My Intersectional Analysis of Ableism Within Sports

By: Jordyn Betlow

Before taking the class of Sex and Gender, I have always been extremely passionate about advocating opportunities for children and young adults with special needs to be able to participate in playing sports. I have also always been extremely thankful to have the privilege of love, support, and opportunities my community and family supplied for me to be able to experience the joy of team sports. Reflecting on my own life and experiences, I want to make a change in the stereotypes within sports and to change the minds of those with ableist perspectives to make the sports community more open to people of all abilities.

In Unit 1 of the class textbook, the section titled “Identity Terms” was very intriguing to me as I had never learned about people-first and identity-first language. I learned that it can differ depending on whether the individual prefers to be identified with their ability or their name first. “People-first language linguistically puts the person before their impairment and this terminology encourages nondisabled people to think of those with disabilities as people” (Logsdon 2016). It is important to educate people about proper identification as well as making sure that you yourself speak to and about people properly. With this new knowledge, I am now more self aware of proper identification when I am writing or speaking to or about individuals who have some type of impairment. Social constructs have influenced the way nondisabled individuals perceive and identify those who are and it also impacts the way that the sports community views those with disabilities.

I have been volunteering and mentoring for seven years at a nonprofit organization in Middletown, New Jersey, called RallyCap Sports, that is dedicated to bringing recreational sports opportunities to people with special needs and providing life-changing volunteer opportunities to thousands of volunteers. RallyCap’s mission is to provide recreational sports for children and young adults with special needs through a volunteer-driven community, and their vision is a world where people with special needs can share in the joy of sports and community.

I founded an annual charity basketball freethrow competition for raise money for RallyCap Sports and have raised over $35,000 for the organization over the past seven years. I hope to continue to bring this event to Elon University in order to integrate RallyCap and their mission into the lives of people who would benefi in the community. With the privelages and platforms I have been given in the sporty community throughout my life, I want to continue to spread awareness and raise money for organizations like RallyCap who want to live in a world where people with special needs can share in the joy of sports and community and change the ableist stereotypes and perspectived embedded into our society.