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”…