What is Gender Testing and is it Right?

The Controversy of Caster Semenya and the Olympics

Sep 10, 2009 Marian Henderson

Caster Semenya, a medal-winning Olympic athlete, is perilously close to being stripped of her medals after reports surfaced that she may be a hermaphrodite.

The Sydney Daily Telegraph reports that Semenya “has no ovaries” and adds “she has internal testes - the male sexual organs which produce testosterone (and) three times the amount of testosterone that a ‘normal’ female would have" (2009). According to broadcast news reports, the International Amateur Athletics Federation (IAAF) is considering stripping 18 year-old Semenya of her Olympic medal. But if these reports are accurate, how did officials determine that Semenya is a hermaphrodite?

What is Gender Testing?

The most immediate way of determining the sex of an individual is by examination of the external genitalia, and most newborns are easily identified by this simple visual examination. In early testing the Olympic officials used this simplistic method for determining males from females. The reason that such testing was implemented was to prevent men from posing as women and competing as females in Olympic events.

Primitive Methods of Sex Determination

Anne Fausto-Sterling, author of Sexing the Body, reports that “until 1968 female Olympic competitors were asked to parade naked in front of a board of examiners. Breasts and a vagina were all one needed to certify one’s femininity” (2000, p.9). The vetting process ranged from gynecological exams to mandatory disrobing (Genel, Para. 4). And although the process of distinguishing males from females became more complex, it was no less degrading.

Inaccurate Methods of Sex Determination

To avoid embarrassment of female athletes, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) adopted a new test that identified sex chromosomes. Females normally have XX sex chromosomes and males normally have XY sex chromosomes. The new test (buccal smear for sex chromatin according to Genel) required scraping the cheek to obtain a chromosome sample.

The Case of Maria Patiño

The process of certifying the sex of females and the testing procedures involved came under scrutiny in 1988 when Maria Patiño, an Olympic hurdler from Spain, underwent the cheek-scraping procedure to certify that she was a female. To her astonishment the results indicated that she was not a female.

Stripped of her Olympic Medals

Patiño was stripped of her medals, and “it took 2 years and the active intercession of a number of medical authorities for Ms. Patiño, who has androgen resistance, to be reinstated” (Genel cites Carlson, 2000, para. 6). Patiño’s strenuous objection and her refusal to feign an injury to avoid drawing attention to her test results, forced the IOC to re-evaluate their testing procedures. The problem with the testing was that some chromosomal abnormalities and physiological and anatomical anomalies were not accounted for in the testing, yet Olympic committees persisted in categorizing each female based on various methods of testing that were not fool-proof.

Myron Genel, one of the medical doctors who participated in a workshop on “Methods of Femininity Verification” in 1990, reported that “Our group concluded that laboratory-based sex determination should be discontinued” (para. 7). Genel adds that the IAAF and most of the international athletic federations accepted the recommendations from the workshop, but the IOC deferred to yet another testing method; the new test was based on DNA.

Ending Gender Testing?

“(I)t was not until the IOC's Athletes' Commission called for discontinuation of the IOC system of gender verification that the IOC's executive board, at its June 1999 meeting in Seoul, decided to discontinue the practice on a trial basis…” (Genel, para. 9). Despite discontinuation of the practice, Caster Semenya was subjected to gender/sex verification after suspicions about her masculine appearance were raised.

Myron Genel’s article, “Gender Verification no More?” was published in 2000, and he stated that the “proposal by the Athletes' Commission…permits intervention and evaluation of individual athletes by appropriate medical personnel if there is any question regarding gender identity (para. 9). This is the provision that led to the testing of Semenya.

Is Gender different from Sex?

Opponents of gender testing promulgate the teachings of sexologists John Money and Anke Erhardt. Anne Faustino-Sterling summarizes their theories stating “they popularized the idea that sex and gender are separate categories. Sex, they argued, refers to physical attributes and is anatomically and physiologically determined. Gender they saw as a psychological construct of the self—the internal conviction that one is either male or female (gender identity)… (2000, p.3).

Following this line of reasoning, one would conclude that Semenya has developed a female gender identification over the past 18 years of her life. Family and friends from her native South Africa have reinforced her perception of herself as female for 18 years. With such a history, adjusting to life as a man --based on the results of one test-- after being categorized as a female from birth to 18 years of age, would be a psychologically challenging (and possibly damaging) process.

What is a Hermaphrodite?

Various news sources have reported that Caster Semenya is a hermaphrodite. Fausto-Sterling explains that“so-called true hermaphrodites have a combination of testes and ovaries” (2000, p. 51) while “pseudo male” and “pseudo female” hermaphrodites have ovaries or testes combined with ‘opposite’ (external) genitalia (p.38)

Pseudo Hermaphrodites

To clarify, a pseudo female hermaphrodite has ovaries on the inside but a penis on the outside. A pseudo male hermaphrodite has testes on the inside but a clitoris on the outside. In any case, the thoughtful healthcare provider will use “specific medical terminology…that indicates that intersex (sexually ambiguous) children are just unusual in some aspect of their physiology, not that they constitute a category other than male or female” (Fausto-Sterling, p. 50).

Is it Fair?

The sex/gender testing was originally established to identify males who fraudulently entered into female Olympic competition, and the practice was later discontinued. But Semenya was obligated to submit to the test, and now she must decide what to do in the aftermath of the results.

References

Fausto-Sterling, A. (2000). Sexing the body, gender politics and the construction of sexuality. Perseus. New York, N.Y.

Genel, M. (2000). Gender verification no more? Medscape Women’s Health. (5)3

Runner has no ovaries: report (2009). Sydney Daily Telegraph. Cited by the New York Post. Nypost.com

The copyright of the article What is Gender Testing and is it Right? in General Medicine is owned by Marian Henderson. Permission to republish What is Gender Testing and is it Right? in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

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Gender Testing

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