Failing the 'gender test': Not as hard as you think An Indian woman was stripped of her silver medal when tests revealed she wasn't woman enough. OTIS HART explains just how easily that could happen.
*Published Wednesday, December 20, 2006* By OTIS HART Santhi Soundarajan was the pride of India just a week ago when she won the silver medal in the 800 meters at the Asian Games. She had risen from poverty to national acclaim, with the sole purpose of feeding her family. But what should have been a feel-good story has turned freakish. Soundarajan failed a 'gender test' and was stripped of her medal for not being enough of a woman. Now before you draw any lewd conclusions, consider how you might do on the same test. It's easier to fail than you think. THE TEST Just to make it clear, this isn't a 'slide your shorts down and cough' test. While it's still not publicly known how the Indian Olympic Association made its determination about Soundarajan, the International Association of Athletics Foundation announced its policy on Dec. 7, just three days before Soundarajan won her silver medal. The test involves "a medical evaluation before a panel comprising gynecologist, endocrinologist, psychologist, internal medicine specialist and an expert on gender/transgender issues," according to the report. Of course you have the standard genital inspection, but bloodwork also is conducted to test levels of testosterone and chromosome development. And that's where ambiguity reins. There are numerous ways a woman could fail a strict 'gender test.' Turner Syndrome -- which occurs in 1 of every 2,000 births -- is a condition where a woman doesn't have a second X chromosome. Congenital adrenal hyperplasia is a kidney disease diminishes a woman's hormones. Anovulatory androgen excess is what causes some women to grow hair in masculine areas. None of these conditions would give women athletes a noticeable advantage, but they would still show up on a gender test. "In most of these cases, they are victims of nature, you might say," said Luc Magnus, the IAAF's medical manager. Magnus was surprised to about Soundarajan -- not the test, but the publicity surrounding it. "(Gender tests) are such a delicate matter, it's something that is completely confidential," Magnus said. "(The IAAF) would never give any information on anyone under investigation. "She's a victim," he said. "It's so sad for her for it to be thrown into the public light." ___ NOT SO RARE While the International Olympic Committee dropped mandatory gender testing before the 2000 Sydney Games, it's still common enough that the IAAF felt the need to draft a policy this year. "Since I've come to the IAAF at the beginning of this year, we've encountered three or four cases, but I suppose there's many more," Magnus said. Dr. Eric Vilain, a professor of human genetics at UCLA, said scientific sexual determination is extremely complicated. "The main reason this is problematic is there isn't one biological parameter that clearly defines sex," Vilain said. "Sex from a biological perspective has a variety of definitions. People think of sex with one parameter -- external genitals -- but there are many more biological variables." Gonads, hormone levels, sex chromosomes and sex determination genes can all figure into how a gender test comes back, Vilain said. Men can have two X chromosomes and women can have a Y chromosome. An Indian athletics official who spoke to AP sports writer Sandeep Nakai on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media said Soundarajan appeared to have a Y chromosome, something Vilain feels shouldn't cost her the silver. "Does it matter that you have a Y chromosome?" Vilain said. "I've always argued that it absolutely doesn't." --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ greenyouth mailinglist is the activist support mailinglist for kerala run by Global Alternate Information Applications (GAIA) To post to this group, send email to [email protected] -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
