Olympics and the coming gender inquisition
Filed by: Patricia Nell Warren
January 24, 2010 5:30 PM
http://www.bilerico.com/2010/01/olympics_and_the_coming_gender_inquisition.phpWhile the IAAF has been backing and filling on the Caster Semenya case, many of us have been waiting for the IOC shoe to drop. This week the shoe dropped. In Miami Beach, a panel of so-called "experts" convened by the IOC and the IAAF has announced from their imperial heights: "Athletes who identify themselves as female but have medical disorders that give them masculine characteristics should have their disorders diagnosed and treated."
In 1999, when the IOC finally agreed to end the old regime on gender testing -- after decades of growing outrage and resistance from athletes -- it was clearly a case of "too good to be true" since the bugaboo of "gender," and the sports world's refusal to deal with it realistically, has not gone away. Over the last decade, it has gotten bigger and uglier. What Caster Semenya is being put through is a Joan of Arc type inquisition over gender. And now the IOC wants to do it to a lot of other women.
