Janeanne Levenstein (she/they) is a PhD Candidate in the Sports Studies subtrack of American Studies at the University of Iowa where they also earned their Graduate Certificate in Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies. Janeanne’s work draws on feminist, queer, and trans studies scholarship, along with critical cultural studies of sport. Their dissertation, provisionally titled Transing Sport (Studies): A Material and Discursive Analysis of Ultimate Frisbee Policy and Play, takes the ultimate frisbee field of play as a site to explore contemporary tensions around trans identity, embodiment, and the politics of inclusion in and beyond sport. 

Janeanne was the 2022 recipient of the Barbara Brown Outstanding Student Paper Award from the North American Society for the Sociology of Sport. She is a member of the Sports Studies Caucus of the American Studies Association. Janeanne serves as the co-director of Iowa City’s recreational ultimate frisbee summer league and is a teambuilding facilitator at the University of Iowa Challenge Course.

Selected Publications and Presentations

“Forging Gendered Divisions: USA Ultimate and the Un/Re-Doing of Gender,” Big Ten Trans Studies Research Symposium, Urbana-Champaign, IL, March 2026.

“A Sporting Body Without Organs: Theorizing Un/Gendered Assemblages.” Sociology of Sport Journal, 41 (4), 332-341, 2024. https://doi.org/10.1123/ssj.2024-0023

“What Does ‘Big Gay Megan’ Rapinoe Have to Apologize for Anyway? Lesbian Athletes and the Female Apologetic,” North American Society for the Sociology of Sport, Montreal, Canada, April 2022.

Courses Taught at Iowa

• Inequality in American Sport
• Diversity in American Culture
• Introduction to American Studies: Nature, Culture, and the Human Body