THINQon : Intersex Athletes

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Linda OReilly

Intersex Athletes

Latest Post: August 22, 2010 at 2:09 AM

88 followers

Is there an endocrinologist in the house?

How can intersex athletes compete fairly?

A panel of medical experts convened by the International Olympic Committee recommended Wednesday that the issue of athletes whose gender seems ambiguous be treated as a medical concern and not one of fairness in competition. Athletes who identify themselves as females but have medical disorders that give them masculine characteristics should have their disorders diagnosed and treated, the group concluded after two days of meetings in Miami Beach. The experts also said that rules should be put in place for determining an athlete’s eligibility to compete on a case-by-case basis — but they did not indicate what those rules should be.

“We did not address fairness,” said Dr. Joe Leigh Simpson of Florida International University. He is an expert on such disorders and participated in the meeting. “The entire concept was that these individuals should be allowed to compete.”

The entire article is here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/21/sports/olympics/21ioc.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

Of course they should compete. But how will it work?

Reply to:

Solveig Wright, Where to begin?

January 22, 2010 at 4:07 AM

33 followers

Good question, Linda.
I wonder: is there any reason we aren't moving more towards un-gendered competition? Ellen had an interesting point about women ultramarathoners who have been doing spectacularly well in mixed races. Just to throw some ideas out there... maybe somebody wants to open up a major sports event to everybody who cares to enter. Or to group people by height and weight like in wrestling, rather than gender.

I don't actually know how different male and female performance is, or what sports would be a good place to start. Obviously world's strongest man is going to stay gendered; distance running might be a fair contest; probably horseback riding is no problem. Surely with other sports people could come up with clever ways of mixing up the terrain or the task so that both genders would have the advantage (a triathlon requiring both upper- and lower-body strength, or sprinting and endurance, aggression and cooperation...that was a joke).

Anyone want to propose a 21st-century triathlon which would make a good, fair contest? -- where "fair" is judged by, say, betting odds on winners across genders.

Reply to: or

harleymc (alias)

August 22, 2010 at 2:09 AM

1 follower

To join THINQon we need to pick male or female.
It appears that what is between your legs is somehow relevant to intelligent conversation. Say what?
But back to sport...

For several years I played in a Softball league that was open to men, women and intersex.
The requirements for each team were to have a minimum of 3 males and three females on each team and alternating batting order for the first six batters up. It was really fun to play in a mixed gender competition I would thouroughly recommend mixed gender team sports to anyone who wants to get fit and have a wonderful social life.

One individual competitive mixed gender social sport that springs readily to mind is golf. Handicaps are calculated individually not on the basis of gender. I don't know if professional golf has handicaps.

Horse racing / jockeying is mixed gender on a professional level in Australia.