Why gender-minority-only college debate tournaments are important

Every Friday, hoards of college students travel from their own campuses to other schools across the country to spend their weekend at American Parliamentary Debate Association (APDA) tournaments. These events, which are arranged by an entirely student-run, democratic organization, are always the same: a host team runs the tournament while groups of students sit around the room with their laptops while they prepare to debate or judge debates in rooms spread all over the college campus.

Something else is consistent at these tournaments: the number of men who dominate them. Men comprise the majority of the debaters who compete in APDA events. In addition, a majority of the APDA debate teams’ leadership, as well as the members of the national organization’s executive board, are men.

As one might expect in a male-dominated and male-led organization, sexist microaggressions and gendered bias abound in these spaces. These biases result in fewer women receiving high evaluations for their individual argumentation. In fact, data from the past 10 years has shown that women are severely underrepresented in “out rounds,” or the advancing rounds. This discourages gender minority debaters from participating in the first place and leads to a large percentage of women debaters who do participate to drop out of the activity. Even though many teams try to recruit equally from all genders, therefore, these factors result in the debate league remaining male-dominated.

The APDA is well aware of this problem and responded to it a few years ago by launching the Gender Empowerment Initiative. This initiative focuses on promoting equality in the league by providing opportunities within regular tournaments for gender minority and/or LGBTQ+ debaters to debate in partnerships with each other, especially about current policies that these populations face. The APDA hopes that creating spaces in the league in which gender minorities are centered will encourage participation in the activity and help solidify a network for gender minority debaters who feel isolated by their identity.

The principle behind this initiative is similar to that of women’s and historically Black colleges and universities: They provide safe spaces for marginalized people to pursue their academic careers without fear of discrimination on the basis or their gender identity or race. Studies show that these spaces are beneficial to those who choose them. For example, gender minorities and people of color in these environments are more likely to pursue careers in underrepresented fields, such as STEM.

Recently, however, some have criticized the APDA’s newest initiative: a weekend of gender-minority-only tournaments. One criticism of the debate league published in George Washington University’s The Hatchet in February likened gender minority tournaments to segregation. Soon after, conservative outlets like Infowars and Breitbart picked up this story and spread it to their large audiences.

George Washington Parliamentary Debate Society former president and vice president Joey Schnide and Rachel Kane, who advocated for a gender minority tournament at GW, responded to this piece in a letter to the editor that highlighted how GM tournaments encourage gender minorities to continue to participate in debates. Many active student participants in this debate league support Schnide and Kane’s argument.

“To me, the benefit of being in gender minority spaces is that I can take for granted that those around me understand my perspective and have an intuitive gut sense of what my experiences are, rather than having to carefully build that trust the way I do with men,” Ann Garth, a junior at Brown University, told the FBomb. Matt Cryer, a member of the George Washington Parliamentary Debate Society and the Gender Empowerment Initiative on APDA, said GW’s debate team is “gender-balanced, which was only made possible because of the inclusion of more women in visible positions of power and activities such as women's nights for the team.” Although Matt Cryer does not identify as a gender minority, he “can easily see parallels as someone also working for LGBT inclusion on the league. Being in LGBT group chats and finding LGBT partners, for example, has made me much more comfortable on the league, so I can clearly see the benefits of a GM tournament.”

Considering that this debate league has lasting effects for participants’ lives beyond college — alumni include powerful people like Senator Ted Cruz and writer David Foster Wallace — equity in the league acts as an incubator for real-world politics and culture. It is extremely important to make sure that everyone, regardless of their gender, feels comfortable participating. Hopefully, the weekend of gender minority tournaments that will be held at Wellesley and GW this spring will help facilitate a new space and recognition of gender minorities in the debate space.