Policing Femininity in Sport

A very interesting and disturbing article today here about Caster Semenya, the South African runner who was investigated and suspended by athletic officials because her abilities and appearance raised concerns she was a man.

It turns out that this isn’t an isolated case and an undisclosed number of female athletes will be competing in this years Olympics after having to undergo surgery or hormone therapy. These are athletes who are born as women, raised as women and compete as women, but who have a higher than average testosterone level, in some cases higher than most men. Some of these women have subsequently been found to be intersex – something it is possible not to be aware of. In Semenya’s case she had internal undeveloped testes.

It’s not a new phenomenon for strong athletic women to be checked for gender, it’s just that naked parades have been replaced with hormone checks which reveal the presence of such internal organs.          

There are a vast number of factors that occur through nature or nurture which will affect the chances of an athlete being successful. Jon Entine raises the question of race being a factor, and Bruce Kidd comments that “Personal household and national income is far more relevant to performance than hormonal makeup,” he says. The countries with the highest GDP produce the most gold medals. The richer the athlete, the higher the likelihood of a winner” in the original Star article.

I don’t see anyone asking a black athlete to tone down the fast twitch muscles, or checking the social background of competitors before competing,

There are some people who are genetically gifted to exceed at their sport. This list shows the best VO2 max scores achieved by male athletes. Is it unfair that they have a better natural ability to consume oxygen during exercise? What if research showed a certain hormone could be identified that governed this, would this have to be suppressed with drugs or surgery?

Lance Armstrong has some well documented genetic advantages which helped him win the Tour de France 7 times. Why isn’t anybody testing him to pin point the reason for this, and then suppress it with drugs?

Now call me paranoid, but the only reason I can see is that these are female athletes who do not fit the accepted definition of what it means to look like a woman. They don’t look feminine enough and they don’t fit the acceptable ascetics for a female athlete, so they are subjected to testing. To quote Bruce Kiss again “It’s still the old patriarchal fear, or doubt, that women can do outstanding athletic performances. If they do, they can’t be real women. It’s that clear, it’s that prejudicial,”

Are men tested for testosterone? Will men who have the highest levels have to have it suppressed so as not to have an advantage over other men? Where will it end? Maximum height for basketball so short people can play? Of course not. Its only women who are subjected to this kind of invasive bullshit.

This is a naturally occurring hormone, not a “male” hormone that women have no business having. Some people have less, some have more. Not everyone fits in to a nice neat biological definition of male and female. She is not taping her penis up and shaving her beard before competing.

If the playing field is to be fair, group people by the myriad of other performance indicators; their testosterone, height, weight, race, social economic background, funding or any other category you care to think of, but don’t continue to subject women, and only women, to this level of scrutiny and indignity and force them to undergo unnecessary and unwanted surgery just to be able to compete.