The Fluidity of Gender - Olympic Sex Testing

[MetaSexual2]

Interesting article in the NY Times this morning on the difficulties of setting a hard line between male and female.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/30/sports/olympics/30gender.html

[folk2punk]

Great article. Scientific proof that there is a much wider range than Male or Female, Gay or Straight, even more than a defined middle gound. Now, the next problem, is to get people to take it seriously more than once every 4 yrs. I generally identify as male and bisexual, but often feel these terms just dont cover it all.

[Abbey Road]

Very interesting article. i didnt realise they had tested to see if women were women in the olympics.

Abbey Road.

:bibounce::wiggle2::paw:

[frenchvikki]

I remember as a young girl my father complaining about Eastern European female field athletes in the throwing events, in particular the Russians, "never being women in a million years" and telling me that several had been thrown out of or barred from the games for having questionable gender. So its not a new problem but one which seems to have been around a long time.

[elian]

Does anyone else find it slightly ironic that they have a "gender determination lab" in China - did they do this in any of the OTHER Olympic host countries?

I mean, I guess you would want a "level playing field" in the categories, but I think I heard another news bite where the society is a bit awkward at the moment because of the historical bias in the culture for preferring "male" children over female...apparently there is a fear that many "lonely bachelors" will exist.

Don't mean to sound like a bigot but the story just seemed a bit ironic at first glance considering china's record on human rights.

[BreeIsMe]

What an insulting test---a "nude" test in front of a bunch of men....
disgusting.


Bree

[Cherokee_Mountaincat]

This is funny in a way. When I was pregnant with my youngest son, I became very sick, and the Dr I had ordered blood and urine tests done. They discovered that I had a large amount of the Y cromosone(Sp) in my body and were baffled as to How I could have 3 children. (Easy, at the time...raging hormones! lol)with the last one being 11.05 and one half pounds, 24 inches long, and three weeks premature...I was 18, and he was my 3rd and Last! lol
All of my kids had proper cromosones..until when recently (2 weeks ago) my oldest son went into the hopsital for a major surgery. The same hosp. that told me I had odd cromosones discovered that He had an unusual amount of Female hormones. This is odd, for he and his wife just had a baby boy last May! llol
Guess I wouldnt pass their test for the Olympics...lol
Cat

[diB4u]

Interesting find there thanks-

I wouldn't want to be there naked infront of all them doctors thanks... Not in this world or the next!

Hmm, gender just like sexuality is so vast and just because a person presents as a woman doesnt always mean so and the same being for a man.

Hormones both at conception and after wards play an extreme important part of a persons physical, emotional and pyschological charactersistics.