The Conversation U.S.

Genetic testing is now required to participate in women’s events in the Olympics.

But the new policy oversimplifies biological sex and risks unwitting discrimination against intersex women who were assigned female at birth, according to the author of an upcoming book, “The Binary Delusion: How Biology Defies the Myth of Two Sexes.”

https://theconversation.com/sex-test-used-in-iocs-new-transgender-ban-more-likely-to-exclude-from-olympics-intersex-women-who-were-assigned-female-at-birth-279489

Apr 4 at 2:00amWeb
Show threadacm1d ago
@TheConversationUS not just discrimination against them, but potentially a traumatic revelation to them!!
Show threadJacqueline1d ago

@TheConversationUS it's a bigoted policy that the imperialist powers are using against black and brown women from the imperial periphery and semi periphery. It has nothing to do with trans women.

They're going to have white doctors from Amerika and Europe and Russia invasively probe black women's bodies to police their femininity to fascist and sexist standards.

Show threadOrca 🌻 | 🎀 | 🪁 | 🏴🏳️‍⚧️23h ago
@TheConversationUS They didn't unwittingly discriminated against intersex people. They intentionally discriminated against anyone who's not stereotypically cishet.
Show threadHugh Young-Bish18h ago
@TheConversationUS
There are no Platonic sexes that exist outside of sexed bodies. Every sexed body is its own sex, its own cluster of characteristics — DNA, chromosomes, gametes, gonads, internal and external genitalia, bone structure, fat and hair distribution — that combine to make up our sexes. Of course, the great majority cluster closely around one or other of the two phenotypes that can take part in reproduction, that we call "female" and "male", but that doesn't make them "better" or more valid than any of the others. Meanwhile, gender identity, like sexual orientation, is in the brain.
Each sport was dealing with its own issues around sex and physical prowess in its own way. They don't need a one-size-fits-all regulation imposed from above, and certainly not by politicians with cultural and religious issues.
Show threadRafael Garcia-Suarez17h ago
@TheConversationUS @theory Mandatory gender testing was first instituted a long time ago in the Olympics. More precisely 90 years ago. For the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Under pressure from the Nazis. Full story in the book "The Other Olympians" https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374609818/theotherolympians/
The Other Olympians

WINNER of the 2025 Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ+ Nonfiction. A Finalist for the 2024 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for History and the 2025 Mark Lynton His...

Macmillan Publishers
Show threadDavid Wheeler16h ago

@rgs @TheConversationUS also the excellent tested podcast by @roseveleth

https://www.cbc.ca/listen/cbc-podcasts/1733-tested

Tested | CBC Podcasts | CBC Listen

Who gets to compete? Since the beginning of women’s sports, there has been a struggle over who qualifies for the women’s category. Tested follows the unfolding story of elite female runners who have been told they can no longer race as women, because of their biology. As the Olympics approach, they face hard choices: take drugs to lower their natural testosterone levels, give up their sport entirely, or fight. To understand how we got here, Host Rose Eveleth (they/them) traces the surprising, 100-year history of sex testing.

CBC Listen