Mixed-sex sports

Mixed-sex sports, also known as mixed-gender or coed sports, are sports where the participants are not of a single sex. This can take the form of individual or team sports involving people of different sexes. In organised sports settings, rules usually dictate the number of people required of each sex in a team (for example teams of one man and one woman). Such rules account for the sex differences in human physiology, with males being larger and stronger than females on average. In informal settings, mixed-sex sports typically involves groups of friends and/or family engaging in sport without regard to the sex of the participants.

Sports which are mixed-sex as standard are typically ones where the differences between the sexes do not greatly affect the ability of the competitor, for example equestrian sports. Sports in which the sex of a competitor does affect their ability typically have single-sex divisions, with mixed-team variants comprising the mixed-sex element of the sport, for example mixed doubles tennis.

Mixed-sex sports have been encouraged as a way of boosting female sports participation and improving social harmony between the sexes. Mixed-sex play and sports is common among young children, among whom differences are less pronounced.

It is uncommon in most organised sports to find individuals of different genders competing head-to-head at elite level, principally due to the differences between the sexes. In sports where these differences are less linked to performance, it is standard practice for men and women to compete in mixed-sex fields. These open-class sports prove accommodating to intersex athletes, who challenge the sex-defined rules of both single-sex sport and mixed-sex sports with defined male and female roles.

In equestrian sports, male and female riders compete against each other in eventing, dressage and show jumping disciplines. Female jockeys compete alongside male ones in horse racing, though the former constitute a minority of jockeys overall. Beyond the athletes, the horses used for racing are a mixed of male and female, with a roughly 60/40 split at the top level between colts and fillies.

...
Wikipedia