"A lot of the old boys club can still exist. At the start of the pandemic ... I knew about this new promotion, All Elite Wrestling. And then I saw their women's champ is a trans woman. Tysdal says seeing wrestler Nyla Rose inspired him to bring the topic of gender and pro-wrestling to the classroom."
"Every match has a story structure, he said, comparing the simulated environment of a pro-wrestling match to other forms of literature. Tysdal asked students to examine gender performance in pro-wrestling and to challenge their perceptions of masculinity. Students wrote poems, and comparative essays on movies like Nacho Libre and The Iron Claw."
"To take a wrestler that maybe 10-15 years ago couldn't have been there, and now here's the student, bringing it to life in a way that fits with what's happening in the landscape, Tysdal said. That sort of inclusion will continue to build up the fan base."
Daniel Tysdal, a creative writing professor at the University of Toronto Scarborough, developed a curriculum integrating professional wrestling with English literature for undergraduate majors. Inspired by the signing of Nyla Rose, the first openly transgender wrestler in a major U.S. promotion, Tysdal created a course examining gender performance and challenging perceptions of masculinity through wrestling narratives. Students analyze match structures as storytelling, write comparative essays on wrestling-related films, and create original wrestling characters. One transgender student developed a trans pro-wrestling character as a culminating project. Tysdal attributes growing Toronto wrestling fandom partly to increased inclusion efforts in the sport, demonstrating how representation builds audience engagement.
#professional-wrestling-education #gender-performance-and-inclusion #creative-writing-curriculum #transgender-representation-in-sports
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