Olympics demand mandatory sex testing in attack on rights

The International Olympics Committee (IOC) has announced its new ‘Policy on the Protection of the Female (Women’s) Category in Olympic Sport‘. It amounts to a total ban on trans women/transfeminine athletes, and a near-total ban on intersex athletes, competing in the women’s category.

Normally, we might argue with the science that the IOC used to make its decision. However, nobody has been allowed to see the science – though we’re assured it exists.

What we do know is that this latest ruling completely contradicts the IOC’s science from just five years ago, which stated that trans people “should not be deemed to have an unfair or disproportionate competitive advantage”.

We also know that this decision is not a reaction to an explosion of trans women winning in the female category at the Olympics. That’s because exactly one trans woman has competed at the Olympics, and she didn’t medal.

We’re not going to argue that this is a horrific roll-back of intersex and trans rights, or the basic concept of inclusion. (It is). Likewise, we’re not going to argue that this decision was politically motivated (although the science suddenly said the opposite of what it used to immediately after a leadership change at the IOC).

What we are going to argue is that this is that sex-testing in women’s sport is a disaster for privacy and women’s rights. That means cis women, trans women and intersex women, and whatever combination thereof – all women.

We know this because we’ve fucking been here before.

Olympics: IOC document

The IOC plans to introduce universal sex screening for the women’s category. It will achieve this through a one-time SRY (Sex-Determining Region) test. The SRY gene is usually present on the Y chromosome, and causes the development of testes during foetal development.

The IOC’s new document states that:

All Biological Female athletes screened will be negative and eligible, and virtually all athletes who screen positive will have testes/testicles that naturally produce testosterone at adult Male levels.

This is a deception. The document writers know that it’s a deception, because they include a carve-out:

Because a positive SRY Gene screen does not establish a specific DSD diagnosis, further evaluation should be made available to the athlete to determine whether they have CAIS or another rare XY DSD that precludes testosterone’s anabolic and/or performance-enhancing effects.

The DSD there stands for “differences/disorders of sexual development”. We will be using the term ‘intersex’. The number of intersex people among the general population varies according to the definition used, but it may be as high as 1.7%. 

CAIS stands for Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome. This means that the body doesn’t have the receptors to make use of the circulating testosterone.

However, beyond CAIS, levels of testosterone sensitivity can vary massively, i.e. Partial Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome. As such, that “testosterone at adult Male levels” tells us very little.

The document also states that:

XY Transgender athletes and athletes with certain XY differences/disorders in sex development (DSD) (as defined in Schedule 1) have anatomical and physiological advantages in line with being Male even as their legal sex, the manner in which they were raised, and/or their gender identity may vary.

The bit about legal sex and the “manner in which they were raised” is also significant. This is because many intersex people go their whole lives without learning that they’re intersex.

As such, some intersex athletes can find that they’re intersex for the first time due to a sporting test. This has happened before – and it’s a massive problem.

‘Scientifically and ethically unjustifiable’

The IOC previously instated universal sex testing back in 1968. At first, the tests consisted of having the women appear naked in front of a panel of judges. Later, the IOC moved on to more elaborate tests, such as the Barr body test.

The last universal sex testing at the Olympics took place in 1996, in Atlanta. At the time, eight women came up positive on the DNA-based test. As explained by rights organisation the International Commission of Jurists:

After the 1996 Olympic Games, the IOC voted to discontinue universal sex testing for being scientifically and ethically unjustifiable, since it was an inaccurate test of both sex and athletic advantage and was resulting in considerable harm to affected athletes. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, UN Women, the World Medical Association, American Medical Association and, most recently, a group of independent UN experts have long condemned sex testing and medically unnecessary interventions as discriminatory, unethical, and harmful.

Since then, decisions on sex testing were left with individual sporting bodies. Often, testing was weaponised against individual – often brown or Black – women like Imane Khelif and Caster Semenya. 

The consequences of mandatory sex tests are often severe. Whilst being intersex is simply another variation of human existence, sex is given such a primacy by our society that learning one’s assumptions were wrong can be a severe shock.

Beyond the exclusion from an elite sport than the woman has worked her life towards, other harms can include severe sex and gender identity crisis, social isolation, demeaning reactions from the public, depression, and suicide.

Klobukowska, Patiño, Soundarajan

Competing in the Tokyo Olympics in 1964, Poland’s Ewa Klobukowska of Poland helped set a new 100m-relay world record. However, she submitted to sex testing after the media mocked her for her ‘masculine’ appearance:

The test results were never made public, but the IAAF ruled that Klobukowska had a chromosomal anomaly that disqualified her from competing in the female category. The organization publicly criticized Klobukowska for being a male imposter, and stripped her of her medals. After being disqualified from competing at the age of 21, she said, “It’s a dirty and stupid thing to do to me. I know what I am and how I feel.”

She had a son in 1968. Thirty-one years later, the IOC returned her medals.

Klobukowska never re-entered professional sport, and her records are remain largely unknown.

Another case in point is Maria José Martínez Patiño, a CAIS intersex woman and former Spanish hurdler. She fell victim to a sex chromatin test at the 1985 World University Games in Kobe, Japan. She was told to fake an injury and retire quietly, as was common practice.

However, she then went on to compete in the 1986 National Championships. Whilst she was told again to withdraw quietly, she refused. After winning her race, she was attacked in the Spanish press. She was expelled from her residence, and lost her scholarship, her records, and her fiance.

Another example is Santhi Soundarajan, who won silver in the women’s 800m race at the 2006 Asian Games. Soundarajan also has AIS, causing her to fall victim to a genetic screening test.

After being told she could no longer compete, and being stripped of her medal, Santhi fell into a deep depression and later attempted suicide.

‘Human dignity’

The IOC stated in its announcement that its related organisations should work to:

Ensure that the athlete’s human dignity, physical and psychological well-being, health and safety, and
right to privacy and confidentiality are respected.

It is also insisting that we perform these potentially life-upending tests “early in the athletic career”, with “age appropriate explanations” for minors.

However, this respect for their athletes’ human dignity and psychological well-being apparently doesn’t extend to the IOC restraining itself from calling these women “biological males” throughout the document, and insisting that “biological sex does not and cannot change”.

We have watched, over the last few years, our media, politicians and public figures hound and mock athletes they suspect of being intersex or trans. This cruelty is a direct consequence of the primacy we place on sex – and our rhetoric around that primacy is only becoming more extreme by the day.

The IOC insists that we need a hard border to “protect” women’s sport. Any border creates an ‘other’, and requires police to protect that border from the ‘other’. And policing, as we have seen time and again, begets violence. In this case, that violence is directed towards women – intersex, cis, and trans women.

Many are celebrating today, and many athletes among them – but this is no victory for women’s rights.

Featured image via the Canary