Gender Identity and Ideology

• Sex is a biological identity that is divided into the main categories of male or female.
• Gender is a social concept referring to the entire array of social patterns, behaviors, and beliefs categorizing men and women.
• Gender exists along a continuum of masculinity and femininity.

Gender Ideology

• Gender ideology widely defines masculinity and femininity, identifies people in terms of sex and sexuality, evaluates forms of sexual expression, and organizes social relationships.
• Orthodox gender ideology includes ideas and beliefs associated with an inflexible two-sex, or binary, approach system of classifying all humans into two non-overlapping categories.
• The word orthodox refers to a traditional ideology internalized as unchanging truth, linked to religious beliefs or an overall sense of essential reality.
• Gender ideology resists change but can and does change along with other aspects of culture and society.

Two-Category Classification System

• Gender ideology assumes two mutually exclusive sex categories: heterosexual male and heterosexual female.
• These categories are presented as "opposites" across physiological, psychological, and social dimensions.
• This system leaves no space for those who do not clearly fit into one of the two categories.
• It infers the subordination of women to men when it comes to power and access to power.

Sex Testing as a Legacy of the Two-Sex System

• Sport organizations remain enforcers of sex segregation in society.
• Objective male-female distinctions cannot be made across all humans using chromosomes, hormones, or secondary sex characteristics, as there is overlap.
• This forces sports organizations to use a succession of invalid tests to ensure women athletes are females that fit their definitions.
• Caster Semenya is among the latest victims of this approach.

Gender Verification and Sex Testing History

• Early sex testing included physical inspections or gynecological examinations of female athletes.
• Female athletes were subjected to nude parades in front of a panel of doctors.
• The IOC instituted mandatory sex testing in women's sports from 1968 until 2000.
• The Barr body chromosomal test was used.

Testing Methodologies

• Chromosomal makeup testing from 1968-1991 looked for XY complete androgen insensitivity and testosterone levels.
• Individuals with XY chromosomes with complete androgen insensitivity would be detected as male under the buccal smear, despite appearing female.
• DNA tests from 1991-1999 aimed to locate the SRY gene on the Y chromosome.

End of Mandatory Testing

• Blanket sex testing has been deemed arbitrary and discriminatory.
• The IOC discontinued mandatory sex testing in the 2000 Olympic Games.
• The IOC continues to retain the right to test athletes in cases deemed "suspicious" based on athletes gender identity that is called into question.

Who is Considered Suspicious

• The binary view of gender, particularly in the global North, is shaped by dominant (white, middle class, heteronormative) notions of masculinity and femininity.
• The linkage between athleticism and masculinity is based upon the co-constitution of gender and race.
• Female masculinity has emerged as an aesthetic marker of bodies suspected of being unfairly enhanced by steroids or biological disorders.

Imane Khelif

• An Algerian boxer, a 2024 Gold Medal Olympian.
• After her defeat of an Italian boxer, instant rumors and accusations were spread about her sex and gender.
• After winning gold, Khelif declared that she is fully qualified to compete, stating she was born and lives as a woman.

Contentious Questions About Sex

• World Athletics (formerly IAAF) defined femaleness through a testosterone-based definition that excluded Semenya and other women whose bodies naturally produce higher levels of the hormone.
• Hyperandrogenism, a physical condition where women have naturally elevated androgens, was a reason to exclude an athlete.
• World Athletics believed that this condition would give a woman with hyperandrogenism an unfair advantage.

What is Considered Fair

• Males with naturally higher levels of testosterone are called "super-athletes", while women are called "ineligible" for the same trait.
• Men’s bodies are not policed whereas women's bodies are policed measuring glandular production inside the body.
• Michael Phelps, winner of many Olympic medals, has not been excluded due to his "off the charts" characteristics.

Problems With World Athletics Approach

• The World Athletics approach to sex testing has been called invalid, ethnocentric, discriminatory, unfair to women, and psychologically harmful.
• It is solely based on testosterone levels and is anti-inclusionary.
• It is also based on a double standard.

Current Approach to Sex Testing

• In November 2021, the IOC released a framework on Fairness, Inclusion, and Non-Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity and Sex variation.
• Aims to support International Federations in devising policies regarding transgender athletes and athletes with sex variation, emphasizing sport-specific, evidence-based, and rights-protecting measures.
• The framework includes inclusion, prevention of harm, non-discrimination, fairness, no presumption of advantage, an evidence-based approach, primacy of health and bodily autonomy, a stakeholder-centered approach, and the right to privacy.

Mainstream Sports Reaffirm Gender Ideology

• Sports is key sites for maintaining ideas due to gender is not fixed in biology.
• Media sports celebrate traditional masculinity and the "natural power and emotional fortitude" of males.
• "Sport talk" and images glorify heroic manhood based on being a warrior, socially reproducing gender inequities.
• Sex tests for women maintain the two-sex system and exclude women whose appearance does not appear to be "feminine".
• Female bodies from certain regions (African or Eastern European countries) disproportionately have their sex questioned.

Sex is a biological identity divided into male and female categories. Gender is a social construct with social patterns, behaviors, and beliefs categorizing men and women. Gender ideology defines masculinity and femininity.