Something about the idea of forcing an athlete (always female, never male) to submit to a humiliating barrage of tests to prove that she fits society’s binary idea of male/female, and then stripping her of the honors she worked so hard to achieve if she doesn’t, really makes me angry.
How do other people feel about gender verification tests for gender-segretated sports? Any difference between “in general” and this specific instance?
I feel pretty much the opposite. While it may be embarrassing for her (assuming she is, in fact, a she), it’s seems like a simple, practical solution. Because if she is really a he (which has happened before), then all the women she is competing against don’t have a chance and all THEIR hard worked can not get rewarded. Fact is, men are stronger and faster than women. If you want to erase the lines, then a woman would never win any race ever. That doesn’t seem like a good thing, does it?
Well, that’s just it. If she doesn’t conform to society’s binary idea of male/female, then she didn’t have to work so hard. A good male high school half miler would be a world class female half miler.
But chances are, if something does come up on the test, she’s not going to be a flat-out, “normal” XY man. She’ll probably be intersexed. So, she might get an unfair advantage competing in women’s sports, but she’d be at an unfair disadvantage in men’s sports.
Michael Phelps has a bunch of interesting quirks to his physiology that make him an especially good swimmer–do you want to strip him of his medals and records and ban him from competing again because he had an advantage against people who don’t have the same physical makeup as him?
If sports are gender segregated for competitive reasons (and the vast majority are) then testing is the only way to ensure that the competition is fair. At a minimum, testing should be an available resource, so that cheating is highly discouraged.
In this case, it is entirely possible that she is a genetic oddity, raised from birth as a female, but with underlying male genetics that would rightfully disqualify her from a gender segregated event. In sports, I generally consider the Men’s event an “open” event, where anyone could compete, male or female, as long as there are no underlying safety concerns, such as in Boxing.
If you’re going to cite something, you might as well make sure it’s giving good examples.
1.) Ewa Kłobukowska had “one chromosome too many” (it was never specified what her specific chromosomal abnormality was). This probably gave her absolutely no advantage in sports.
2.) Hermann “Dora” Ratjen (a) had ambiguous genitalia, although he did identify as male, and (b) was forced to compete as a woman by the Nazi government.
The Olympics don’t even use gender testing anymore, and even allow trans athletes to compete as the gender they identify as after SRS and hormone therapy.
Right and since it appears she (Klobukowska) had a child, I am not sure exactly how that particular mutation disqualified her from being an “actual” woman…extra chromosome or not.
Why not test everybody prior to the race? Then there wouldn’t be the humiliation of being singled out for testing. Checking the chromosomes shouldn’t be so costly, or is it?
1.) It’s not just a chromosome test. Gender is a lot more complicated than a lot of people think–there are a lot of ways to be “in between” male and female. Especially in the case of people who don’t **know **they’re intersex, there’s a lot of ambiguity in terms of how genetics, physiology, and hormones all interact.
2.) To quote from a Journal of the American Medical Association article cited in the Wikipedia article on gender verification in sports:
Me too. Weren’t there some East German Olympic athletes in the 60s who were tested and found to have XXY chromosomes, instead of just XX? Just where are athletes like that supposed to compete? Perhaps we should add a third sex to Olympic events? “Coming up: Men’s 400m, Women’s 1500m, Intersexed Steeplechase”?
Ah, I had some suspicions that it wasn’t as easy as I thought. My first assumption was just that they had to identify and count the chromosomes. Thanks.
So, what characteristics are required in an athlete for them to be assigned a specific gender in these tests? Are there some international rules that are agreed on in most sports?
Well, the agency in question in this particular instance is the IAAF, and I managed to find the IAAF Policy on Gender Verification [PDF]. It doesn’t lay out the specific criteria for determining whether a person is “male” or “female,” but it does make concessions for conditions that would not give the athlete an advantage, or would only give her a small one.
It doesn’t bother me one bit. A woman has female chromosomes, hormones and anatomy. That anatomy is different in important ways from males regardless of outlier performance overlap. Generally speaking, males are larger, stronger, faster, and possess a great deal more muscle mass than women. That is WHY we have gender segregation, to ensure that the athletes compete on as level a playing field as possible so that the finest among them can win. If someone is so physically ambiguous, and also possesses a physical performance that is in the questionable zone, it is not unreasonable to ensure that a transsexual is not performing in an unfit category. A person who went through natural puberty as a male has an unfair advantage over natural women assuming the same level of athletic conditioning.
On reply I noticed that the thread has mentioned true intersex individuals. While rare, I should think that they ought to compete in the Men’s event. Any intersexing that results in more masculine secondary sexual characteristics is also likely to result in a physique and physiology that few, if any women could fairly compete against.
I think the hormone therapy is key in that policy. I would guess that taking hormones for a couple years would really affect the advantages they would otherwise hold.
