The Tricky Science of Olympic Gender Testing 559
First time accepted submitter erdos-bacon sandwich writes "Gender tests may be the most controversial obstacle the athletes face. The London Games tries a new approach based on testosterone. Of all the obstacles athletes have had to overcome to compete in the Olympics, perhaps the most controversial has been the gender test. Originally designed to prevent men from competing in women's events, it is based on the premise that competitors can be sorted into two categories via established scientific rules. But the biological boundaries of gender aren't always clear."
Re:How hard can it be? (Score:5, Informative)
RTFA!
Consider the Spanish hurdler Maria Jose Martinez-Patiño. A gender test revealed that she had a Y chromosome, which normally makes a person male. She also had complete androgen insensitivity syndrome, or CAIS, which prevented her body from responding properly to testosterone and caused her to develop as a woman.
It's not as simple as you'd think...
Re:Is that a man or a woman? (Score:4, Informative)
Trouble is, sometimes the answer is no.
... and sometimes, the answer is "both"...
Re:Confusing terminology (Score:5, Informative)
There is absolutely no rule against a physically female athlete participating in a women's race if he phychologically identifies himself as male.
ftfy: perhaps olympic races are sexed, but English pronouns are gendered. :)
Re:How hard can it be? (Score:5, Informative)
Still no good.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SRY [wikipedia.org]
You can have a Y chromosome which lacks a gene or 2 and be physically totally female.
or you can have 2 X chromosomes and be physically totally male but with a part of a Y chromosome copied on to one or both of the X's
or you can have a mix within your body with half your cells one way and half the other.
consider the posibility that *you* simply lack understanding before declaring that someone else is overcomplicating things. some things really are more complex than the "childrens first science book" version.
Re:Overcomplicating things? (Score:5, Informative)
Checking the chromosome might work until you find someone with a missing piece
AIS throws that out the window... genetically a male but somewhat or completely (depending on the degree) insensitive to the androgen that would give them the male characteristics leaving them in the default female form.
Re:Is it true that Chinese girl pass all drug test (Score:5, Informative)
Because Chinese athletes beating US ones must be due to China having access to advanced future technology, because there is no way they could beat americans otherwise? No, wait, what?
That's not why people suspect it. She beat her own best time by five seconds, which is unheard of in swimming which is the only sport measured to the thousand-of-a-second. She also beat the previous world record by one second which was made with the now-banned super-swimsuit. She could have had a really, really good day, and good for her, but I can see why some other team's coaches might, in their frustration, suspect something else is going on.
Re:Simple, surely (Score:5, Informative)
Just to pick one of the countless examples of where your test goes wrong: 5-alpha reductase deficiency (5-ARD). 5-alpha reductase is the chemical which converts testosterone into dihydrotestosterone (DHT), a much more potent form which in particular has effects on hair patterning and genitalia. A person with an extreme form of DHT is born as a pretty normal woman, and is thus typically raised as a girl. However, when they hit puberty, the surge of regular testosterone often proves enough to cause the descention of the gonads and the development of a small penis from the clitoris. It's even possible sometimes, with difficulty, to father children.
So when they're young do they compete in girls' events and when they're older guys' events, and when they're in-between... both?
Strong circumstantial evidence (Score:5, Informative)
Because Chinese athletes beating US ones must be due to China having access to advanced future technology, because there is no way they could beat americans otherwise? No, wait, what?
No because the circumstantial facts indicate there is a very high probability of doping. It's demonstrably possible to evade doping tests. Marion Jones (an American) passed every drug test she took while winning multiple world and olympic medals and yet she is an admitted doper. You can be absolutely certain that there are numerous athletes from all over the world at the Olympics who are doping but will not be caught.
Otherworldly improvements in performance at that level almost never happen. People do not beat their best times in a relatively short event by multiple seconds in relatively short swimming events just coincidentally when they happen to be at the Olympics. Women do not swim a faster last 50 meters than the men in the same event. World records do not fall by wide margins. Add in that the Chinese swimming program has a well recorded history of doping and being caught doing it.
Re:Another American has accused her of cheating (Score:4, Informative)
Originally, when the story came out, all of the articles linked to the race videos. They were all pulled by the time I got around to reading the story because of copyright claims by the IOC. So there's plenty of footage out there of the race, we're just not permitted to view it by the IOC.
Re:Is it true that Chinese girl pass all drug test (Score:4, Informative)
Ye's time was 4:28.43. The silver was Beisel, at 4:31.27. That's a bit less than a three second difference, or 1.06%.
Usain Bolt ran a 9.69 in 2008. The silver was Richard Tompson, with a 9.89. That's a 2.06% difference.
So Bolt won his race by a greater margin than did Ye.
Re:Is that a man or a woman? (Score:4, Informative)
At the risk of feeding the troll, I'll try to explain and give you just one example where your approach is inadequate.
Quite a few people get born with genitalia that are halfway in between. In such cases, in most Western countries, a surgeon works to push the newborn's genitalia into one of the two common configurations. Now a day the doctors have more tools that they used to - they can check the chromosomes and assign the children to the gender they most closely match.
And they still make mistakes, or sometimes just have no good option. Note that in some case (XXY, XXYY) the kid is screwed anyway. It will look male, but will not be able to compete with XY males physically - weak muscles, useless fat accumulation, etc...
And then you have kids which were assigned 'female' at birth, but because of one reason or another, are more or less male on the inside. Worst case scenario, the surgeon totally fucked up. So the genitalia is female, or a scary simulacra thereof, but everything else - muscles, hormones, etc... is male. Such a person will not only destroy his/her competitors, but do so by such a large margin that it's humiliating. And usually they do not look too female on the outside either. So the other women complain. And the issue gets raised, and a decision has to be taken.
And not matter which way it goes, people get upset. As an enigineer, I can see that there are three solutions:
1. Let all genders compete together. In too many sports, it will deny women any chance to even qualify.
2. XXs compete with XXs, XYs with XYs, and anyone else is out, period. Harsh on a lot of athletes, and unnecessary, because of...
3. XXs compete with XXs, everyone else competes with everyone else.
I cannot even comprehend why anyone rational has a problem with #3. But most progressive foo-rights organizations are in arms against it, and there is no way for sports officials to impose it without committing political suicide.
So we have #4 - Tests are conducted, and most of the people tested are EVENTUALLY allowed to compete with the women.
The test results kept secret, and the competitors of the 'woman' are left unhappy.