IN 1957 female high jumper Dora Ratjen made an amazing confession: she was a man. Ratjen (real name Hermann), who had competed for Germany in the 1936 Olympic games in Berlin and broke the women鈥檚 world record two years later, said that Nazi officials had persuaded him to masquerade as a woman to bring glory to the Reich.
International athletics has often had an uneasy relationship with gender. From 1966 to 1996 female athletes were routinely genetically tested to confirm that they were women, following rumours that Soviet-bloc countries were entering male athletes in women鈥檚 events. Despite this scrutiny, Ratjen鈥檚 remains the only documented case.
Gender tests were discontinued after the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, and rightly so. In modern athletics it would be impossible to get away with gender fraud.
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But last week the practice was clumsily revived when the International Associationof Athletics Federations (IAAF) ordered Caster Semenya, who won the women鈥檚 800 metres at the World Championships in Berlin, to undergo a series of gender verification tests. Strangely, this is not because the IAAF suspects Semenya is a man. Instead, it says it is concerned that she has a rare medical condition that gives her an unfair advantage.
The decision is hard to fathom. Even if Semenya turns out to have a gender disorder such as androgen insensitivity, it should not prevent her from competing as a woman (see 鈥淚nsight: When is a woman more like a man?鈥�). And if she has a medical condition that gives her an advantage, so what? We don鈥檛 stop athletes competing with each other on the basis of inborn biological differences such as height or their proportion of fast and slow muscle fibres, nor as a result of medical history. Lance Armstrong lost a testicle to cancer therapy but that did not stop him from competing in 鈥� and repeatedly winning 鈥� the Tour de France, even though it may have given him a competitive advantage by altering his testosterone levels.
鈥淓ven if Semenya turns out to have a gender disorder, that should not prevent her competing as a woman鈥�
As more women are encouraged to compete at international level, it is increasingly likely that genetic outliers capable of astonishing performances will be identified and nurtured. Semenya appears to fall into that category. Indeed, female athletes are closing the gap on their male counterparts 鈥� though Semenya鈥檚 winning time would not have got her past the heats in the men鈥檚 race.
Casting doubt on an athlete鈥檚 integrity is humiliating enough, but asking a woman to prove her gender in the global media spotlight is worse. It is little better than asking women to parade naked in front of a panel of doctors 鈥� a practice which used to be routine for female athletes, but is now thankfully consigned to the history books.