The statement says policies that regulate eligibility, like those related to hormones, should be backed by defensible science. In 1952, the Soviet Union joined the Olympics, stunning the world with the success and brawn of its female athletes. Once the district government realized Saraswatis athletic potential, she, like other athletes, was given meat and chicken and eggs, food her family had not been able to afford. agreed that without being able to use testosterone, her body had no advantage, and it reinstated Patio. Boy, oh, boy, there are so many unfair advantages many Olympians have, starting with who their parents are.. An editorial in the I.O.C. Chands hearing, though, was about more than just testosterone. time requirement. If the I.A.A.F. She has made frequent trips to nations holding qualifying competitions. But it never actually addressed whether it would suspend its testosterone policy, as the I.A.A.F. Implicitly, it questioned the decades of relentless scrutiny of female athletes especially the most successful ones. In 1938, the gender of an athlete was again in dispute. In June 2014, she won gold yet again at the Asian championships in Taipei. Some medical experts claimed that vigorous exercise would damage womens reproductive capacity and their fragile emotional state and would make them muscular, mannish and unattractive to men.
But when Chand arrived in Delhi, she says, she was sent to a clinic to meet a doctor from the Athletics Federation of India the Indian affiliate of the International Association of Athletics Federations (I.A.A.F. After her results came in, officials told her she could return to the national team only if she reduced her testosterone level and that she wouldnt be allowed to compete for a year. The German high-jumper Dora Ratjen, a former fourth-place Olympian who won a gold medal at the European Athletics Championship, was suddenly identified as male, prompting Germany to quietly return the medal. Its ridiculous, says Payoshni Mitra, the Indian researcher.
Now, as she took the five-hour bus ride to Delhi from a training center in Punjab, she thought about her impending move to Bangalore for a new training program. Still other intersex women have XY chromosomes and internal testes but appear female their whole lives, developing rounded hips and breasts, because their cells are insensitive to testosterone. set for female competitors because that level is within the male range. As a result, officials said, she could no longer race. Finally, in late February, the I.O.C. This entails having her undescended testes surgically removed or taking hormone-suppressing drugs. Instead, she ran the 60-meter hurdles and won, at which point someone leaked her test results to the press. I said: Are you kidding? Id been competing my whole life, and my gender has never been questioned! Brenners test confirmed that she had XX chromosomes, and she was given what was commonly called a femininity card to prove she was the gender she claimed to be. I said that if, with these shoes, you run well, you will be sent abroad from the money that will come to you, and not just that, but youll also get a tracksuit. ), which governs track and field. Stephens, right, narrowly beat Walsh in the 100-meter dash at the Berlin Olympics. She thought little of the meeting in Delhi, because she assumed it was for a doping test. Chand was unaware of any controversy surrounding Semenya or other intersex athletes. But because of a genetic mutation, her cells completely resisted the testosterone she produced, so her body actually had access to less testosterone than a typical woman. Critics of the I.A.A.F. And still other advocates said that requiring transwomen to suppress their testosterone below 10 nanomoles is premised on the very same claim about testosterone that the court rejected that naturally made testosterone is the primary cause of mens competitive advantage over women.
Semenya herself would later write in a statement. Until that point, I had no idea that the science of sex differences is extremely contested and has shifted over time, as have the regulations in sports, which change but dont improve as they try to get at the same questions.. After Stephens narrowly beat Walsh in the 100-meter dash and posted a world record, Stephens was publicly accused of being a man, by Walsh or Polish journalists accounts vary. faced human rights complaints and heavy criticism. This wasnt just about me, she said, but about all women like me, who come from difficult backgrounds. The I.A.A.F. Amid complaints about the genital checks, the I.A.A.F. says, so regulating testosterone is therefore justified. Once the ruling was issued, though, she returned to the Indian national team, and intensified her training for the 100 meters, the 200 meters and the 400-meter relay. In May, the Canadian Center for Ethics in Sports, which manages the countrys antidoping program and recommends ethics standards, issued trans-related guidelines for all Canadian sports organizations. acknowledged that mens natural testosterone levels, no matter how high, were not regulated; the rationale, it said, was that there was no evidence that men with exceptionally high testosterone have a competitive advantage. But they disagreed vehemently about whether the bodys own testosterone has the same effect. That year, women accounted for 23 of the Soviet Unions 71 medals, compared with eight of Americas 76 medals. Female athletes, intersex and not, wondered just how this case would affect their lives. Chand was raised in Gopalpur, a rural village in eastern India with only intermittent electricity. Rejected by the local sports federations, stripped of her silver medal, tormented by ongoing scrutiny and unbearably embarrassed, she attempted suicide, reportedly by swallowing poison. and I.A.A.F. doesnt supply that evidence, the court said, the regulation shall be declared void. It was the first time the court had ever overruled a sport-governing bodys entire policy. I felt naked. spokesman Nick Davies announced that if Semenya was an impostor, she could be stripped of her medal. In Soundarajans case, the media noted that she wasnt just fast; she also had a deep voice and a flat chest. also conceded that no research had actually proved that unusually high levels of natural testosterone lead to unusually impressive sports performance in women either. When Saraswati gave Dutee the sneakers the next morning, Saraswati told me over the phone through a translator, Dutee yelped. The word hermaphrodite is considered stigmatizing, so physicians and advocates instead use the term intersex or refer to the condition as D.S.D., which stands for either a disorder or a difference of sex development. The typical female range is roughly 1.0 to 3.3 nanomoles of testosterone per liter of blood, about one-tenth that of typical males. The rationale behind the I.A.A.F.s hyperandrogenism regulation is to make it sound more scientifically justifiable and less discriminatory, but nothing in those exams has changed from the old policy except the name, she says. She asked me what can happen if she runs wholeheartedly. I.A.A.F. maintained it was obliged to protect female athletes from having to compete against athletes with hormone-related performance advantages commonly associated with men. In 2011, the association announced that it would abandon all references to gender verification or gender policy. Instead, it would institute a test for hyperandrogenism (high testosterone) when there are reasonable grounds for believing that a woman may have the condition.
Chand had no idea that her extraordinary showing in Taipei and at a national championship earlier that month had prompted competitors and coaches to tell the federation that her physique seemed suspiciously masculine: Her muscles were too pronounced, her stride was too impressive for someone who was only five feet tall. If athletic officials really want to address the significant factors affecting advantage, they should require all athletes to live in the same place, in the same level of wealth, with access to the same resources, he says. Just before the Spanish national championships began, Spanish athletic officials told her she should feign an injury and withdraw from athletics permanently and without fuss. Mitra and others also urged Chand to take her case to the international Court of Arbitration for Sport the Supreme Court for sports disputes arguing that the I.A.A.F.s testosterone policy was discriminatory and should be rescinded. When Dutee was about 7, her parents pressed her to stop running and learn to weave instead. magazine in 1968 insisted the chromosome test indicates quite definitely the sex of a person, but many geneticists and endocrinologists disagreed, pointing out that sex was determined by a confluence of genetic, hormonal and physiological factors, not any one alone. They also argued that the tests discriminated against those whose anomalies provided little or no competitive edge and traumatized women who had spent their whole lives certain they were female, only to be told they were not female enough to participate.
She asked if she would go abroad like me, and said she had never sat in a bus or a train, and asked where the money will come from for her to go abroad. Dutee Chand, left, at practice in Hyderabad, India. She has until July 11 to meet the I.O.C. They pointed to decades of I.A.A.F. The I.A.A.F. Shortly after, sports officials tested her as she prepared for the World Athletics Championship. When Caster Semenya blew by her opponents in the 800-meter race at the 2009 African Junior Championships, her performance raised suspicions. She wondered if she would make friends, and how shed manage there without her beloved coach, who had long been by her side, strategizing about how best to run each race and joking to help her relax whenever she was nervous. gender guidelines addressed a different group of atypical women (and atypical men): transgender athletes. Just what role testosterone plays in improving athletic performance is still being debated. At the hearing, both sides agreed that synthetic testosterone doping with anabolic steroids does ramp up performance, helping male and female athletes jump higher and run faster. But some transwomen athletes who long ago had their testicles removed (and as a result, make virtually no testosterone) were unhappy with the policy; they argued that lifting the surgery requirement gave transwomen who still had testosterone-producing testicles an unfair advantage over transwomen who didnt. Over four days in March 2015, a three-judge panel heard Chands appeal, as a total of 16 witnesses, including scientists, sports officials and athletes, testified. There were two exceptions: If a woman like Maria Patio was resistant to testosterones effects or if a woman reduced her testosterone. The three-judge panel concluded that although natural testosterone may play some role in athleticism, just what that role is, and how influential it is, remains unknown. But by then, her hopes for making the Olympics were dashed. Chands witnesses countered that even if natural testosterone turns out to play a role in improving performance, testosterone alone cant explain the overrepresentation of intersex elite athletes; after all, many of those XY female athletes had low testosterone or had cells that lacked androgen receptors. has to do its best to ensure a level playing field. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Relying on science to arbitrate the male-female divide in sports is fruitless, they said, because science could not draw a line that nature itself refused to draw. In the 1936 Berlin Olympics, the runners Stella Walsh of Poland and Helen Stephens of the United States were rumored to be male impostors because of their remarkable athleticism, male-like muscles and angular faces. They agreed to let Dutee run.
Shortly after, Chand says, she was sent to a private hospital in Bangalore, where a curt woman drew her blood to measure her level of natural testosterone, though Chand had no idea that was what was being measured. Women whose testosterone level was within the male range would be barred. German Olympics officials had examined Stephenss genitals before the event and declared her female.
Shortly after, Soundarajan was watching TV when she saw a news report that she had failed a sex test. Sport endowed men with the physical and psychological strength that manhood required. Chand, with her longtime coach, Nagapuri Ramesh, working to qualify for Rio. 
She agreed. In the 1950s, many Olympics officials were so uneasy about womens participation that Prince Franz Josef of Liechtenstein, a member of the International Olympic Committee, spoke for many when he said he wanted to be spared the unesthetic spectacle of women trying to look and act like men, writes Susan K. Cahn, a history professor at the University at Buffalo, in her book Coming On Strong: Gender and Sexuality in 20th-Century Womens Sports. Others were particularly bothered by women in track and field because of the strained expressions on their faces during competition. 
But when Chand arrived in Delhi, she says, she was sent to a clinic to meet a doctor from the Athletics Federation of India the Indian affiliate of the International Association of Athletics Federations (I.A.A.F. After her results came in, officials told her she could return to the national team only if she reduced her testosterone level and that she wouldnt be allowed to compete for a year. The German high-jumper Dora Ratjen, a former fourth-place Olympian who won a gold medal at the European Athletics Championship, was suddenly identified as male, prompting Germany to quietly return the medal. Its ridiculous, says Payoshni Mitra, the Indian researcher.
Now, as she took the five-hour bus ride to Delhi from a training center in Punjab, she thought about her impending move to Bangalore for a new training program. Still other intersex women have XY chromosomes and internal testes but appear female their whole lives, developing rounded hips and breasts, because their cells are insensitive to testosterone. set for female competitors because that level is within the male range. As a result, officials said, she could no longer race. Finally, in late February, the I.O.C. This entails having her undescended testes surgically removed or taking hormone-suppressing drugs. Instead, she ran the 60-meter hurdles and won, at which point someone leaked her test results to the press. I said: Are you kidding? Id been competing my whole life, and my gender has never been questioned! Brenners test confirmed that she had XX chromosomes, and she was given what was commonly called a femininity card to prove she was the gender she claimed to be. I said that if, with these shoes, you run well, you will be sent abroad from the money that will come to you, and not just that, but youll also get a tracksuit. ), which governs track and field. Stephens, right, narrowly beat Walsh in the 100-meter dash at the Berlin Olympics. She thought little of the meeting in Delhi, because she assumed it was for a doping test. Chand was unaware of any controversy surrounding Semenya or other intersex athletes. But because of a genetic mutation, her cells completely resisted the testosterone she produced, so her body actually had access to less testosterone than a typical woman. Critics of the I.A.A.F. And still other advocates said that requiring transwomen to suppress their testosterone below 10 nanomoles is premised on the very same claim about testosterone that the court rejected that naturally made testosterone is the primary cause of mens competitive advantage over women.
Semenya herself would later write in a statement. Until that point, I had no idea that the science of sex differences is extremely contested and has shifted over time, as have the regulations in sports, which change but dont improve as they try to get at the same questions.. After Stephens narrowly beat Walsh in the 100-meter dash and posted a world record, Stephens was publicly accused of being a man, by Walsh or Polish journalists accounts vary. faced human rights complaints and heavy criticism. This wasnt just about me, she said, but about all women like me, who come from difficult backgrounds. The I.A.A.F. Amid complaints about the genital checks, the I.A.A.F. says, so regulating testosterone is therefore justified. Once the ruling was issued, though, she returned to the Indian national team, and intensified her training for the 100 meters, the 200 meters and the 400-meter relay. In May, the Canadian Center for Ethics in Sports, which manages the countrys antidoping program and recommends ethics standards, issued trans-related guidelines for all Canadian sports organizations. acknowledged that mens natural testosterone levels, no matter how high, were not regulated; the rationale, it said, was that there was no evidence that men with exceptionally high testosterone have a competitive advantage. But they disagreed vehemently about whether the bodys own testosterone has the same effect. That year, women accounted for 23 of the Soviet Unions 71 medals, compared with eight of Americas 76 medals. Female athletes, intersex and not, wondered just how this case would affect their lives. Chand was raised in Gopalpur, a rural village in eastern India with only intermittent electricity. Rejected by the local sports federations, stripped of her silver medal, tormented by ongoing scrutiny and unbearably embarrassed, she attempted suicide, reportedly by swallowing poison. and I.A.A.F. doesnt supply that evidence, the court said, the regulation shall be declared void. It was the first time the court had ever overruled a sport-governing bodys entire policy. I felt naked. spokesman Nick Davies announced that if Semenya was an impostor, she could be stripped of her medal. In Soundarajans case, the media noted that she wasnt just fast; she also had a deep voice and a flat chest. also conceded that no research had actually proved that unusually high levels of natural testosterone lead to unusually impressive sports performance in women either. When Saraswati gave Dutee the sneakers the next morning, Saraswati told me over the phone through a translator, Dutee yelped. The word hermaphrodite is considered stigmatizing, so physicians and advocates instead use the term intersex or refer to the condition as D.S.D., which stands for either a disorder or a difference of sex development. The typical female range is roughly 1.0 to 3.3 nanomoles of testosterone per liter of blood, about one-tenth that of typical males. The rationale behind the I.A.A.F.s hyperandrogenism regulation is to make it sound more scientifically justifiable and less discriminatory, but nothing in those exams has changed from the old policy except the name, she says. She asked me what can happen if she runs wholeheartedly. I.A.A.F. maintained it was obliged to protect female athletes from having to compete against athletes with hormone-related performance advantages commonly associated with men. In 2011, the association announced that it would abandon all references to gender verification or gender policy. Instead, it would institute a test for hyperandrogenism (high testosterone) when there are reasonable grounds for believing that a woman may have the condition.
Chand had no idea that her extraordinary showing in Taipei and at a national championship earlier that month had prompted competitors and coaches to tell the federation that her physique seemed suspiciously masculine: Her muscles were too pronounced, her stride was too impressive for someone who was only five feet tall. If athletic officials really want to address the significant factors affecting advantage, they should require all athletes to live in the same place, in the same level of wealth, with access to the same resources, he says. Just before the Spanish national championships began, Spanish athletic officials told her she should feign an injury and withdraw from athletics permanently and without fuss. Mitra and others also urged Chand to take her case to the international Court of Arbitration for Sport the Supreme Court for sports disputes arguing that the I.A.A.F.s testosterone policy was discriminatory and should be rescinded. When Dutee was about 7, her parents pressed her to stop running and learn to weave instead. magazine in 1968 insisted the chromosome test indicates quite definitely the sex of a person, but many geneticists and endocrinologists disagreed, pointing out that sex was determined by a confluence of genetic, hormonal and physiological factors, not any one alone. They also argued that the tests discriminated against those whose anomalies provided little or no competitive edge and traumatized women who had spent their whole lives certain they were female, only to be told they were not female enough to participate.
She asked if she would go abroad like me, and said she had never sat in a bus or a train, and asked where the money will come from for her to go abroad. Dutee Chand, left, at practice in Hyderabad, India. She has until July 11 to meet the I.O.C. They pointed to decades of I.A.A.F. The I.A.A.F. Shortly after, sports officials tested her as she prepared for the World Athletics Championship. When Caster Semenya blew by her opponents in the 800-meter race at the 2009 African Junior Championships, her performance raised suspicions. She wondered if she would make friends, and how shed manage there without her beloved coach, who had long been by her side, strategizing about how best to run each race and joking to help her relax whenever she was nervous. gender guidelines addressed a different group of atypical women (and atypical men): transgender athletes. Just what role testosterone plays in improving athletic performance is still being debated. At the hearing, both sides agreed that synthetic testosterone doping with anabolic steroids does ramp up performance, helping male and female athletes jump higher and run faster. But some transwomen athletes who long ago had their testicles removed (and as a result, make virtually no testosterone) were unhappy with the policy; they argued that lifting the surgery requirement gave transwomen who still had testosterone-producing testicles an unfair advantage over transwomen who didnt. Over four days in March 2015, a three-judge panel heard Chands appeal, as a total of 16 witnesses, including scientists, sports officials and athletes, testified. There were two exceptions: If a woman like Maria Patio was resistant to testosterones effects or if a woman reduced her testosterone. The three-judge panel concluded that although natural testosterone may play some role in athleticism, just what that role is, and how influential it is, remains unknown. But by then, her hopes for making the Olympics were dashed. Chands witnesses countered that even if natural testosterone turns out to play a role in improving performance, testosterone alone cant explain the overrepresentation of intersex elite athletes; after all, many of those XY female athletes had low testosterone or had cells that lacked androgen receptors. has to do its best to ensure a level playing field. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Relying on science to arbitrate the male-female divide in sports is fruitless, they said, because science could not draw a line that nature itself refused to draw. In the 1936 Berlin Olympics, the runners Stella Walsh of Poland and Helen Stephens of the United States were rumored to be male impostors because of their remarkable athleticism, male-like muscles and angular faces. They agreed to let Dutee run.
Shortly after, Chand says, she was sent to a private hospital in Bangalore, where a curt woman drew her blood to measure her level of natural testosterone, though Chand had no idea that was what was being measured. Women whose testosterone level was within the male range would be barred. German Olympics officials had examined Stephenss genitals before the event and declared her female.
Shortly after, Soundarajan was watching TV when she saw a news report that she had failed a sex test. Sport endowed men with the physical and psychological strength that manhood required. Chand, with her longtime coach, Nagapuri Ramesh, working to qualify for Rio. She agreed. In the 1950s, many Olympics officials were so uneasy about womens participation that Prince Franz Josef of Liechtenstein, a member of the International Olympic Committee, spoke for many when he said he wanted to be spared the unesthetic spectacle of women trying to look and act like men, writes Susan K. Cahn, a history professor at the University at Buffalo, in her book Coming On Strong: Gender and Sexuality in 20th-Century Womens Sports. Others were particularly bothered by women in track and field because of the strained expressions on their faces during competition.