“Gender Testing Per Se Is No Longer Necessary”

Abstract

This chapter demonstrates how alternative requirements merely rendered gender verification moot. In 1992, the International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF) terminated all mandatory gender controls while the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) Medical Commission remained loyal to PCR testing, maintaining the procedure for the 1994 Lillehammer Olympics, 1996 Atlanta Olympics, and 1998 Nagano Olympics. As a result, the IOC experienced opposition throughout the 1990s from concerned physicians, national governments, and medically trained athletes. In 1999, the IOC Executive Board voted to stop testing. However, the medical commission did not relinquish complete control. Through suspicion-based checks, anti-doping techniques, and the Stockholm Consensus, Olympic authorities continued to uphold a binary notion of sex/gender and to promote Western norms of femininity. Thus, even though the IAAF and the IOC may have disagreed on the correct method, both organizations still believed that sex/gender control was crucial in elite sport.

Contradiction or Cohesion? Tracing Questions of Protection and Fairness in Scientifically Driven Elite Sport Policies

“…In all, the multiple considerations within constructs of protection and fairness-and the inadequacy of science to fully define both ideas-prompts critical questions around what dimensions are considered most salient and what types of discourses and knowledges are (strategically or opportunistically) drawn upon to achieve organizational goals. While these discussions are particularly visible in today's political climate around transgender athletes (Sharrow et al, 2021;Thorpe et al, 2021), similar scenarios have previously appeared before sport organizations and their medical commissions for topics such as female eligibility and doping (Henne, 2014;Pape, 2019;Pieper, 2016). Thus, to parse through the multiple and complex constructions and developments of protection and fairness, I look to Sheila Jasanoff's "co-production" to examine how scientific and sociocultural considerations converge in the research informing scientifically driven policies.…”

“…Notably absent from these discussions around "bodily harm" is the disproportionate number of transgender health disparities (Hughto et al, 2015), which is particularly revealing considering sport organizations' increased attention to athlete health and well-being. As female muscularity remains a contested ground (Halberstam, 1998;Pieper, 2016), Teetzel (2006) observes that much of the controversy surrounding transgender athlete participation emerged from an "underlying disbelief that an athlete who was born female could compete alongside elite 'naturally superior' male athletes" (p. 230).…”

Defining ‘woman': A governmentality analysis of how protective policies are created in elite women's sport

“…Undergirded by fears of ‘mannish’ women athletes who violate codes of femininity or boundaries of femaleness (Cahn, 2015; Kane, 1995), both types of policies foster ‘sex control’ protective efforts (Bavington, 2016). As female muscularity remains a contested ground (Halberstam, 1998; Pieper, 2016), bodies that challenge sex and gender binaries fuel gender panics, or “situations where people react to disruptions to biology-based gender ideology by frantically reasserting the naturalness of the male-female binary” (Westbrook and Schilt, 2014: 34). Importantly, the codified language of ‘masculine women’ also intersects with the biologization of race and region (Cahn, 2015; Hoad, 2010; Jordan-Young and Karkazis, 2019).…”

“…In April 2018, World Athletics (WA; the international governing body for track-and-field) released its female eligibility policy, which limited blood testosterone levels to five nanomoles per liter (nmol/L) for women athletes with X,Y chromosomes competing in event distances between 400-meters and a mile. While arguing that the policy was necessary for protecting ‘fair and meaningful competition’ for women's sport and encouraging ‘gender-affirming’ treatment for women with undiagnosed differences of sex development (see WA, 2019a), critics highlighted the dubitability of scientific ‘evidence’ associating testosterone with performative excellence (Jordan-Young and Karkazis, 2019; Karkazis et al, 2012), restrictive definitions of femininity (Cooky and Dworkin, 2013; Pieper, 2016; Schultz, 2011), imposition of Western ideals (Henne and Pape, 2018; Karkazis and Jordan-Young, 2018; Magubane, 2014), and scientification of gender/sex (Karkazis and Jordan-Young, 2018; Pape, 2019; Wells, 2020). Despite challenges from Caster Semenya and Athletics South Africa (ASA), in May 2019, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS)—sport's highest ethical court—ruled that the policy was discriminatory, but of “necessary, reasonable and proportionate means” (CAS, 2019: 160).…”

The time is now: why we must identify and address health disparities in sport and recreation injury

“…Just as with race or economic data, collecting data on gender is important to ensure that we can identify and prevent marginalization of people (Tan et al 2020 ), and see where adjustments in the structure of community or elite sport can maintain or increase inclusion and participation (Roberts and Christens 2020 ; Lett et al 2020 ). In sport, sex-testing (Ritchie et al 2008 ; The Foundation Position n.d. ) particularly of female and intersex athletes is pervasive and based on outdated notions of who someone is and what they are capable of (Pieper 2016 ; Clifton 2020 ). Using gender (The Gender Unicorn n.d. ) as opposed to or in conjunction with sex (Institute of Medicine (US) Board on the Health of Select Populations n.d. ) will help in efforts to improve health access, outcomes, and treatment for everyone (Christian et al 2018 ; Gonzales and Henning-Smith 2017 ).…”