Sex verification and intersex athletes at the Olympic Games

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The Olympic Games mandates sex verification of athletes in women's competitions, and has done since the 1930s. In this time, there have been many different regulations for sex testing, as well as different types of tests used.[1] Initial concerns that prompted the approval of suspicion-based sex testing were of national teams exploiting intersex athletes for Olympic success,[2] and testing first became a requirement in the 1960s when many female athletes were doped and it was harder to tell physical differences between them and men.[1][3]

In its history, different sex testing methods at the Olympics have been known to produce false positive and false negative results, incorrectly excluding some biological women.[4][5][6][7] No "male imposters" have ever been identified through sex testing. The International Olympic Committee re-confirmed the use of sex verification in several meetings in the 1980s and 1990s, each time confirming its use for preventing "male imposters", and not aiming to exclude intersex women.[3]

Sex testing at the Olympics has been criticised for a variety of reasons, and briefly stopped. Various international medical and sports professionals have advocated for the abolition of sex verification in sport, and specifically the Olympics.[3][8]

  1. ^ a b "The gender trap: testing the sex of Olympians competing in Beijing". The Guardian. 2008-07-29. Retrieved 2022-09-21.
  2. ^ Walters, Michael (10 June 2024). "The 1930s Athlete Who Broke the Gender Barrier". History.com. A&E Television Networks. Retrieved 10 June 2024.
  3. ^ a b c Simpson, Joe Leigh; Ljungqvist, Arne; Ferguson-Smith, Malcolm A.; de la Chapelle, Albert; Elsas II, Louis J.; Ehrhardt, A. A.; Genel, Myron; Ferris, Elizabeth A.; Carlson, Alison (2000-09-27). "Gender Verification in the Olympics". JAMA. 284 (12): 1568–1569. doi:10.1001/jama.284.12.1568. ISSN 0098-7484. PMID 11000653.
  4. ^ Wallechinsky, David (2012). The Book of Olympic Lists. Aurum Press. p. 19. ISBN 978-1845137731.
  5. ^ Bardin, Jon (2012-07-30). "Olympic Games and the tricky science of telling men from women". The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2023-01-09.
  6. ^ Schultz, Jaime (2014). Qualifying Times: Points of Change in U.S. Women's Sport. U of Illinois P. pp. 111–112. ISBN 9780252095962.
  7. ^ "Olympic Gender Testing".
  8. ^ Ferguson-Smith, M. A.; Carlson, Alison; Chapelle, Albert De La; Ehrhardt, Anke; Ferris, Elizabeth; Ljungqvist, Arne; Genel, Myron; Simpson, Joe Leigh (1992). "Olympic row over sex testing". Nature. 355 (6355): 10. Bibcode:1992Natur.355Q..10F. doi:10.1038/355010a0. ISSN 1476-4687. PMID 1731195.