Modesty for female athletes

From "Unique: The New Science of Human Individuality" by David J. Linden:

"When Mrs. Ratjen gave birth to her fourth child on November 20, 1918, there was some confusion in the room.... The child had ambiguous genitalia, a $%!@ with a fissure and opening on the underside, and the parents didn't know what to do. So they followed the midwife's advice, named the child Dora, and raised her as a girl.... Chromosomal and androgen-receptor testing was not yet developed, so we don't know the genetic details of Dora's condition. What we do know is that, despite being raised as a female, Dora felt like a male and had a body that was mostly, but not entirely, male-typical.

"Fearing detection, Dora avoided dancing or swimming but soon found solace in her love of sport. By age fifteen she was a regional high jump champion and a contender for the 1936 German Olympic team.... Dora finished fourth at the Berlin Olympics, just out of the medals, but continued to improve in the years that followed, breaking the women's world record in high jump just two years later. It was on a train home from that victory in Vienna that her secret was revealed....

Dora Ratjen's case was one of several cited by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) when they began mandatory screening of athletes seeking to compete in women's events. The rationale for this practice has always been to catch male athletes masquerading as women. Remarkably, this has never happened. Instead, screening has entirely served to humiliate and exclude people with intersex conditions.

The athletes called the first mandatory femininity screening, which began at the 1966 European championships, "the nude parade." In this situation, women who did not appear to the assigned panel of male doctors to be entirely female-typical could be called out of line and made to spread their legs for closer examination. There was never any screening for athletes seeking to compete as male. In 1968, in response to complaints by female athletes, this degrading practice was replaced by a cheek swab to collect cells for chromosomal testing. The new rule held that only players carrying XX chromosomes could compete as females....

Well, only people with XX chromosomes are female, so... I mean there's also just X, but that's a pretty rare disorder. I don't think you'd end up an athlete.

It turns out that even people with XY chromosomes can be physically female if their male hormones are naturally suppressed. The passage I quoted went on to talk about an athlete with that condition who successfully sued the IOC for the right to compete in women's events. Unfortunately I've returned the book to the library so I can't provide details about the case.

Actually I've just realized that I haven't returned the book yet, although I'm planning to return it soon. Here is a continuation of the quote from my original post:

".. The new rule held that only persons carrying XX chromosomes could compete as females. Not surprisingly, because sex is determined by a confluence of chromosomal and nonchromosomal factors, this method had problems.

"One famous case was a Spanish hurdler named Marie Jose Martinez-Patino, who had XY chromosomes and a profound androgen insensitivity syndrome. Her face and body were externally female-typical. She had breasts, a vulva, and a vagina, but no uterus or ovaries. She had always felt herself to be female and was raised as female. Her androgen insensitivity mutation assured that her body could not be affected by the testosterone produced by her internal testes. When her chromosomal test was published, the response was immediate and brutal. Her medals and records were revoked and she was thrown off the Spanish team, losing her living allowance and her apartment. Her boyfriend left her and strangers pointed at her in the street. Later, she wrote: 'If I hadn't been an athlete, my femininity would never have been questioned. What happened to me was like being raped. It must be the same sense of violation and shame. Only in my case, the whole world watched." She appealed her case, arguing correctly that her body received no competitive advantage from androgens produced by her internal testes. Eventually she won, but the process took three years, and by then her hurdling career was over. The strict XX chromosomal standard to compete as a female had clearly failed."

As tragic as that disorder (which I was aware of, mostly thanks to House) is, those are still men. Sex is determined purely by chromosomes, we are not crocodiles. Hopefully we can find a cure for that someday.