Gender and the Olympic Games

South African middle distance runner Caster Semenya has been making headlines recently for all of the wrong reasons. Instead of being praised for her 2009 break-out year, in which she won the world title in the 800 meter run, her gender has been called into question. The muscular teen has had to undergo intensive gender testing and has not been allowed to race since the World Championships. Regardless of the outcome of the testing, her career is in jeopardy.

Semenya is not the athlete to have her gender heavily scrutinized and tested. That honor most likely belongs to Spanish hurdler Maria Patiño. According to Anne Fausto-Sterling's bookSexing the Body, Patiño, member of Spain's 1988 Olympic team, failed a gender test just before the competition began. It was later discovered that she had androgen insensitivity, meaning that, although she had testes and a Y chromosome, her body could not process testosterone. Therefore, the estrogen produced by her testes (which were hidden behind her labia) at puberty, allowed her to develop external female features such as breasts. Initially banned from competition, she was reinstated after fighting the ruling for two and a half years.

There have been other cases of gender ambiguity in Olympic competition as well, though none as high profile. Stanislawa Walasiewicz, better known as Stella Walsh, competed as a sprinter for Poland in the 1930s. Walsh was killed in 1980 during a robbery at a Cleveland shopping mall. Her autopsy revealed signs of mosaicism, namely male and female chromosomes and male genitalia. Brazilian Judoka Edinanci Silva was born with male and female sex organs and surgery in the mid-1990s to allow her to compete as uncontroversially as possible, going on to enter three Olympic tournaments.1964 Olympic track and field medalist Ewa Klobukowska of Poland was banned from competition in 1967 after failing a gender test.

Formal gender testing first began at the Olympics in 1968 after Capitalist countries began speculating that Communist nations were disguising men as women to win more medals (in reality, it was later discovered that many of these competitors were women that had taken large amounts of steroids). Before this, women had to stand naked in front of a board of examiners to confirm that they did in fact have breasts and vaginas.

Why do women have to go through such extremes to prove gender? Is it because men are considered to be faster and stronger? Would anyone care if a male competitor was found to be biologically a woman? (I have never heard of this occurring but would be interested to learn more if any of you have).

Androgen insensitivity gives competitors no advantage. Lying about gender has also pretty much been a non-issue in Olympic competition; the only documented case occurred in 1936 when Hermann "Dora" Ratjen, a member of Hitler Youth, competed in the women's high jump. For the record, he finished fourth behind three "certifiably" female opponents.