With the Olympics fast approaching, the issue of gender in sport is again in the news. A great article in the Toronto Star looks at the current situation in an article entitled "Policing feminity", which gives a good idea of the tenor of the issue, developed in a follow-up in Jezebel.
A highly contested discussion at last year's Play the Game conference in Cologne was about intersex athletes and gender verification in sport. A leading voice in the Olympic Movement, Arne Ljungqvist, presented the evolution of testing, an evolution disputed by Georg M. Facius and Bruce Kidd.
At the one hour mark, FGG delegate Marc Naimark asks why the policy developed by Dr Ljungqvist excludes the notion of male hyperandrogenism: why is excessive natural levels of testosterone an unfair advantage for women, but not for men? Are there no limits to male testosterone? The more the better, as long as it's "natural"? Ljungqvist replied: "Androgens are not a problem with males. We have two categories: male and female." Meaning, I suppose, that testosterone = male, although men and women each need and naturally produce "male" and "female" hormones.
No comments:
Post a Comment