Intersex Athletes and Competitive Sport

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Wilfrid Laurier University *

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101

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Anthropology

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Oct 30, 2023

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docx

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Intersex Athletes and Competitive Sport As time goes on, sports, competitive play, and the number of athletes continues to flourish, expand, and get bigger. Although, with this comes many different controversial topics and debates that need to be discussed, for example intersex athletes in competitive sporting. From an anthropological perspective, sex and gender are different. Sex refers to the anatomy of an individual’s reproductive system, secondary characteristics, and what is assigned to them at birth. Whereas gender refers to either social roles based on the individual’s sex (gender role) or a personal identification of one’s gender based on internal awareness (gender identity). In many circumstances, a person’s sex and gender do not align. Although intersex athletes do not consist of individuals who identity as transgender, non-binary, etc. The term “intersex”, otherwise called as Disorders of Sex Development, is an umbrella term to depict an assortment of congenital conditions in which people are brought into the world with sex characteristics that do not typically associate with either the male or female sex category (Women’s Sports Foundation, 2011). These conditions can affect an individual’s sex chromosomes and prompt them to show up in configurations other than the usual XX (female) or XY (male). A mixture of these sex chromosomes can cause many different internal and external changes for the individual, for example increased testosterone, which has caused complications for several professional female athletes by suspending and or banning their participation in events unless action is taken to counter this. An extremely popular and controversial topic is the situation with professional South African female runner Caster Semenya. Caster Semenya is the reigning Olympic champion in the women’s 800 meter (Epstein, 2020). All starting in 2009 after winning Gold in the World Championships in Berlin, competitors and experts questioned Semenya’s gender and made it

urgent to get tested (Epstein, 2020). Semenya was not a transgender female and did not break any rules, although she still received plenty of backlash and hate. After testing, it was noticeable that Semenya had an intersex condition, due to her testosterone being roughly 3 times higher than those normally expected of a female (Epstein, 2020). She tested with an XY chromosome instead of the usual XX for females. Eventually, rules came into effect that would stop any athletes like Semenya from participating in 400m and above events in the female category unless they take medication or other precautionary steps to suppress their testosterone levels (Epstein, 2020). What makes this much more unethical and not morally right is that Caster Semenya had no recollection or knowledge that she had XY chromosomes instead of the regular XX. She was born into this world classified as female, raised as female, and identifies as a female. Therefore, this is a very controversial topic as people try to find a compromising middle ground between fairness, what is morally and ethically right, and factual evidence. Let’s start by looking into the factual evidence. In sports, “doping” or the use of prohibited drugs, medications, or treatments that will improve or with the intention to improve performance is illegal. Increased testosterone is seen as a competitive advantage in women’s sports because studies have shown that higher testosterone levels can enhance physical and endurance performance in women. A study was taken, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, that tested 48 healthy 18- to 35-year-old women randomly over 10 weeks (Devlin, 2019). These patients were split into two groups, anonymously, where one group would receive 10 mg of testosterone cream and the other 10mg of a placebo (Devlin, 2019). The study concluded that running time to exhaustion increased significantly by 8.5% in the testosterone group and had significant changed in lean muscle mass gaining 923g vs 235g overall and 398g vs 91g in their legs (Devlin). Professional sports have considered it an unfair competitive

advantage when female athletes have increased testosterone levels above the 5 nmol/L IAAF limit (Devlin, 2019). Due to this, these sport organizations have set bans on any athletes that fall within these contingencies. It becomes very controversial as there are no limits set for male testosterone levels in sports, but there is a ceiling with female sports regardless of it being naturally built. It would be different if Semenya was born as a male then later transitioned over to identify as a female, although that is not the case here. Regardless of the factual evidence on intersex conditions, there are ethical flaws within the decision on banning intersex athletes in sports. To start, Semenya never “doped” and never had any knowledge of her increased testosterone levels. Her body naturally generates more testosterone than expected and she has no control over it. Just like how some individuals are born more intellectual than others, some are stronger, faster, taller, shorter, weaker, etc. This has never been considered as “cheating” or “doping” before and it should not now. Everyone is born unique and their own, therefore internal characteristics, like testosterone, and genetics will differ for everyone. Secondly, it confuses sex and gender. In sports, the definition of male and female were based solely off sex. Over the years, individuals have been inter-using gender instead of sex. Semenya’s gender is un-controversially female. She is legally a female, born a female, raised a female, and identifies as a female. So, there should be no argument stating otherwise. Male and females do not have one definition. All males do not have all the same features and the same applies for females. There is a spectrum of females and males, and Semenya lands within that threshold/spectrum. Therefore, displaying how she is in fact a female, she should not be discriminated upon. Additionally, there is problems within the facts/definitions. If a female has XX chromosomes, then she is female, but if the individual has XY chromosomes, even if they are female, the sports foundation says how they “are not” and cannot compete. It is also

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