In late June, Chinese officials announced that they would be reinstating gender testing for female athletes for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, in a bid to prevent what they consider cheating. Gender testing was discontinued by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) following the Atlanta Games in 1996 due to evidence that it only served to disqualify intersex female athletes without just cause (intersexuality confers no competitive advantage). There had previously been significant controversy regarding female athletes, particularly East German shot-putters, who underwent extreme doping with testosterone (something that genetic testing often fails to catch, anyway).
While other Intersex activists remained largely quiet, Organisation Intersex International and trans advocates loudly decried the action. In response to the protests, Dr. Arne Ljungqvist, chairman of the IOC’s medical commission issued a statement to the effect that testing would only be done in cases in which deception was suspected, rather than with all female athletes -- a statement which simply endorsed, rather than contradicted, the Chinese statement.
From the Guardian: “For more than a year, officials in Beijing have been designing a special laboratory to determine the sex of any athletes taking part in this year’s Olympic games. ‘Suspected athletes will be evaluated from their external appearances by experts and undergo blood tests to examine their sex hormones, genes and chromosomes for sex determination,’ says Professor Tian Qinjie.” Endocrinology, gynecology, genetics and psychology are now all examined during such inquiries.
Over 40 years of genetic testing, dozens of female athletes have (often much to their surprise) failed genetic testing, and suffered from humiliations and worse, because they were, instead, intersex -- having one of over 70 possible conditions that would cause them to have some male attributes or chromosomes, but would largely have no effect on their physical development. Here’s a brief history:
In 1932 and 1936, Polish-American sprinter Stella Walsh (Stanislawa Walasiewicz) won gold and silver respectively in the womens’ 100m sprint. She set more than 100 national and world records and in 1975, had been inducted into the American Track and Field Hall of Fame. But when she ran in the 1936 games and placed second to Helen Stephens of St. Louis, a Polish journalist protested that her competitor Stephens must be a man. One of the first “sex tests” (a mostly invasive and probably humiliating examination) was performed on Stephens, who was cleared of the accusation. Ironically, when Stella Walsh was killed by a stray bullet in 1980, the autopsy that followed revealed that she had partial male genitalia and both male and female chromosomes -- a gender mosaic.
In 1936, Dora Ratjen had indeed been entered into Olympic competition during the Games in Berlin, where she placed fourth in the womens’ high jump. Chromosome testing was not an option at that time (it had not been instituted until the 1968 Games in Mexico City), but it was later revealed that she was born Hermann Ratjen, and was pushed into womens’ competition because Adolf Hitler wanted to demonstrate the supposed supremacy of the Aryan race. Ratjen remains the only known case of conscious cheating, and it was not caught by a genetic test.
In 1950, Dutch athlete Foekje Dillema, once slated to become an Olympic champion, was suspended from athletic competition due to the results of a physical examination test. In July of this year, she was vindicated by further genetic testing, being found to be female but with a percentage of male cells, a condition referred to as “gender mosaic” -- having both XX (female) and XY (male) chromosomes. In genetic mosaic, two embryos -- one male and one female -- merge in the womb a few days after conception... usually this results in miscarriage, but in rare cases can result in a mosaic birth. Following the suspension, Dillema lived in seclusion, and died in a senior’s centre, never achieving her potential and never knowing that she would be cleared.
In the Summer Olympics in Tokyo, 1964, Polish runner Ewar Kobukkowska (name alternately recorded as Ewa Klobukowska) won gold in the womens’ 4 x 100m relay and bronze in the womens’ 100m sprint. She later became the first athlete to fail an early form of chromosome test, being found to have a rare XXY genotype in 1967. She later went on to give birth, something that is uncommon among intersex conditions.
By 1986, then-20-year-old shot putter Heidi Krieger became a World Champion. Krieger was one of what is believed to be up to 10,000 East German athletes who were fed steroids, contraceptives and performance-enhancing drugs by force, deception and intimidation, in a bid to develop a collection of near-superhuman communist athletes. Krieger’s overdeveloped frame caused severe medical problems, mood swings and at least one suicide attempt. By the mid-’90s, Krieger underwent GRS to become Andreas Krieger -- although Gender Identity Disorder had been present throughout the athlete’s life, he feels that the regime of doping steamrolled him through a transition in which he had no control and for which he was unprepared. During the time that officials Manfred Ewald and Manfred Hoeppner oversaw East German athletics, they won 160 gold medals, 40 alone at the Games in Montreal. Of the different methods of testing gender, genetic tests and physical exams would fail to catch this kind of subterfuge.
Spanish hurdler Maria José Martínez Patino had been disqualified from competing because (to her surprise) tests demonstrated that she had been born with a Y chromosome. She was reinstated in 1988 when her condition was recognized as an intersex one -- but by the time she was able to compete in the 1992 Games in Barcelona, the years had taken some of her athletic momentum and she missed qualifying by ten hundredths of a second. “I lost friends, my fiance, hope and energy,” she said in a 2005 editorial.
In 1996, eight female athletes failed gender tests, but were later all cleared. That year, the IOC reconsidered the value of genetic testing and it was discontinued by 1999.
During the 2000 Games in Sydney, the first after genetic testing was suspended, Brazilian judo player Edinanci Silva was still given a mouth swab after a challenge to her gender. Silva, also a mosaic birth with partial male and partial female organs, had surgery to correct this in the mid-90s. This enabled her to compete in Atlanta (1996), Sydney and Athens (2004). She was lucky: chromosomally, she was confirmed as female, and the new (iffy) leniency regarding intersex athletes remained untested.
In 2006 (Doha, Qatar), Indian middle distance runner Santhi Soundarajan won the silver medal in the 800m track event, and was stripped of it after failing the test. The precise results have not been made public, but it is largely believed that she was shown to have Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, a condition in which her genetic makeup would display male chromosomes, but her body cannot process testosterone -- in which event she develops as would any human female. As with many intersex conditions, women with AIS would never even be aware of the condition, save for a chromosome test (which is typically only done during investigation into causes of infertility) and are indistinguishable physically from any other female. AIS, like any intersex condition, bestows no physical advantage on a female athlete. In September 2007, Soundarajan attempted suicide (and fell into a coma) due to the humiliation and controversy surrounding the stripping of her medal. Canadian athlete Kristen Worley is actively fighting to have the medal reinstated.
It is estimated that between one in 100 and one in 1,000 babies are born with an intersex condition. Because many are not reported or detected, it is impossible to know the true number. In addition to gender mosaicism and AIS discussed above, intersex conditions include Klinefelter’s Syndrome (47,XXY or XXY syndrome, affecting males), 5-Alpha-Reductase Deficiency (5-alpha-reductase is an enzyme which converts testosterone into DHT in order to facilitate the development of male genitalia in-utero, resulting in developmentally female bodies), Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (a collection of several conditions that affect sex steroids and the development of primary and secondary sex characteristics that can result in indeterminate birth sex), and several other conditions. In many cases, intersex people who live as or were assigned to the gender to which they identify, don’t identify as intersex or see themselves as anything other than the gender in which they live. In others, who were misassigned or who embrace a dual-gendered identity, transsexualism may also be present, but this overlap with the transgender community is often met with controversy and dispute. Studies of Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals (EDCs) such as diethyl-stilbestrol (DES), or genetic and “brain” sex may one day point to transsexuality as a smaller part of intersex phenomena (rather than the other way around), but the science is not yet there to confirm or disprove this.
In terms of transsexuals, it is also now recognized in athletic venues that TS women gain no advantage against natal females, due to the effects of hormone therapy and orchiectomy on levels of muscle power, stamina and fat percentage. Since 2004, the IOC has allowed transsexuals who are at least two years post-operative and continue hormone replacement therapy to compete. To date, we are still awaiting the first known transsexual competitor in the Games, although it nearly happened this year.
Canadian cyclist Kristen Worley had been expected to be a strong competitor in the 2008 Games in Beijing. Ultimately, she was unable to compete, because she had missed qualifying in recognized events due to the deterioration and death of her father, from bone cancer. There is reason to believe that Worley had assurances from some at the Canadian Cycling Association and Sport Canada that she could see to her father’s passing and still be given a chance to qualify -- this is now denied by the CCA and an opportunity to qualify was not given, even though it has historically been granted to other athletes in similar situations. Some have speculated that the resistance from Canadian officials stems from prior knowledge of the gender testing lab and concerns about how a transgender athlete’s participation would play out. The scars from Ben Jonson still run deep in Canadian athletics.
As with many victories in trans and intersex activism, they are rarely assured. Santhi Soundarajan’s story and the current gender testing policy (at press time, there has been no indication of any athletes affected at the 2008 Games) only prove that they can be rescinded on whim. And yet, genetic testing is completely unfounded and has yet to unmask a “cheat.” As bloggers at feministe.us pointed out, “male athletes putting on dresses to outclass their female counterparts simply doesn’t happen at this level of sporting competition, and the tests are unreliable, invasive, and essentializing.” Additional tests regarding transsexuals’ right to compete still loom in the future, in the form of any potential transmale athletes who might come along -- hormone therapy for female-to-male transsexuals consists of forms of testosterone that are considered anabolic steroids and are subject to bans by the IOC.
Worley, of course, will be looking toward the next Games, and other female athletes who may be AIS, gender mosaic or 5-alpha-reducatase deficient without knowing it will continue to vie for medals. We can only look toward 2012, and wonder what the future holds.
”Mercedes Allen is a writer who blogs at http://dentedbluemercedes.wordpress.com/, has been featured on bilerico.com, PageOneQ and others, and has also developed the website at AlbertaTrans.org as a resource for transgender information and support.”
