Our society is dominated by the two-sex system. Upheld by our language, literary conventions, legal system, medical practices, and cultural norms, we are expected to be born into this world as either male or female. Caught in this gender binary that governs what we perceive as normal and socially appropriate, when genitalia are ambiguous, and chromosomes and hormones are in conflict, our constructed male-female system crumbles and we must address that not everyone can be distinctly categorized: “a body’s sex is simply too complex. There is no either/or. Rather, there are shades of difference” (Fausto-Sterling 3). Having recently celebrated the 2010 Winter Olympics, our beliefs about gender and sex have been called into question, as the debate over gender testing in the Olympics continues. Kolata’s article “Gender Testing Hangs Before the Games as a Muddled and Vexing Mess” illustrates the confining nature of society’s two-sex system and the confusion that arises when people do not fit the exact mold of either male or female but fall somewhere in between as intersex. Exploring examples of intersexual athletes and their experiences in the games, as well as consequences of intrusive and degrading gender tests, the International Olympic Committee grapples over the ins and outs of gender testing, but comes to no black and white answer. Certifying the femininity and masculinity of athletes is complex and arguably impossible, and as Fausto-Sterling asserts, “We may use scientific knowledge to help us make the decision, but only our beliefs about gender—not science—can define our sex” (3). Rather than harboring over particularities of sex and gender, we must accept that there are no perfect categorizations, we must reject the insistence of a male-female dichotomy and acknowledge that male and female stand merely “on the extreme ends of a biological continuum” (Fausto-Sterling 31).
In the world of sports and competition, athletes’ gender is under heightened scrutiny to prevent cheating and unfair advantages. In closed meetings in Miami before the commencement of the 2010 Olympic Games, medical specialists and representatives met to discuss the most controversial questions in sports: “What test should be used to determine whether an athlete competes as a man or a woman? Or should there be any official testing at all?” (Kolata 1). The article describes that this issue gained global attention last year when South African runner Caster Semenya was ordered to undergo gender tests after speculation arose over her gender following her gold medal victory in the 100 meters at the world championships in Berlin. Other athletes complained that Semenya appeared extremely masculine, and sex testing was ordered, although the results were not released and she was allowed to keep her medal. Still, her future participation in races as a female participant has been called into question, and the debate over gender testing has become a heated topic in the Olympics.
The article tracks the progression of Olympic gender testing regulations which have evolved from extensive physical exams for female athletes to scientific chromosomal testing to observing genitalia during urination for drug tests to the abandonment of official sex verification policies in 1999. As we see with Caliope/Cal in Middlesex and the many examples of the variation in intersexuality provided by Fausto-Sterling in Sexing the Body, the Olympics provide further evidence that there is no conclusive method for gender testing. Cases of intersexuality vary widely, and differentiating between who is male and who is female can become a scientific and medical mess: “Some with the male-determining Y chromosome, for example, do not respond to testosterone. They develop as females. Others, genetically female with two X chromosomes, have overdeveloped adrenal glands whose hormones are converted to testosterone” (Kolata 1). For intersexual athletes, sex testing can be invasive and traumatic, and furthermore inconclusive. Both Kolato and Fausto-Sterling highlight the difficulty surrounding gender testing with the story of María Martínez-Patiño, a Spanish hurdler who received a “certificate of femininity” when tested at age 22 at the 1983 world championships in Helinski, which was later revoked when she was tested again in 1985 at the World University Games in Japan when results revealed “she has a Y chromosome and a genetic defect preventing her from responding to testosterone” (Kolata 2). As a result of the testing, Martínez-Patiño was expelled from the athletes’ residence, her sports scholarship was revoked, and her running times were deleted from Spain’s athletic records. In addition she writes: “‘I felt ashamed and embarrassed. I lost friends, my fiancé, hope and energy’” (Kolata 2).
Clearly there are is no definitive answer for gender testing. Chromosomal testing results in complicated exceptions, such as the case of Martínez-Patiño and observing genitalia with the goal of catching men posing as women becomes complicated when women have ambiguous external genitalia, such as a very large clitoris. Furthermore, gender and sex are inextricably intertwined to the point that “our beliefs about gender affect what kinds of knowledge scientists produce about sex in the first place” (Fausto-Sterling 3). With much of our idea of sex constructed through the lens of gender, how can we truly decide who is male or female? And why is such a differentiation truly necessary? Martínez-Patiño admits: “‘I knew I was a woman. I have breasts and a vagina,’ she wrote. ‘I never cheated’” (Kolata 2). While visually conforming to society’s definition of femininity, internally she has testes and a Y chromosome; by conventional standards, she will never fit neatly into the male or female category.
Grappling with the impossible task of creating a universal gender test for the Olympics, Kolata concludes by presenting multiple views in favor of no gender testing at all. The Endocrine Society suggests that sports federations should not even attempt to use medical tests to determine athletes’ gender. Instead, they argue that the deciding criterion should be: “Was the athlete raised as a male or a female? Someone who was raised as a female and considers herself female, the organization says, should be allowed to compete as a female” (Kolata 2-3). Evidently, this raises questions of fairness, but as Dr. Eric Vilain states, “sports is inherently unfair, regardless of sex ambiguities” (Kolata 3), and together with other endocrinologists, he argues that it best to abandon the quest of gender testing altogether.
Sports competition is a facet of society that has been marked by social constructions of gender. We separate men and women in competition with hopes of ensuring fairness, but such practice becomes complicated when we consider that not everyone can be distinctly classified as male or female. We have become so engrained in the male-female dichotomy, “making the two-sex system more deeply a part of how we imagine human life and giving it the appearance of being both inborn and natural” (Fausto-Sterling 31), that our society itself is built around the categories of male and female. The Olympics is just another aspect of our constructed society that is threatened by the reality that not everyone is either male or female. Ideally, we would deconstruct the barriers that pigeon hole people into the two-sex system, but unfortunately with the male-female dichotomy so deeply rooted in our society, such a goal would require an overturning of almost all facets of our lives. One way in which we can challenge the existing male-female binary, however, would be to abandon the practice of gender testing in sports. Instead of feeding into the exclusionary system and wasting energy on ambiguous tests, we could recognize that people lie on a spectrum of sexuality, and intersexual athletes should be allowed to compete in the Olympics as the gender with which they identify. As Dr. Eric Vilain says, the very nature of sports is unfair. If we are so concerned with fairness that we are willing to exclude athletes because they do not fit neatly into the categories of male and female, shouldn’t we then start to investigate the other striking elements of inequality in sports competition?
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