Op-Ed
Sex is Complicated
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Gain Through Loss
January 24, 2007 - 11:56amLate last year, a top Indian female athlete was stripped of her silver medal at an Indian track and field championship in Doha. Santhi Soundararajan, regarded as a premier Indian track and field athlete, was forced to give up her second place finish after she failed a gender test.
For the last 30 years, the International Olympic Committee has required that all female competitors undergo “gender verification” to detect male imposters. The test is composed of three individual evaluations from an endocrinologist (to see if you’ve got the right stuff in your blood), a psychologist (to see if you’ve got the right stuff upstairs) and a gynecologist (to see if you’ve got the right stuff downstairs).
After an endocrinologist tests for levels of hormones in the blood and the gynecologist tests for anatomical characteristics, one is left to wonder what the psychologist’s test looks like.
When lost on the road:
a) Stop and ask for directions
b) I’m not lost
“Everything is okay” means:
a) There is something wrong so you’d better start guessing/apologizing
b) Oh crap
“No” means
a) Yes, no, maybe
b) No
Out of all the tests one could fail, a gender test is probably most embarrassing. After failing the test, Soundararajan (not to be mistaken for an Indian Soundgarden cover band) refused to comment. Surprisingly, reports say the athlete cleared the gender test at the Asian track and field championship in South Korea last year where she won the silver medal in the 800m. It is not clear how she failed the test most recently at the Asian Games in Doha (maybe they switched a and b?). Despite speculation, Indian officials insist Soundararajan never had a sex change; rather she appeared to have abnormal chromosomes. An official stated that the test revealed more Y chromosomes than allowed.
More than allowed means slightly greater than zero.
As in, maybe one.
One, as in genetically male.
I know your first thought might be, “So she’s really a guy and she only took second place? Dude, you got beat by a girl!”
I don’t intend to rip Soundararajan or claim that Indians in general are sexually-challenged (for that, search BBC news for Dec. 8, 2006 article “Condoms ‘too big’ for Indian Men”).
As humans, we inherently love categories, especially binary ones. Separating things into binary extremes is a convenient way to simplify biological phenomena; however, nature struggles to make things fit as neatly as we would like.
One such phenomenon is human sex. In all honesty, sex is a little more complicated than “boys have penises and girls have vaginas.” Typically, those with sex chromosomes XY develop with primary sexual characteristics of males: testes, higher levels of testosterone, hairier bodies, penchant for sports and steaks, etc. Those with XX sex chromosomes develop as females: ovaries and breasts, higher levels of estrogen, penchant for shopping and baking, etc.
However, in a number of cases, males can be born with an extra X, or XXY, a condition known as Klinefelter’s syndrome. In Klinefelter’s syndrome, males are sterile with increased breast tissue and increased risk of a number of diseases normally more prominent in women. Those with Klinefelter’s syndrome are often born with ambiguous genitalia, requiring special medical attention to disguise their sexual ambiguity. Similarly, an intersex person is one who is born with genitalia that isn’t exclusively male nor female. Lastly, some individuals are born with complete or partial androgen insensitivity (AIS). AIS individuals usually identify themselves with the female sex but have internal testes and normal female bodies except for vaginas and a lack of ovaries.
To use Down’s syndrome (1/1,000 live births) as a benchmark, the above disorders are more common than you might guess. Klinefelter’s syndrome occurs in 1/500 births, mild intersexuality in 1/100 births and androgen insensitivity in about 1/20,000 births.
As difficult as it may be to swallow the news that you are sexually amorphous, the numbers are probably more chilling to someone like Wilt Chamberlain. In his autobiography, the NBA basketball great revealed having slept with 20,000 women. Or, was it 19,960 women and, like, 40 dudes? Yikes.
I know I’ll have to proceed with more caution. The next time I’m on a date and I find out she can bench-press more than me, I’m going to start asking questions. Actually, this very thing has happened, multiple times. I’m not sure if it is more a result of my physical weakness or my interest in dating burly women. However, I am proud to say that I will be attending the gym this semester (if you see me trying to bench the bar, please spot me).
Other than the failed gender test, the sad news for Soundararajan is that she seems to have fled from the media, her friends and her family out of humiliation. On the bright side, rumor has it that those condoms fit her just fine.
Behzad Varamini is a graduate student in Nutritional Sciences. He can be reached at bv29@cornell.edu. Gain Through Loss appears alternate Wednesdays.
Sex is Complicated
A good article - right up until the last line. It would be poetic justice if Mr Varamini had a karyotype, and found out "he" was an XX male. There are 3 different mechanisms we know of now that can cause this. What would "he" do then - wear a Lesbian Pride T-shirt? Perhaps we should give "her" a box of tampons (snigger snigger).
No, that last line shows gross insensitivity, and puerile ignorance. Pity, the article was otherwise quite good, and could have been used to educate, not humiliate.
I'm Intersexed, and one of the really weird conditions, where appearance changes over time, like the common 5 alpha reductase deficiency syndrome. There are literally hundreds of Intersex conditions. We aspire one day to be third, rather than fourth-class citizens. Mr Varamini's article hasn't helped.
It is a bit more complicated than that...
An over simplistic view of the genetic structure and you completely ignore the psychosociological part of the gender identity equation.
However, sticking with just the genetics since that seems to be a fascination by this author, it is far more complicated than that.
What makes the Y chromosome associated with the masculine sex, gender, and gender behavior is a little gene called the SRY. Now the amazing thing is that can also attach itself to an X chromosome. Environmental factors such as the introduction of androgens can also influence sex appearance and also gendered behavior.
With me so far?
Many people are unaware that there is a similar gene on chromosome 17. When inserted into a mouse embryo, it masculinized the offspring. And there are genes that do the opposite, that is have a feminizing impact on the fetus. When DAX1 is present as a double copy then you end up with a female with XY chromosomes.
There are over 30 (that we know about) genes that are known to influence the sex in mammals. To pick and choose which one is THE holy grail does a disservice to the person and to society.
Sex and gender is far more complex than what is in between your legs and/or what a couple of chromosomes may hint.
check your facts
I'm the mother of a 4 year old XXY boy and the husband of a graduate of Cornell. Before you describe a genetic condition about which you obviously know little, I recommend you do some fact checking.
THERE IS NO GREATER INCIDENCE OF AMBIGUOUS GENITALIA IN XXY MALES AS COMPARED TO XY MALES. As you can imagine, misinformation like this does a great disservice to those, who through random genetic occurence, are born with an extra X.