Gender verification in sports

South African athlete Caster Semenya was cleared to continue competing as a woman after gender testing by the IAAF.

Gender verification in sports (also known as sex verification, or loosely as gender determination or a sex test) is the issue of verifying the eligibility of an athlete to compete in a sporting event that is limited to a single sex. The issue has arisen a number of times in the Olympic games where it has been alleged that male athletes attempted to compete as women in order to win, or that a woman has an intersex condition. The first mandatory sex test issued by the IAAF for woman athletes was in July 1950 in the month before the European Championships in Belgium. All athletes were tested in their own countries.[1] Sex testing at the games began at the 1966 European Athletics Championships in response to suspicion that several of the best women athletes from the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe were actually men.[2] At the Olympics, testing was introduced at the 1968 Olympic Winter Games in Grenoble. While it arose primarily from the Olympic Games, gender verification affects any sporting event. However, it most often becomes an issue in elite international competition.

It is not always a simple case of checking for XX vs. XY chromosomes to determine whether an athlete is unambiguously a woman or a man. Fetuses start out as undifferentiated, and the Y chromosome turns on a variety of hormones that differentiate the baby as a male. Sometimes this does not occur, and people with two X chromosomes can develop hormonally as a male, and people with an X and a Y can develop hormonally as a female.[3]

Tests

For a period of time these tests were mandatory for female athletes. A New York Times article suggests it was due to fears that male athletes would pose as female athletes and have an unfair advantage over their competitors.

One form of gender identification, which was mandated for all female olympic athletes by the International Olympic Committee in 1992, tested for the presence of the SRY gene, which is found on the Y-chromosome, to identify males potentially disguised as females. This method of testing was later abolished, as it was shown to be inconclusive in identifying maleness.[4] Nowadays, gender verification tests typically involve evaluation by gynecologists, endocrinologists, psychologists, and internal medicine specialists.

History

United States Olympic Committee president Avery Brundage requested, during or shortly after the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, that a system be established to examine female athletes. According to a Time magazine article about hermaphrodites, Brundage felt the need to clarify "sex ambiguities" after observing the performance of Czechoslovak runner and jumper Zdeňka Koubková and English shotputter and javelin thrower Mary Edith Louise Weston. Both individuals later had sex change surgery and legally changed their names, to Zdeněk Koubek and Mark Weston, respectively.[5]

Controversies

The practice has come under scrutiny from those who feel that the testing is humiliating, socially insensitive, and not entirely accurate or effective. The testing is especially difficult in the case of people who could be considered intersex. Genetic differences can allow a person to have a male genetic make-up and female anatomy or body chemistry.

The Journal of the American Medical Association stated,

Gender verification tests are difficult, expensive, and potentially inaccurate. Furthermore, these tests fail to exclude all potential impostors (eg, some 46,XX males), are discriminatory against women with disorders of sexual development, and may have shattering consequences for athletes who 'fail' a test."[7]

The journal also reports:

"Gender verification has long been criticized by geneticists, endocrinologists, and others in the medical community. One major problem was unfairly excluding women who had a birth defect involving gonads and external genitalia (i.e., male pseudohermaphroditism). ...

A second problem is that only women, not men, were subjected to Gender verification testing. Systematic follow-up was rarely available for athletes "failing" the test, which often was performed under very public circumstances. Follow-up was crucial because the subjects were not male impostors, but intersexed individuals."[7]

Current status

Sex testing was last performed at the Atlanta Olympic Games in 1996. A resolution was passed at the 1996 International Olympic Committee (IOC) World Conference on Women and Health "to discontinue the current process of gender verification during the Olympic Games." The International Olympic Committee's board voted to discontinue the practice in June 1999.[8] In individual cases the IOC stills holds on to the right to test on gender.[9]

Newer rules permit transsexual athletes to compete in the Olympics after having completed sex reassignment surgery, being legally recognized as a member of the sex they wish to compete as, and having undergone two years of hormonal therapy (unless they transitioned before puberty).[10] These controversies would continue with the 2008 Olympic games in Beijing.[11]

The International Association of Athletics Federations ceased sex screening for all athletes in 1992,[12] but retains the option of assessing the sex of a participant should suspicions arise. This was invoked most recently in August 2009 with the mandated testing of South African athlete Caster Semenya.[13]

The Olympic Council of Asia continues the practice.

In June 2012, in advance of the 2012 Summer Olympics, the IOC released IOC Regulations on Female Hyperandrogenism, which addressed cases of female hyperandrogenism. The regulation includes the statement, "Nothing in these Regulations is intended to make any determination of sex. Instead, these Regulations are designed to identify circumstances in which a particular athlete will not be eligible (by reason of hormonal characteristics) to participate in 2012 OG Competitions in the female category. In the event that the athlete has been declared ineligible to compete in the female category, the athlete may be eligible to compete as a male athlete, if the athlete qualifies for the male event of the sport."[14] This policy has been criticized on the grounds that testosterone level is not predictor of athleticism and that the policy does not protect individuals' right to gender self-identification.[15]

In football, FIFA's current gender verification policy dates to May 30, 2011.[16]

Notable incidents

See also

References

  1. http://www.foekjedillema.nl[]
  2. 1 2 R. Peel, "Eve’s Rib - Searching for the Biological Roots of Sex Differences", Crown Publishers, New York, 1994, ISBN 0-517-59298-3
  3. Dreger, Alice (August 21, 2009). "Where’s the Rulebook for Sex Verification?". New York Times. Retrieved 2009-08-21.
  4. "Olympic Gender Testing".
  5. "Change of Sex" 24 August 1936 Time
  6. Klein, Dianne (1984-07-31). "Olympic Gender Test Makes Sex Explicit". Schenectady Gazette. UPI. p. 2. Retrieved 2015-06-04.
  7. 1 2 Simpson JL, Ljungqvist A, Ferguson-Smith MA, et al. (September 2000). "Gender verification in the Olympics". JAMA 284 (12): 1568–9. doi:10.1001/jama.284.12.1568. PMID 11000653.
  8. Genel M (2000). "Gender verification no more?". Medscape Women's Health 5 (3): E2. PMID 11109043.
  9. K. Mascagni, "World conference on women and sport", Olympic Review XXVI. vol. 12, pp. 23-31, 1996-1997
  10. If a man has a sex change, can he compete in the Olympics as a woman? The Straight Dope 22 August 2008
  11. A Lab is Set to Test the Gender of Some Female Athletes. New York Times 30 July 2008
  12. Simpson JL, Ljungqvist A, de la Chapelle A, et al. (November 1993). "Gender verification in competitive sports". Sports Medicine 16 (5): 305–15. doi:10.2165/00007256-199316050-00002. PMID 827268.
  13. "Semenya told to take gender test". BBC Sport. 19 August 2009. Retrieved 19 August 2009.
  14. "IOC Regulations on Female Hyperandrogenism" (PDF). International Olympic Committee. 2012-06-22. Retrieved 2012-08-09.
  15. Jordan-Young, Rebecca; Karkazis, Katrina (2012-06-17), "You Say You’re a Woman? That Should Be Enough", New York Times, retrieved 2012-08-09
  16. http://www.fifa.com/aboutfifa/footballdevelopment/medical/news/newsid=1449540/; cf. 'Regulations: FIFA Gender Verification', http://www.fifa.com/mm/document/footballdevelopment/medical/01/45/42/02/genderverification_efsd.pdf.
  17. Berg, Stefan (15 September 2009). "How Dora the Man Competed in the Woman's High Jump". Der Spiegel. Retrieved 31 August 2010.
  18. Ballantyne KN, Kayser M, Grootegoed JA (June 2012). "Sex and gender issues in competitive sports: investigation of a historical case leads to a new viewpoint". British Journal of Sports Medicine 46 (8): 614–7. doi:10.1136/bjsm.2010.082552. PMC 3375582. PMID 21540190.
  19. Amdur, Neil (August 17, 1977). "Renee Richards Ruled Eligible for U.S. Open; Ruling Makes Renee Richards Eligible to Qualify for U.S. Open". The New York Times.
  20. Motshegwa, Lesogo; Gerald Imray (2010-07-06). "World champ Semenya cleared to return to track". Yahoo!. Associated Press. Retrieved 2010-07-06. Archived July 15, 2010, at the Wayback Machine.
  21. "Medical experts doubt Pinki Pramanik can rape". Times of India. 14 November 2012. Retrieved 15 November 2012.

External links

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