X, Y, and Z
Many years ago, I had to apply for a new passport, because my old passport was about to expire, and I am in the habit of keeping these things current. Because I was still a minor at the time, I was forced to trek all the way to Ukiah to file my passport application in person, and I duly filled out the forms, attached atrocious pictures of myself, and slid the paper across the counter to the clerk, who quickly reviewed it to make sure that everything was in order.
“I believe you made a mistake,” the clerk said, looking at me and then looking at the form.
“Oh?”
“Yes,” she said, “you checked the wrong box for ’sex,’ here,” and she stabbed her finger at the form.
I followed the line of her finger to see that the “F” box was checked, and I replied:
“Oh. No, I don’t think I made a mistake.”
She started at me for a moment, and then said “but you checked the box for female!”
“Yes,” I said, “that’s because I am a girl.”
And, in point of fact, I pretty much am, under the gender dichotomy which holds sway in this world we live in. I have female secondary sex characteristics, which is pretty much the defining feature in a casual sense, and I have been raised as a girl. I act (more or less) like a girl, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see that genetic testing revealed a nice, tidy XX.
In point of fact, I don’t identify as a girl: I identify as genderqueer. But we don’t have a box on forms, so when I’m asked to slot myself into the dichotomy, I go with “girl,” because that’s kind of what conventional knowledge defines me as. While frustrating, the way to change that is not to throw a hissy fit in the passport office. And I was actually rather flattered that the clerk mistook me for a boy, honestly.
My little battle in the passport office is being repeated and played out all over the world, every day, with varying levels of importance, but what’s going on at the Olympics this year is especially sinister, so I wanted to take a moment to talk about it. For those of you who missed the story last week, “suspect” female athletes (as in not all of them) are going to be “gender tested” before being allowed to compete in Beijing.
In strict point of fact, gender testing at the Olympics has been going on since the 1960s, mainly in response to fears that the Soviets would dress men up as female competitors. And I understand the rationale behind it, because events are separated by gender for some very sound reasons. However, there are a number of problems with the gender testing, and people are starting to point these problems out, which is excellent.
The first problem is that gender is not a dichotomy, it’s a continuum. Setting aside people like me, there are lots of people in the world who have genetic material from both genders; women with Y chromosomes, XXY men, and so forth. This is called “genetic diversity,” and it’s what makes the human race so varied and interesting. Many of these people are totally unaware of their conditions, and they strongly identify as either “male” or “female.” Others have more serious health problems which lead to an eventual diagnosis of the issue, sometimes leading them to be asked to pick a gender. Or, more commonly, for parents to be asked to pick a gender for an infant or young child.
The fact that they are using genetic testing in Beijing means that some women may be excluded from competition on the basis of their sex when they identify strongly as members of the female gender, and this thought makes me very sad. Especially because many of those athletes may be totally unaware of the fact that they have a secret in their genes. Athletes of all genders work extremely hard to get to the Olympics, to be recognized as the top performers in their sports; to be thrown out because your genes don’t fit in a box would be tragic.
Only testing selected atheletes is also extremely problematic. If you’re going to use arbitrary gender testing as a basis for exclusion, you should be testing all athletes. I love the assumption that women wouldn’t be concealing themselves to compete as men. And the assumption that only women who look strange need to be tested. Singling out athletes for discrimination is, in my opinion, rather offensive.
I think that there are very few examples in Olympic history of men concealing themselves as women to compete. I can think of at least one from 1936, but that was a messed-up sham of a “let’s promote the Aryan race” Olympics, not a real Olympics. I believe that the gender testing policy harms everyone at the Olympics, and it sends a very negative message to the people around the word who defy the gender dichotomy, either through biology or psychology. That message is: you don’t exist, and you don’t count, even if you did exist.
Beijing, I’ve got a newsflash for you: we exist, and we are pissed.
October 31st, 2008
Guess what!
I was taking this survey for wikipedia the other day and when they asked my gender they gave me Male, Female and Other as options. I thought that was kind of neat. I mean I don’t know about the connotations of the word “other”, but at least it acknowledges that it is not a dichotomy. I don’t know, it seemed like a big deal to me, so I thought I would write about it here.
August 8th, 2008
Testing for hormone levels is certainly an interesting idea, and one which would be more true to the ideal of preventing athletes from gaining an unfair advantage. I think in a lot of cases that people with genetic mosaicism probably have hormone levels similar to those of people who have more, er, “conventional” genes; it would be interesting to see some studies on that.
Additionally, I think that comprehensive testing for the use of performance-enhancing drugs including hormones is critical to the integrity of all sport, not just the Olympics.
August 8th, 2008
A lot to process.
Perhaps the boxing analogy was a poor one.
What’s troubling me here is that socialized gender is not testable in an objective way, can be lied about, and is irrelevant to athletic performance.
Genetic gender can be objectively tested, but is not without its problems, as you have pointed out. Extra or missing chromosomes, etc. It can also be willfully circumvented as a predictor of athletic performance.
Perhaps a better solution would be something closer to weight classes. Testosterone classes, perhaps? An athlete could choose to keep their natural androgen levels or augment them up or down for some set time period prior to competition.
Some of the East European women who were accused of being male were actually taking testosterone, giving them an unfair advantage despite being genetically and socially female. It seems to me that maybe the distinguishing characteristic should be hormonal gender.
Likewise, in cases where a person is genetically male but is undertaking hormone therapy or else has androgen resistance or some other disorder there would have to be a judgment call-does the disorder give them an unfair advantage or not?
August 8th, 2008
Well, several postop transwomen are competing in the Olympics as women, so, yes, I do think that athletes should be able to compete under the gender classes they identify with, post-transition. (Obviously there are basic differences between male and female athletes which would create an unfair advantage for a man competing as a woman, which is why genetic testing is happening.) The issue here is that genetic testing doesn’t account for mosaicism, a very common trait. Which means that a women may look like a woman, act like a woman, have the sex organs of a woman, and so forth, but still have a Y chromosome, which makes her a “man” under the gender dichotomy.
Your boxer example is a little different. An American boxer collapsed and withdrew from the Olympics after trying to force himself into the flyweight class. Should he have been allowed to compete in that class with a few extra pounds? Well, no, because in this case, weight is a clearly defined class, and asking someone to step on a scale is very different from performing genetic testing to see if someone’s genes fit in a predetermined gender dichotomy.
A boxer with anorexia nervosa would be quite a sight to see, given that anoretics are usually not physically fit enough for that sort of thing. I don’t think that unhealthy athletes should be allowed to compete, and I also view anorexia as an unhealthy body dysmorphic disorder. In your example, the boxer needs medical treatment, not a pass into a different weight class.
My point here is that people with moisaicism don’t have a dysmorphic disorder; in fact, many of them are totally unaware of the fact that they’re carrying a genetic surprise. Biological sex is not as simple as “male” and “female,” and this should be accounted for in any kind of class division.
p.s. Why so afraid to sign your name, my Swedish friend?
August 8th, 2008
Boxers have competitive weight classes, and size is even more of a spectrum than gender. If a boxer has Anorexia Nervosa or some other body dismorphic disorder, should the judges take that into account and place them into the weight class they self-identify as?
Athletes probably shouldn’t be dichotomized into their socialized genders, but isn’t their biological sex akin to a weight class or age grade in cases where it would confer a competitive advantage? And in those cases, why should one’s socialized gender enter the equation at all?