Untitled Quiz

• Sex is a biological identity divided into male or female categories.
• Gender is a social concept encompassing social patterns, behaviors, and beliefs categorizing men and women.
• Gender exists along a continuum of masculinity and femininity.

Gender Ideology

• Gender ideology involves interrelated ideas and beliefs defining masculinity and femininity.
• It identifies individuals based on sex and sexuality.
• It evaluates forms of sexual expression.
• Gender ideology organizes social relationships.
• Orthodox gender ideology includes ideas and beliefs with an inflexible approach, classifying humans into two non-overlapping categories.
• "Orthodox" refers to a traditional ideology internalized as unchanging truth, often linked to religious beliefs.
• Gender ideology resists but can change like culture and society.

Two-Category Classification System

• Gender ideology is based on a two-category classification system.
• It assumes mutually exclusive heterosexual male and heterosexual female categories.
• These categories are presented as opposites across dimensions.
• This system leaves no space for those who do not fit.
• This infers women's subordination to men in power.

Sex Testing

• Sex testing enforces sex segregation in society
• Objective male-female distinctions are difficult to make by using any human characteristics because of overlaps.
• A succession of invalid tests were used, in order to make sure women athletes fit their definitions.
• Caster Semenya is one of the latest victims of this approach.

Gender Verification and Sex Testing History

• Early sex testing involved physical and gynecological exams of female athletes.
• Athletes were subjected to nude parades.
• The IOC mandated sex testing in women's sports from 1968-2000.
• The Barr body test was the first test

Barr Body and DNA Testing

• Chromosomal makeup was tested using the Barr body test from 1968-1991.
• XY complete androgen insensitivity and testosterone levels were determined.
• Individuals would be detected as male under the buccal smear, despite external female characteristics.
• DNA Tests from 1991-1999 were conducted to locate the SRY gene on the Y chromosome.

End of Mandatory Testing

• Blanket sex testing was concluded to be arbitrary and discriminatory.
• The IOC discontinued mandatory testing in 2000.
• Testing continues in cases deemed "suspicious,” when gender is in question.

Suspicion Indicators

• The binary is shaped by dominant notions of masculinity and femininity in the global North (white, middle class, heteronormative).
• Linkage between athleticism and masculinity is based on gender and race.
• Female Masculinity is an aesthetic marker of bodies suspected to be enhanced by steroids or biological disorders.

Contentious Questions

• World Athletics defined femaleness by testosterone-based definitions, excluding Semenya and others with naturally high levels.
• Hyperandrogenism is a physical condition, when women have naturally elevated androgens
• Having hyperandrogenism meant a woman was "too masculine" & would destroy fairness according to World Athletics

Unfairness

• Men are called super-athletes and women are deemed ineligible when they have more testorone than average.
• Men's bodies are less policed than women's.
• Michael Phelps, a winner of many more medals than Caster Semenya, has not been excluded despite his "off the charts" characteristics.

World Athletics Invalidation

• The World Athletics' approach to sex testing was based on a double standard
• It was Ethnocentric
• It was based only on testosterone level
• This was anti-inclusion and Psychologically harmful
• This was discriminatory and Unfair to women

Current Approach

• In November 2021, the IOC released a framework on Fairness, Inclusion, and Non-Discrimination.
• The framework aims to support International Federations in the development of policies for transgender athletes and athletes with sex variation.
• It is sport-specific, evidence based and rights protecting, while providing Inclusion.
• It protects against Prevention of harm and Discrimination; and promotes Fairness.
• It has No presumption of advantage and focuses on Primacy of Health and Bodily Autonomy It uses Evidence-based and Stake-holder-centered approach,
• Overall the policy protects Right to Privacy

Sports and Gender Ideology

• Sports are key sites for maintaining ideas about male-female differences because gender is not fixed.
• Sports, especially media sports, celebrate traditional masculinity and "natural power."
• "Sport talk" and images glorify a heroic manhood, reproducing gender inequities.
• Sex-tests for women maintain the two-sex system and exclude those appearing not "feminine."
• Athletic bodies from African or Eastern European countries are disproportionately questioned.