A Lab Is Set to Test the Gender of Some Female Athletes

[XemaSab]

By the time they arrive in Beijing, most athletes have resigned themselves to the possibility of undergoing a battery of tests for banned substances, like anabolic steroids and certain cough medicines.

But some female athletes may find they are asked to submit to an entirely different examination — one that will test whether they are, in fact, women.

Organizers of the Beijing Olympics have set up a sex-determination laboratory to evaluate “suspect” female athletes, the official Chinese news agency Xinhua reported Sunday. The lab is similar to ones set up at previous Olympics in Sydney and Athens, and will draw on the resources of the Peking Union Medical College Hospital to evaluate an athlete’s external appearance, hormones and genes.

Some medical ethicists have said the practice is too intrusive. “Real people are going to be hurt by this,” said Alice Dreger, an associate professor in medical humanities and bioethics at Northwestern University.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/30/sports/olympics/30gender.html?ref=science

[jakem]

1. SVU: cooter lab

[JMackT]

13. No need for a lab

I will do the testing

:evilgrin:

[jakem]

15. you just give and give....

what a mensch...


:hi:

[aspergris]

2. i am reminded of some of the east german

"female athletes"

can u say clitoromegaly?

[undeterred]

3. A Lab? is it the crotch sniff test?

[sentelle]

7. if only

If it were, I'm sure we'd all have mock outrage followed by a whithering attack of long wet tongues and wet noses.

[a la izquierda]

4. my doctor and i were talking about this last week.

he had a buddy who used to have to test "female" athletes. apparently with some of the chinese, it was difficult to tell.

[Lance_Boyle]

5. how are people going to be hurt?

Maybe hurt feelings, I guess, but c'mon - these are world-class athletes. I see no reason to announce who is "suspect," though. Surely they must be getting fluids from every athlete. Add the sex-determination to the litany of tests all athletes agree to undergo, and test them. If some guy playing Tootsie gets busted, maybe his career is hurt, but then he was cheating anyway.

[Sal Minella]

10. Not that simple -- some people are truly intra-sex, i.e. having both male and female physical traits

I would think testing for X and Y chromosomes would be the one determining factor, and if people are really good athletes and want to compete and an audience enjoys watching, I fail to understand why I should care what their chromosomes look like.

[RNdaSilva]

6. I can remember, in the past...

some Russian and German women looking very masculine.

But not these: http://www.aprettywoman.com/

Elena in particular...

[ismnotwasm]

8. Lovely

And if a person has something like Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome? What are they going to do, pick a gender?

[DinahMoeHum]

9. Why don't they just let the athletes drop their pants???

I mean, it can't be that hard to tell a penis from a vagina.

:evilgrin:

[Sal Minella]

11. Actually, sometimes it's very difficult, when a person has both or neither.

[sentelle]

12. I've heard rumors about that

Olympic orgies and the like.

[LiberalFighter]

14. Will they apply the same testing to the Chinese athletes?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

16. Isn't this a reactionary measure?

I thought there was some incident in past Olympics where this was an actual problem.

[MsTryska]

17. The Chinese? Reactionary?

that's incomprehensible.