Olympics – Treehouse Writers

The International Olympic Committee, in its infinite (lack of) wisdom, has decided that it will test all athletes competing in female categories to be sure they are “real” women. They’re going to use the presence of the SRY gene as a determining factor, even though the scientist who discovered it in 1990 says it is in no way determinative.

The headlines all say this will ban trans women from competing as women. However, as a practical matter, there are very few trans women competing at the world class level. The women it will actually affect are those who have what is called “DSD” – differences of sexual development.

These women were assigned female at birth (AFAB) and raised as girls. It was only when they began competing as athletes on a high level and ran into testing procedures that they discovered they had some hormonal or other differences that are less common in women.

If you want to get an in-depth understanding of the actual science (which doesn’t support this policy) and politics underlying what happened, I strongly recommend the reporting by Reo Eveleth. They had a excellent article in Coyote on this news right when it came out and also did a newsletter report. A couple of years back, they did a superb podcast on the topic called Tested.

I’m not surprised by this decision, but I am furious about it. Spitting mad furious. I mean, I was already mad about so many things you wouldn’t think I could get any angrier, but this sent me right over the edge.

Now I’m a cis woman, as far as I know. I’ve never participated in anything that required me to prove it, so all I know is that I was AFAB and have never had any reason to question that or any problem with it.

I’ve also been a serious martial artist since I was 30, which makes me something of an athlete, though I’m in no way a world class one and the only competition I ever did was a few tournaments back in my karate days.

So why do I care? I’m not trans and I’m not a world-class athlete, so even if I turned out to have “DSD,” it wouldn’t matter.

Well, first of all, these people have the nerve to define who gets to be a woman, but they don’t apply the same kind of test to men. If you’re a world-class athlete and you say you’re male, you’re accepted as male. Trans men could compete. Continue reading “The Return of the Sex Test”…

Major sports competitions do not test participants in male events to see if they are “really” men. So why do they do it with women?

I mean, I know why they say they test women. There’s a silly panic that men are disguising themselves as women to win medals. Back in the day this was a dastardly “Communist” plan by the Soviet Union and the East Germans.

In fact, as I just discovered from this book review in The Nation, allegations about men passing as women in sports goes back even farther and has ties to Nazi Germany.

This started way before transphobia became the cause du jour and is rooted in the idea that men are so much more physically able than women that any random guy can beat world-class women athletes. You know, all those guys who are sure they could score a point or two off Serena Williams.

Funny that the women they seem to disqualify in these events are people assigned female at birth and raised as girls. Apparently some women have uncommon chromosome patterns or higher testosterone levels and some self-appointed authorities have decided they can’t possibly be women.

It’s a control mechanism, just like anti-abortion and anti-contraception laws. Or like asking women who have been raped what they were wearing and what they did to provoke the rape.

It’s a rule presented as an effort to “protect” women from men that instead victimizes women. Continue reading “So Who Gets to Be a Woman?”…