Amid all the “feel good” human interest stories about the athletes at the upcoming Olympics, I somehow doubt that this story will be so prominent. It deals with gender testing of the athletes. This is just too funny, especially for those of us who remember the character of unknown gender, “Pat,” from Saturday Night Live. This is a serious issue however, which has historical roots dating back to the Third Reich and continuing through the East German athletic program, where the coaches forced medical cocktails on athletes to make them stronger often with disastrous results for the poor athletes.

Quote:

“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. The tests will not be conducted on every female athlete, but will be required if serious doubts have been raised about an individual competitor - invariably one competing in the women's events. "The aim is to protect fairness at the games while also protecting the rights of people with abnormal sexual development," he says.

…

Unsurprisingly, gender-determination tests were seen as degrading, with female competitors having to submit to humiliating and invasive physical examinations by a series of doctors. Later, the IOC decided to use a supposedly more sophisticated genetic test, based on chromosomes. Women usually have two X chromosomes; men an X and a Y chromosome. So, according to the rules of the test, only those athletes with two X chromosomes could be classed as women. However, many geneticists criticised the tests, saying that sex is not as simple as X and Y chromosomes and is not always simple to ascertain.”

Here is the link to the full article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2008/jul/30/olympicgames2008.gender

Michael McBride*
J. Michael McBride, P.C.
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* Admitted in Texas and New York