The new IOC and IAAF policies on female eligibility: old Emperor, new clothes?
2014; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 8; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/17511321.2014.899613
ISSN1751-1321
Autores Tópico(s)Sports, Gender, and Society
ResumoAbstractThe Caster Semenya debacle touched off by the 2009 Berlin World Athletics Championships resulted finally in IOC and IAAF abandonment of sex testing, which gave way to procedures that make female competition eligibility dependent upon the level of serum testosterone, which must be below the male range or instrumentally countered by androgen resistance. We argue that the new policy is unsustainable because (i) the testosterone-performance connection it posits is uncompelling; (ii) testosterone-induced female advantage is not ipso facto unfair advantage; (iii) the new policy reflects the gender policing impulses endemic to sport as well as the broader cultural impulses to monstrify women and to doctor women who have nothing wrong with them; (iv) female–male performance disparities are not the only reason for sex-segregated sport, but co-exist with respectable cultural and practical reasons, which (v) provide a powerful case for allowing athletes to compete in the sex category congruent with their gender identity.La debacle relacionada con Caster Semenya que estalló en los Campeonatos de Atletismo de Berlín en 2009 resultó, finalmente, en que el COI y la Asociación Internacional de Federaciones de Atletismo (IAAF) abandonaran las pruebas de sexo, lo cual dio lugar a procedimientos que hicieron que la posibilidad de competir en competiciones femeninas dependiera del nivel de testosterona sérica, el cual debe estar por debajo del nivel masculino o contrarrestado instrumentalmente por la resistencia androgénica. Nosotros defendemos que la nueva política es insostenible porque (i) la conexión entre testosterona y rendimiento que establece no es convincente; (ii) la ventaja femenina provocada por la testosterona no es ipso facto una ventaja injusta; (iii) la nueva política refleja el impulso referente a las políticas de género endémicos al deporte, así como los impulsos culturales más generales de "monstrualizar" y medicalizar a mujeres que no les sucede nada; (iv) las diferencias entre el rendimiento masculino y femenino no son la única razón para los deportes segregados por sexos, sino que coexisten con razones prácticas y culturales respetables, las cuales (v) aportan un fundamento para permitir a los atletas competir en la categoría del sexo que sea más adecuada a su identidad de género.La débâcle Caster Semenya aux Championnats du monde d'athlétisme 2009 à Berlin a abouti finalement à l'abandon par le CIO et l'IAAF des tests de genre, ce qui a donné lieu à des procédures qui font que l'admissibilité aux épreuves féminines dépend du niveau de testostérone, qui doit être inférieur aux valeurs masculines ou contrée par la résistance aux androgènes. Nous soutenons que la nouvelle politique n'est pas viable parce que ( i ) la connexion entre la testostérone et la performance qu'elle pose est difficile à prouver; ( ii ) l'avantage féminin induit par la testostérone n'est pas ipso facto un avantage injuste; ( iii ) la nouvelle politique reflète le caractère endémique de gérer le genre dans le sport ainsi que les impulsions culturelles plus larges de rendre monstres des femmes et créer des femmes qui n'ont rien de problématique ; ( iv ) les disparités de performance féminines et masculines ne sont pas la seule raison de la ségrégation sexuelle dans le sport, mais co- existent avec des raisons culturelles et des pratiques respectables , qui ( v ) fournissent un argument puissant pour permettre aux athlètes de concourir dans la catégorie du genre en harmonie avec leur l'identité de genre.1. 2009柏林世錦賽所引發的Caster Semenya性別檢定事件,最終結果導致國際奧會與世界田徑總會禁止性別檢測,改以睪固酮濃度必須低於男性的標準或以人工方式抑制,來判定女性運動員的出場資格。本研究認為新政策將無法持續,原因在於(1)睪固酮與運動表現的相關性假設仍無法證實(2)睪固酮為女性所帶來的不公平優勢並非根據事實(3)新政策所反映顯現出的是,性別檢查生產了運動領域的特有病徵,同時也使得無辜的女性在更廣泛的文化脈絡被妖魔化與病理化 (4)男女運動表現的不同並非導致運動中性別區分的唯一理由,而是與充分的文化和實際理由共存 (5)第四點則為運動員能在與他們性別認同一致的性類屬中出賽,提共有力的背書。Keywords: sex categorisationeligibilitygender ideologyfairness AcknowledgementsWe would like to thank everyone who attended a version of this essay at the ICSEMIS Glasgow conference of July 2012, and especially Katrina Karkazis and Rebecca Jordan-Young. We would also like to thank the two journal reviewers for their encouragement and constructive feedback.Notes1. These include a medical 'certificate of femininity', 'naked parades', gynaecological examination, the Barr body sex-chromatin test and the DNA-based polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test.2. For instance, at Atlanta in 1996, eight women failed the IOC's PCR test (see endnote 1), but were all allowed to compete after further examinations of 'femaleness' (and discussions) took place.3. For instance, Spanish hurdler Maria Martinez-Patinio was excluded from the 1985 World University Games. She was reinstated three years later, but with a legacy of expulsion from her athletes' residence, revocation of her sports scholarship, erasure of her running times from Spain's athletics records, and the loss of friends, fiancé, 'hope and energy' (Martínez-Patiño Citation2005, S38).4. Karkazis et al. (Citation2012, 6) put it: 'It is often assumed that people with intersex traits are somehow exceptional because of their complex biologies, but sex is always complex. There are many biological markers of sex but none is decisive: that is, none is actually present in all people labelled male or female. Sex testing has been and continues to be problematic because there is no single physiological or biological marker that allows for the simple categorization of people as male or female' (emphases in text).5. http://www.olympic.org/Documents/Commissions_PDFfiles/Medical_commission/2012-06-22-IOC-Regulations-on-Female-Hyperandrogenism-eng.pdf.6. One of the problems with relying on testosterone as the biological marker for determining eligibility is that testosterone differs in its effectiveness, depending on the sensitivity of an individual's testosterone receptors. We return to this.7. http://www.olympic.org/Documents/Commissions_PDFfiles/Medical_commission/2012-06-22-IOC-Regulations-on-Female-Hyperandrogenism-eng.pdf.8. http://www.olympic.org/Documents/Commissions_PDFfiles/Medical_commission/2012-06-22-IOC-Regulations-on-Female-Hyperandrogenism-eng.pdf.9. http://www.iaaf.org/about-iaaf/documents/medical.10. For compelling critique of the dichotomising impulse in general, see Kretchmar (Citation2007) and Prokhovnik (Citation1999, 20–49).11. http://www.iaaf.org/about-iaaf/documents/medical.12. http://www.iaaf.org/about-iaaf/documents/medical.13. http://www.olympic.org/Documents/Commissions_PDFfiles/Medical_commission/2012-06-22-IOC-Regulations-on-Female-Hyperandrogenism-eng.pdf.14. Viloria and Martínez-Patino (Citation2012, 18) similarly suggest that 'the implicit message to the women subjected to these policies is that they are not "female enough"'.15. And see Warner (Citation1994b), esp. 121–128.16. Of Semenya, Time.com ran the headline, 'Could This Women's World Champ Be a Man?' (Adams 2009 in Karkazis et al. Citation2012).17. For graphic and disturbing representation of males' appetites for disempowering inconvenient women, see Warner (Citation1994b, 28, 50).18. Tucker and Collins (Citation2010, 138) endorse this assumption by stating that 'gender categories exist for the very reason that performance differences between males and females require that two separate categories exist'.
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