Part I Experiences of being lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex in the Asia Pacific
319 320 321 322 323 324 325
CASE STUDY: DISCRIMINATION IN SPORT
Intersex athletes face a specific set of obstacles, with female intersex athletes
disqualified from sports competitions and stripped of medals on the basis of
their sex characteristics. Intersex traits do not automatically lead to better
performance, yet they often result in greater scrutiny and restrictions. This
contrasts with other physical variations among female athletes, such as height
and muscle development, that do affect performance and are not regulated.
Indian middle distance runner Santhi Soundarajan was stripped of her silver
medal won at the 2006 Asian Games after failing a sex verification test. The
Indian Olympic Association banned her from competing domestically or
internationally. Soundarajan returned to her village where she was shunned,
experienced serious depression and attempted suicide. “I am treated as a
social outcast, even in my own local place … People don’t look upon me as an
Asian Games medallist, but only speak about when I failed a gender test.”319
In 2012, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International
Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) released a new blanket regulation,
the Hyperandrogenism Rule.320 It was designed to regulate individual female
athletes’ levels of androgens, the hormones that are present in higher levels
in men. The IOC and the IAAF regulation deemed it unfair for a female
athlete to compete against other women if her androgen levels were above
the lower normal male range.321 This new regulation has been criticised as
arbitrary, unscientific, unrelated to competitive performance or fairness, and
for reinforcing western views of femininity.322 Four South Asian athletes, aged
between 18 and 21, were subsequently persuaded by the IAAF to agree to
treatment, based on the regulation. They had genital surgeries, including
partial clitoridectomy (a form of female genital mutilation) and sterilisation,
in order to compete in sport. These surgeries were said not to be medically
necessary and would not reduce any real or perceived athletic advantage
caused by the athletes’ high androgen levels.323
Athlete Dutee Chand’s public removal from India’s 2014 Commonwealth
Games team, based on the same IOC/IAAF regulation, was condemned as
violating her privacy and human rights.324 Chand appealed to the Court of
Arbitration for Sport, “questioning why she should be forced to have surgery if
her condition was natural and she was not ill”.325
319
See http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/athletics/8250469.stm.
320
International Olympic Committee, IOC Regulations on Female Hyperandrogenism; at www.olympic.org/Documents/
Commissions_PDFfiles/Medical_commission/2012-06-22-IOC-Regulations-on-Female-Hyperandrogenism-eng.pdf.
321
Technically, if she had normal androgen sensitivity and serum T levels above the lower normal male range (10nmol/L).
322
K. Karkazis, R. Jordan-Young, G. Davis and S. Camporesi, ‘Out of Bounds? A Critique of the New Policies on Hyperandrogenism
in Elite Female Athletes’, American Journal of Bioethics 12(7): 2012, pp. 3–16; K. Worley, ‘Gender struggles for women to find
equality in sport’ in Catalyst e-newsletter, August 2014.
323
R. Jordan-Young, P. Sönksen and K. Karkazis, ‘Sex, health, and athletes’ in British Medical Journal 2014; 348: g2926. It was
unclear whether the four women would have access to the hormone replacement therapy they required after such surgeries.
324
K. Karkazis, R. Jordan-Young, G. Davis and S. Camporesi, ‘Out of Bounds? A Critique of the New Policies on Hyperandrogenism
in Elite Female Athletes’ in American Journal of Bioethics 12(7): 2012, pp. 3–16; K. Worley, ‘Gender struggles for women to find
equality in sport’ in Catalyst e-newsletter, August 2014.
325
J. Branch, ‘Dutee Chand, female sprinter with high testosterone level, wins right to compete’ in The New York Times, 27 July
2015; at www.nytimes.com/2015/07/28/sports/international/dutee-chand-female-sprinter-with-high-male-hormone-level-winsright-to-compete.html?_r=1.
Chapter 4: Being intersex in Asia and the Pacific | 79