Maryana
MJ (Maryana) Balezina
Organisation
Aarhus University
Country
Denmark
Personal website
https://maryanabalezina.github.io/

Social links

Willing to talk about my research
Yes
Biography

In May 2026, I defended my PhD in Political Science at Aarhus University, where I spent the last three years studying anti-trans legislation in the US and public support for trans-exclusionary policies in sports.

More broadly, I work on discrimination, inequality, and public attitudes, drawing on my background in social psychology and critical gender studies. My methods of choice are survey experiments and text-as-data approaches.
 
Always happy to connect with people working on similar issues.

Resistance to Trans* Athlete Inclusion and Fair Play Concerns - MJ Balezina

Aarhus University

This research examines resistance to trans inclusion in sports by testing assumptions about fairness. A survey experiment shows that people with negative attitudes become more supportive when fairness concerns are explicitly addressed in low-threat sports. The findings suggest opposition is not uniform and that challenging underlying assumptions can meaningfully increase support for inclusion.