"You can just be in your body how it is": Queer embodiment and resistance in physical activity

Despite growing attention to the role of embodiment in sport and exercise psychology, limited research has examined how queer cisgender and gender-diverse women experience embodiment within physical activity contexts. This gap in the literature reflects a broader pattern of exclusion that renders queer women invisible in spaces that reinforce heteronormative and binary gender ideals. To address these inequities, this study explored how queer women experience, negotiate, and describe embodiment through physical activity. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 16 participants (15 cisgender women, 1 transfemme nonbinary individual) and analyzed them using reflexive thematic analysis. Three overarching themes were constructed to illustrate their experiences: (1) Fitting In, Working Out explored how heteronormative physical activity spaces facilitated disembodiment, assimilation, and queer erasure; (2) Reclaiming the Body captured how participants used movement to resist objectification, engage in gender-affirming practices, and cultivate self-connection; and (3) Sweating in Solidarity illustrated how collective visibility and queer-specific fitness spaces fostered joy, pride, and resistance. Findings demonstrate how physical activity can be both a site of marginalization and empowerment, emphasizing the importance of disrupting heteronormative frameworks that uphold rigid and binary constructions of gender.