51st Issue: Gender Verification in Sports
This issue of the newsletter will discuss with a controversial topic (which shouldn’t be controversial, as the obvious answer is that it is bad and should be stopped), sex verification in sports. I’m mostly going to talk about the history, because others have written much more eloquently and thoroughly about the most famous modern case of this – Caster Semenya.
Sex verification is also called gender determination. I’m not sure which term is more accurate because the whole process is based on outdated and incorrect understandings of what makes a person a woman, a man, or something else entirely. Since many sports are split up by gender, when anyone threatens the idea that those categories might not be large enough to hold them, the sporting governing bodies do tests to make sure that they can put the athlete in one box or another. In 1950, athletes competing in the European track and field championships in Belgium were tested in their own countries before arriving to compete. In 1966 there was testing at the actual sporting event, when some were suspicious that the best female athletes from the Soviet Union were actually men. At the Olympics, the testing was introduced in 1968. Gender determination or sex verification can lead to both physical and mental harm for the athletes, with some of them undergoing surgery or developing mental and emotional issues from the procedures or stigma that they face.
At first sex verification was a physical exam, then chromosome testing and then testosterone level testing. None of these are very good ways to find out what someone’s gender is, because humans have more variation in all of those categories than just two options. I’m not going to get into the science of it but just know for example, having a low level of testosterone doesn’t make you automatically not a man.
Gender verification was first requested by the United States Olympic Committee President during the 1936 Olympics in Berlin because a Czech runner Zdenka Koubkova (who later had gender reassignment surgery and became Zdenek Koubek) and an English javelin thrower Mary Edith Weston (who also had gender reassignment surgery and became Mark Weston) were both ‘ambiguous’ according to him. Only women were ever tested.
In 1992, the IAAF (International Association of Athletics Federations) stopped mandatory sex screening, now only doing it if ‘suspicions arise’. Others believe that athletes should compete with whatever their legal gender is, and no testing should take place. Interestingly enough, sex verification has not been and is not conducted on male athletes. However, studies have shown that some men may have low testosterone just as some women may have high testosterone. The IOC, International Olympics Committee, decided in 2015 it didn’t matter if someone competing was transgender, all that matters is their testosterone levels. However, as was seen in the study I mentioned above, that varies in all people regardless of their gender. Often it is women of color who are chosen to be tested for sex verification, just because they are judged against a white standard which is obviously unfair. Testing is not only invasive and often humiliating, but sometimes it is especially painful for intersex people who may have male genes but female anatomy or vice versa.
There are several other examples throughout the years of athletes forced to go through testing, and I will tell you a little bit about them in chronological order.
One athlete who was banned from her sport early on was the Dutch runner Foekje Dillema, whose picture you can see above. She was an up and coming runner and she refused to go to a mandatory sex test, so she was banned for life by the IAAF. Her national record for the 200 meters was also erased. She moved back to her home after that and lived a quiet life, refusing to talk about what had happened. After Foekje died, her DNA was tested and it was found that she had an ovotesticular disorder of sex development, which led to her having an operation in 1952, removing testes or ovotestes. She was however raised as a woman and lived her life as a woman, so she was a woman, despite the fact that her testosterone levels were considered to make her competing unfair to other competitors.
Stanislawa Walasiewicz, also known as Stella Walsh, whose picture you can see below was also a track and field athlete. She joined the Polish sports teams as she was not yet an American citizen but also ran in American games as well. She wasn’t surer which country to become a citizen of, and ultimately decided on Poland. She was one of the most popular Polish athletes at the time. In the 1932 Olympics, she won the gold medal in the 100m dash. She was welcomed by cheering crowds back in Poland. Stella competed in the Championships of Warsaw, winning nine gold medals in track and field, and beating several world records. In the 1936 Olympic Games, Stella came in second, winning silver. After the Olympics, Walsh moved back to the United States, accepted American citizenships, and won more medals and awards. She retired at the age of forty, and in 1975 she was inducted into the US Track and Field Hall of Fame. In her retirement, she stayed active in Polish sport associations and funded awards for Polish athletes in the United States.
Unfortunately, Stella was killed in an armed robbery in 1980 when she was buying ribbons for visiting Polish basketball players. When an autopsy was conducted, it was found that she had XY gonadal dysgenesis which meant she had no uterus and a non-functioning penis, with female characteristics as well. She was intersex. Ironically, though suspicions were raised during Stella’s career, it was her opponent who won the gold medal in 1936 who was subjected to a gender verification test instead of her.
Another athlete whose gender was disputed was Dora Ratjen, a German track star. He was brought up as a girl, but when he was ten or eleven he realized that he was a boy, but didn’t make a big deal of it with his parents who dressed him in girl’s clothes. He began competing as a girl in sports and in 1936 went to the Olympics, but never undressed in front of his teammates who thought he was just shy. Dora won a gold medal with the high jump at the European Athletics Championships, and also broke the world record in the high jump the following year. A few people became suspicious of Dora, and later found him working as a waiter and named Hermann Ratjen. Hermann’s gold medal was taken away as was his world record. Eventually Hermann was ordered by the police to go be examined by a physician and was determined to be intersex. There were criminal proceedings as I guess men weren’t allowed to dress as women in public? Or perhaps it was fraud? Who knows, but the prosecutor said that as long as Hermann promised not to do any more sports he’d let him go and live his life. Eventually Hermann’s parents grew to accept him as a male, and he changed his name to Heinrich, or Heinz. He got new papers that showed he was a man, and he took over his parents’ bar, working there till he died in 2008. Below is a picture of Hermann.
There are more athletes that had to go through gender verification tests, but I am only highlighting a few of them here or this would go on forever. Recently there have been quite a few Indian track stars who have been accused of pretending to be the wrong gender. One up and coming athlete, Pratima Gaonkar, committed suicide after her coach threatened to make public her intersex status. Santhi Soundarajan, another Indian athlete from a poor family, broke records and won medals in the Asian Games and the Asian Athletics Championships in 2005 and 2006. However, suspicions arose about her gender and she went through a sex test by a gynecologist, psychologist, geneticist, endocrinologist, and internal medicine specialist. Some said that perhaps her upbringing where she only ate one meal a day caused her result to come out that she ‘did not possess the sexual characteristics of a woman’. She later explained that she had androgen insensitivity syndrome. The Indian Olympics Association told her that she could no longer compete and she was stripped of her silver medal. When Santhi went home, she became very depressed and tried to kill herself, but a friend found her and got her help. She recovered eventually. Now Santhi works as training students in running just as she got training as a youth. She works at her own academy in Tamil Nadu and her students have a record of success.
Another young Indian athlete who got into gender related trouble was Pinki Pramanik. She set junior state records and won gold, silver, and bronze medals at the 2004 Asian Indoor Athletics Championships. Pinki also won gold medals at the 2006 South Asian Games, and attended the Asian Games as well as the IAAF World Cup in 2006. She did suffer several foot injuries and back pain which took her out of competition for a few years. In 2012, one of her female friends accused her of being a man, and of raping her. There were then medical tests to determine her gender. Pinki said that her coaches injected her regularly with testosterone. Test showed that Pinki was intersex, and she said that the rape allegations was from her neighbor. Pinki said, “She used to live next door on rent with her lover and her five-year-old child. She had taken nude photographs of me and was threatening to make them public. She had been blackmailing me for some time. But to be accused of being male and raping her shocked me. I am not male. I have always been female. I look more male now because, as part of my training to compete in international athletics, I used to be regularly administered testosterone injections like other female participants. I was told that it was necessary to take these and I never questioned whether these were legal or not. I was focused on winning and did whatever I was asked to do by my trainers, who knew what was best for me. But after that, my voice became deeper and I grew more body hair." Pinki also said that she did not consent to the gender testing and was drugged during the procedure. Some thought that a specific MP might have tried to frame her over a land dispute but we will probably never know the truth.
Finally, the last Indian athlete I’ll talk about is Dutee Chand. Dutee is from a poor family of weavers. In 2012, she became a national junior champion, and in 2013 she won a bronze medal at the Asian Athletics Championships. She also became national champion in the 100 meter run and 200 meter run. However, in 2014, after she won two gold medals at the Asian Junior Athletics Championship, she was told that her hyperandrogenism made her ineligible to compete as a woman. She was tested and humiliated. Dutee did not let this stop her, though, appealing to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. The IAAF’s policy on hyperandrogenism (high natural levels of testosterone) was suspended. There was not enough evidence that testosterone increases athletic performance, so Dutee’s suspension was lifted. Santhi Soundarajan, who I mentioned earlier, publicly supported Dutee in her ordeal.
Dutee again began running competitively, winning a bronze medal at the 2016 Asian Indoor Athletics Championships and breaking several national records. She qualified for the Olympics, and was able to participate in the 100 meter race though she did not get far. Dutee continued to compete, winning medals in competitions in 2017, 2018 and 2019.
Dutee Chand has publicly supported Caster Semenya’s ordeal. Caster has faced the same struggles as Dutee, but has not been able to compete in sports. Dutee said that she understood, because “the negativity, fear of my career ending prematurely, insensitive comments about my body, I have faced them all. I am extremely relieved that I can run fearlessly again, knowing that now my battle exists only on the track and not off it”. She wrote Caster a letter expressing her support and offering her legal help.
Dutee also has a law degree and works for a Mining Corporation in Odisha. In 2019 she came out as gay, soon after in 2018 the Indian Supreme Court decriminalized same sex relationships. She is the first ever open Indian LGBTQ athlete and is in a same-sex relationship. She received backlash but also some support.
Caster Semenya, a South African runner, is probably the most famous contemporary case of gender verification in sports. Above is a picture of her with her wife. I know I should include a picture of her running instead but I just think that she looks so happy in the above photo I had to include it. Much has been written about her elsewhere, but you can read her Wikipedia page here or this excellent article here. Caster isn’t the only one. Francine Niyonsaba, a runner from Burundi, also has hypeandrogenism and has been therefore banned from some races due to the World Athletics’ regulations. Former runner Annet Negesa, from Uganda, had to go through a gonadectomy to remove her internal testes in 2012. She says she was coerced and the surgery was misrepresented to her by the IAAF approved doctors. The surgery ruined her medical and physical health to the point that when she returned to competition in 2017, she ran a minute below her personal best which made her a club level runner instead of an elite athlete.
It is very interesting that in modern times all of the athletes targeted for gender verification are South Asian or African. Let’s hope that the publicity around Caster Semenya’s case makes things easier for female athletes in the future. I did not really touch on transgender athletes in this issue, but that is a separate (but related) issue that I don’t think I have the space or expertise to cover!
Sex verification is also called gender determination. I’m not sure which term is more accurate because the whole process is based on outdated and incorrect understandings of what makes a person a woman, a man, or something else entirely. Since many sports are split up by gender, when anyone threatens the idea that those categories might not be large enough to hold them, the sporting governing bodies do tests to make sure that they can put the athlete in one box or another. In 1950, athletes competing in the European track and field championships in Belgium were tested in their own countries before arriving to compete. In 1966 there was testing at the actual sporting event, when some were suspicious that the best female athletes from the Soviet Union were actually men. At the Olympics, the testing was introduced in 1968. Gender determination or sex verification can lead to both physical and mental harm for the athletes, with some of them undergoing surgery or developing mental and emotional issues from the procedures or stigma that they face.
At first sex verification was a physical exam, then chromosome testing and then testosterone level testing. None of these are very good ways to find out what someone’s gender is, because humans have more variation in all of those categories than just two options. I’m not going to get into the science of it but just know for example, having a low level of testosterone doesn’t make you automatically not a man.
Gender verification was first requested by the United States Olympic Committee President during the 1936 Olympics in Berlin because a Czech runner Zdenka Koubkova (who later had gender reassignment surgery and became Zdenek Koubek) and an English javelin thrower Mary Edith Weston (who also had gender reassignment surgery and became Mark Weston) were both ‘ambiguous’ according to him. Only women were ever tested.
In 1992, the IAAF (International Association of Athletics Federations) stopped mandatory sex screening, now only doing it if ‘suspicions arise’. Others believe that athletes should compete with whatever their legal gender is, and no testing should take place. Interestingly enough, sex verification has not been and is not conducted on male athletes. However, studies have shown that some men may have low testosterone just as some women may have high testosterone. The IOC, International Olympics Committee, decided in 2015 it didn’t matter if someone competing was transgender, all that matters is their testosterone levels. However, as was seen in the study I mentioned above, that varies in all people regardless of their gender. Often it is women of color who are chosen to be tested for sex verification, just because they are judged against a white standard which is obviously unfair. Testing is not only invasive and often humiliating, but sometimes it is especially painful for intersex people who may have male genes but female anatomy or vice versa.
There are several other examples throughout the years of athletes forced to go through testing, and I will tell you a little bit about them in chronological order.
One athlete who was banned from her sport early on was the Dutch runner Foekje Dillema, whose picture you can see above. She was an up and coming runner and she refused to go to a mandatory sex test, so she was banned for life by the IAAF. Her national record for the 200 meters was also erased. She moved back to her home after that and lived a quiet life, refusing to talk about what had happened. After Foekje died, her DNA was tested and it was found that she had an ovotesticular disorder of sex development, which led to her having an operation in 1952, removing testes or ovotestes. She was however raised as a woman and lived her life as a woman, so she was a woman, despite the fact that her testosterone levels were considered to make her competing unfair to other competitors.
Stanislawa Walasiewicz, also known as Stella Walsh, whose picture you can see below was also a track and field athlete. She joined the Polish sports teams as she was not yet an American citizen but also ran in American games as well. She wasn’t surer which country to become a citizen of, and ultimately decided on Poland. She was one of the most popular Polish athletes at the time. In the 1932 Olympics, she won the gold medal in the 100m dash. She was welcomed by cheering crowds back in Poland. Stella competed in the Championships of Warsaw, winning nine gold medals in track and field, and beating several world records. In the 1936 Olympic Games, Stella came in second, winning silver. After the Olympics, Walsh moved back to the United States, accepted American citizenships, and won more medals and awards. She retired at the age of forty, and in 1975 she was inducted into the US Track and Field Hall of Fame. In her retirement, she stayed active in Polish sport associations and funded awards for Polish athletes in the United States.
Unfortunately, Stella was killed in an armed robbery in 1980 when she was buying ribbons for visiting Polish basketball players. When an autopsy was conducted, it was found that she had XY gonadal dysgenesis which meant she had no uterus and a non-functioning penis, with female characteristics as well. She was intersex. Ironically, though suspicions were raised during Stella’s career, it was her opponent who won the gold medal in 1936 who was subjected to a gender verification test instead of her.
Another athlete whose gender was disputed was Dora Ratjen, a German track star. He was brought up as a girl, but when he was ten or eleven he realized that he was a boy, but didn’t make a big deal of it with his parents who dressed him in girl’s clothes. He began competing as a girl in sports and in 1936 went to the Olympics, but never undressed in front of his teammates who thought he was just shy. Dora won a gold medal with the high jump at the European Athletics Championships, and also broke the world record in the high jump the following year. A few people became suspicious of Dora, and later found him working as a waiter and named Hermann Ratjen. Hermann’s gold medal was taken away as was his world record. Eventually Hermann was ordered by the police to go be examined by a physician and was determined to be intersex. There were criminal proceedings as I guess men weren’t allowed to dress as women in public? Or perhaps it was fraud? Who knows, but the prosecutor said that as long as Hermann promised not to do any more sports he’d let him go and live his life. Eventually Hermann’s parents grew to accept him as a male, and he changed his name to Heinrich, or Heinz. He got new papers that showed he was a man, and he took over his parents’ bar, working there till he died in 2008. Below is a picture of Hermann.
There are more athletes that had to go through gender verification tests, but I am only highlighting a few of them here or this would go on forever. Recently there have been quite a few Indian track stars who have been accused of pretending to be the wrong gender. One up and coming athlete, Pratima Gaonkar, committed suicide after her coach threatened to make public her intersex status. Santhi Soundarajan, another Indian athlete from a poor family, broke records and won medals in the Asian Games and the Asian Athletics Championships in 2005 and 2006. However, suspicions arose about her gender and she went through a sex test by a gynecologist, psychologist, geneticist, endocrinologist, and internal medicine specialist. Some said that perhaps her upbringing where she only ate one meal a day caused her result to come out that she ‘did not possess the sexual characteristics of a woman’. She later explained that she had androgen insensitivity syndrome. The Indian Olympics Association told her that she could no longer compete and she was stripped of her silver medal. When Santhi went home, she became very depressed and tried to kill herself, but a friend found her and got her help. She recovered eventually. Now Santhi works as training students in running just as she got training as a youth. She works at her own academy in Tamil Nadu and her students have a record of success.
Another young Indian athlete who got into gender related trouble was Pinki Pramanik. She set junior state records and won gold, silver, and bronze medals at the 2004 Asian Indoor Athletics Championships. Pinki also won gold medals at the 2006 South Asian Games, and attended the Asian Games as well as the IAAF World Cup in 2006. She did suffer several foot injuries and back pain which took her out of competition for a few years. In 2012, one of her female friends accused her of being a man, and of raping her. There were then medical tests to determine her gender. Pinki said that her coaches injected her regularly with testosterone. Test showed that Pinki was intersex, and she said that the rape allegations was from her neighbor. Pinki said, “She used to live next door on rent with her lover and her five-year-old child. She had taken nude photographs of me and was threatening to make them public. She had been blackmailing me for some time. But to be accused of being male and raping her shocked me. I am not male. I have always been female. I look more male now because, as part of my training to compete in international athletics, I used to be regularly administered testosterone injections like other female participants. I was told that it was necessary to take these and I never questioned whether these were legal or not. I was focused on winning and did whatever I was asked to do by my trainers, who knew what was best for me. But after that, my voice became deeper and I grew more body hair." Pinki also said that she did not consent to the gender testing and was drugged during the procedure. Some thought that a specific MP might have tried to frame her over a land dispute but we will probably never know the truth.
Finally, the last Indian athlete I’ll talk about is Dutee Chand. Dutee is from a poor family of weavers. In 2012, she became a national junior champion, and in 2013 she won a bronze medal at the Asian Athletics Championships. She also became national champion in the 100 meter run and 200 meter run. However, in 2014, after she won two gold medals at the Asian Junior Athletics Championship, she was told that her hyperandrogenism made her ineligible to compete as a woman. She was tested and humiliated. Dutee did not let this stop her, though, appealing to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. The IAAF’s policy on hyperandrogenism (high natural levels of testosterone) was suspended. There was not enough evidence that testosterone increases athletic performance, so Dutee’s suspension was lifted. Santhi Soundarajan, who I mentioned earlier, publicly supported Dutee in her ordeal.
Dutee again began running competitively, winning a bronze medal at the 2016 Asian Indoor Athletics Championships and breaking several national records. She qualified for the Olympics, and was able to participate in the 100 meter race though she did not get far. Dutee continued to compete, winning medals in competitions in 2017, 2018 and 2019.
Dutee Chand has publicly supported Caster Semenya’s ordeal. Caster has faced the same struggles as Dutee, but has not been able to compete in sports. Dutee said that she understood, because “the negativity, fear of my career ending prematurely, insensitive comments about my body, I have faced them all. I am extremely relieved that I can run fearlessly again, knowing that now my battle exists only on the track and not off it”. She wrote Caster a letter expressing her support and offering her legal help.
Dutee also has a law degree and works for a Mining Corporation in Odisha. In 2019 she came out as gay, soon after in 2018 the Indian Supreme Court decriminalized same sex relationships. She is the first ever open Indian LGBTQ athlete and is in a same-sex relationship. She received backlash but also some support.
Caster Semenya, a South African runner, is probably the most famous contemporary case of gender verification in sports. Above is a picture of her with her wife. I know I should include a picture of her running instead but I just think that she looks so happy in the above photo I had to include it. Much has been written about her elsewhere, but you can read her Wikipedia page here or this excellent article here. Caster isn’t the only one. Francine Niyonsaba, a runner from Burundi, also has hypeandrogenism and has been therefore banned from some races due to the World Athletics’ regulations. Former runner Annet Negesa, from Uganda, had to go through a gonadectomy to remove her internal testes in 2012. She says she was coerced and the surgery was misrepresented to her by the IAAF approved doctors. The surgery ruined her medical and physical health to the point that when she returned to competition in 2017, she ran a minute below her personal best which made her a club level runner instead of an elite athlete.
It is very interesting that in modern times all of the athletes targeted for gender verification are South Asian or African. Let’s hope that the publicity around Caster Semenya’s case makes things easier for female athletes in the future. I did not really touch on transgender athletes in this issue, but that is a separate (but related) issue that I don’t think I have the space or expertise to cover!
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