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| The Third Lane: Intersex and the Modern Athlete |
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| Opinion - Thompson & Gaughan | |||
| Lisa Thompson & Sharon Gaughan | |||
| Sunday, 23 August 2009 09:00 | |||
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Fairfax, VA, USA. The grave of Stella Walsh lies at Calvary Cemetery outside of Cleveland, Ohio. Walsh was a two time Olympic medalist in the 1930s while running for her native Poland, winning the 100 meter gold in 1932 and a silver in 1936 at Adolf Hitler’s Berlin Olympics. After she become a U. S. citizen in 1947, Stella married and lived with her husband in a modest, middle class home in Cleveland. When Walsh died from a stray bullet in the parking lot of a discount store in 1980, an autopsy revealed that Walsh not only had outward male genitalia but some female characteristics as well. A more detailed investigation revealed that she had both an XX and an XY pair of chromosomes. Today, medicine understands this as a case of mosaicism, [N1] but scientific and medical research had not advanced that far in 1980. Which begs the question: how far has society advanced in scientific literacy by 2009?
Washington, DC, USA. Science observes the universe, records what has occurred, and then develops a testable  theory that can explain those observations and make predictions on future ones.
Albert Einstein was very good at thi...But lately she has had a growth spurt. Her body and facial bone structure give the appearance to some eyes of a boy who is not yet developed fully as a man. Her musculature is slim, like that of a teenage boy, but perhaps not as slim as the other women in the track event. Worse, male perceptions of what constitutes beauty, particularly among black women, may be in play.
Her competitors cry foul, file a complaint, and now Semenya is subjected to a very public gender trial to determine her “true” biological sex, based mainly on her facial appearance. [N2] World track officials have ordered her to undergo a gender verification test. [N3] The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) abandoned gender verification tests in the early 1990's concluding they were not needed. This was thought to be especially true because of the current use of urine testing to exclude doping: voiding is observed by an official in order to verify that a sample from a given athlete has actually come from his or her urethra. As women typically have two X chromosomes and men have an X and a Y Genetic testing may result in potentially inaccurate results and discriminate against women with disorders of sexual development. Genetic anomalies can allow a person to have a male genetic make-up but be physiologically female. Some of us are combinations other than XX or XYThe first athlete to fail a sex test was Polish sprinter Eva Klobukowska in 1967, winner of a 4x100 relay gold at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. She passed a gynecological sex test inspection in 1965 but failed a sex chromosome test introduced the next year. She had one chromosome too many to be declared a woman for the purposes of competition and she was banned. A few years later, Klobukowska gave birth. Spanish hurdler Maria Patino failed a “gender” test in 1985. She was later reinstated after it was found that she was resistant to testosterone. Eight athletes failed the tests at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics but were all cleared by subsequent physical examinations. Britain's Princess Anne, a member of the equestrian team, was excused from the gender test at the 1976 Montreal Olympics. Indian Santhi Soundarajan was stripped of the Asian Games women's 800 meters silver medal after failing a gender test in Doha in 2006. She was admitted to hospital in September 2008 following a suicide bid. She announced in June that she has turned to coaching. Sex Chromosome VariationBiological variations in sex development have been around as long as life on earth.
We are more than a simple reading of either our chromosomes or our genitalia. A reading of the chromosomes gives us an idea of what the original plan might have been – the chromosomal intentions so to speak – but it tells us little about execution or how the genes were expressed. [N5] Strictly speaking, a chromosome complement that varies from 46 in humans is heteroploid; an exact multiple of the haploid chromosome complement is euploid. The common variations are shown below.
Although you may be able to tell the make of an automobile by the style of the vehicle or the manufacturer’s nameplate, you learn nothing about the vehicle’s actual performance until you examine the engine and the drive train, not to mention the suspension and the braking system. The visible outside of an automobile tells you nothing about the car’s amenities – Does it have air conditioning? A good stereo system? A global positioning system? – without looking more closely at the overall system. The Uncertainty of Casual IdentificationSo too with human sexuality. If we look only at the chromosomes, we may be misled by how the genome was actually executed in the developing fetus. If we look only at the external genitalia, we overlook the neurobiology of the person we are examining. What we see is not always what we are. Male and female God may have intended to create us, but that does not mean that human fetal development follows a single, all-encompassing plan. All of us may be born equal under the eyes of both God and Mankind, but that does mean we are all identical or equally capable. Variation is the soul of Science shows us the deep structures that make us who we are. We cannot allow an incomplete knowledge of our neurobiology or erroneous social assumptions to strip us of our common humanity. Citation[N1] Mosaicism is a condition in which cells within the same person have a different genetic makeup. This condition can affect any type of cell, including blood cells, egg and sperm cells (gametes), and skin cells. Mosaicism is caused by an error in cell division very early in the development of the unborn baby and includes Down Syndrome, Klinefelter Syndrome, and Turner Syndrome. Symptoms vary from person to person and are very difficult to predict. When a person has both normal and abnormal cells, problems may not be as severe.
[N2] When world health organizations, national sport organizations, and media say gender, they most often mean biological sex. When the gender theorists say gender, they most often mean social roles, presentation, and dress. Needless to say, we am talking about biological sex here, not the running outfit Semenya might have worn. [N3] Laboratory and genetic testing were introduced at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. [N4] Test results for about one in 500-600 athletes are abnormal. [N5] Some of the information in this article is adapted from materials that appear in a variety of TS-Si.org articles. For additional information, please refer to the following articles (click on a title to read more): • Aneuploidal Disorders and Improper Chromosome Transmission. TS-Si News Service. TS-Si.org (17 August 2009). • OII States Position On GID in the DSM-V Revision. OII Australia and OII Aotearoa New Zealand. TS-Si.org (5 August 2009). • Plant Genome Duplication Offers New Avenues for Intersex Research. TS-Si News Service. TS-Si.org (20 August 2009).
 Ms. Lisa Jain Thompson is a Co-Founder & Principal of TS-Si. She also serves as a Contributing Editor and columnist for the TS-Si website. She maintains another site, StarPoet.com, for her poetry and literary works.Ms. Thompson's signed articles contain her own opinions and do not necessarily convey an official position of TS-Si, its partners, or affiliates. Lisa welcomes your comments. Use the form below or email via her TS-Si Contact Page. We will not divulge any personal details or place you on a mailing list without your permission.
 Ms. Sharon Gaughan is a Co-Founder, Principal, and Managing Editor of TS-Si. She also is a columnist for the TS-Si website. Sharon's signed articles contain her own opinions and do not necessarily convey an official position of TS-Si, its partners, or affiliates.Sharon welcomes your comments. You can reach her via the public form below, her TS-Si Contact Page, or on Facebook (Sharon Sinead Gaughan).
 The TS-Si News Service is a collaborative effort by TS-Si.org editors, contributors, and corresponding institutions. Sources can include the cited individuals and organizations, as well as TS-Si.org staff contributions. Articles and news reports do not necessarily convey official positions of TS-Si, its partners, or affiliates. We welcome your comments. Use the form below to leave a public comment or send private correspondence via the TS-Si Contact Page. We will not divulge any personal details or place you on a mailing list without your permission.TS-Si is dedicated to the acceptance, medical treatment, and legal protection of individuals correcting the misalignment of their brains and their anatomical sex, while supporting their transition into society as hormonally reconstituted and surgically corrected citizens.
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