athletes’ has hit the news many times over the past decade. The story brings to mind many recent examples of the policing of Black/POC women’s bodies for ‘failing’ to meet the oversimplified sex tests in sport. Stories like Caster Semenya, Christine Mbomba, Beatrice Masilingi, Dutee Chand, Annet Neges (among others), are not becoming increasingly discussed by the media, health professionals, law/policy-makers, athletes, and observers alike, regardless of their knowledge and experience in the area.
Ann and I share the same diagnosis – Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (AIS); which means the development of our sex characteristics does not typically align with the average person. Ann’s character is a girl with XY Chromosomes – something which she discovered during her competition. AIS looks different on everyone because every body is different. Whilst for some, having a variation of sex development is discovered early in life due to how the body looks, for others it may not become evident until later on in life.
What I found most striking about the performance was the decision to avoid even using the term ‘intersex’ – one which is most used in human rights activism and LGBTQ+ spaces by people born with extraordinary variations of sex development. Instead, clunky terms like ‘Disorder’, ‘Difference’ of sex development, and ‘Partial androgen insensitivity syndrome’ are used instead. To me, this added to the over-medicalisation of intersex bodies which often occurs when people are seeking to understand how a difference can occur naturally and also not pose a health issue in and of itself.
Ann uses the words that were given to her to describe her situation, and as is mostly true in the lives of us with diagnoses of DSD, little support or understanding thereafter. She’s disqualified from her event, loses sponsorships, her relationship with her fellow athletes, boyfriend, and family are all jeopardized too. In Sophie, the revelation sparks an interesting dynamic of concern for her friend but also a complicated (and somewhat misguided) sense of understanding. At one point, Sophie suggests that it’s Ann’s bodily difference that is what helps her to succeed – not her hard work and determinism.
Exploring womanhood through the lens of a female athlete, King and Beaumont’s powerful performances, along with the nuanced writing and direction add for a spectacular look into such a topical issue. Fair Play reminds us of the tragedy that women like Ann face – being told that their bodies are seen as fundamentally different and atypical – and if that is not difficult enough to deal with, they’re told on the world stage. Perhaps it’s the oversimplified rules and expectations around sex characteristics in sport that need updating to fall in line with modern science – not bodies with controversial medical interference.
Trailer:
About the show:
· Sophie and Ann are best friends who are both competitive runners. The play follows both women from their late teens to early twenties.
· Ann is African American and from a working-class family.
· Sophie is White British, middle-class, and about a year older than Ann.
· The story follows how the competition between them impacts their lives and friendship.
· Ann’s talent and abilities are brought into question when she is requested to undergo gender hormone testing, and the show discusses the damage caused by gender qualifiers in sports.
· The show looks at sex/gender, race, and class within the context of the sporting industry.
· The show discusses the connection between gender and hormones, and identity rights among the intersex/DSD community.
Information correct as of 13.12.21 - Please visit https://www.bushtheatre.co.uk/event/fair-play-2021/ for up-to-date information
Dates
13 December - 22 January (From £10)
Wednesday Matinees
15, 22 December and 5, 12, 19 January (from £10)
Saturday Matinees
18 December and 8, 15, 22 January (From £10)
Running time approx. 1 hour 30 minutes
ACCESS DETAILS
Captioned Performances
Sat 18 Dec at 2:30pm, Thurs 13 Jan at 7:30pm
Audio Described Performances
Thurs 6 Jan at 7:30pm, Sat 15 Jan at 2:30pm
Touch Tours
Thurs 6 Jan at 6:30pm, Sat 15 Jan at 1:30pm
Relaxed & Sensory Adapted Performances
Thurs 16 Dec at 7:30pm, Sat 8 Jan at 2:30pm