Sex-determination testing for female athletes at Beijing Olympic Games

A special laboratory is being built in Beijing; this one is not for drug testing, but will allow officials to determine the sex of athletes taking place in this year's Olympic Games.

According to Professor Tian Qinjie, "suspected athletes will be evaluated from their external appearances by experts and undergo blood tests to examine their sex hormones, genes and chromosomes for sex determination." The tests will not be conducted on every female athlete, but will be required if doubts have been raised about the sex of a competitor. "The aim is to protect fairness at the games while also protecting the rights of people with abnormal sexual development," Qinjie says.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) introduced sex testing in 1968 at the Olympic games in Mexico City, after the masculine appearance of some 'female' competitors had started to raise questions about the sex of athletes in female events.

Sex-determination tests were seen as degrading, with female competitors having to submit to humiliating and invasive physical examinations by a series of doctors. Later, the IOC decided to use a supposedly more sophisticated genetic test, based on chromosomes. Women usually have two X chromosomes; men an X and a Y chromosome. So, only those athletes with two X chromosomes could be classed as women. However, many geneticists criticised the tests, saying that sex is not as simple as X and Y chromosomes and is not always simple to ascertain.

It is thought that around one in 1,000 babies are born with an "intersex" condition, the general term for people with chromosomal abnormalities. It may be physically obvious from birth - babies may have ambiguous reproductive organs, for instance - or it may remain unknown to people all their lives. At the Atlanta games in 1996, eight female athletes failed sex tests but were all cleared on appeal; seven were found to have an "intersex" condition. As a result, by the time of the Sydney games in 2000, the IOC had abolished universal sex testing but, as will happen in Beijing, some women still had to prove they really were women.

Transsexuals, who have had a sex change from male to female, on the other hand, can compete in women's events in the Olympics, as long two years have passed since their operation.

One of the most tragic rcent cases is that of Santhi Soundarajan, a 27-year-old Indian athlete. Soundarajan had to endure public humiliation after she lost her silver medal for the 800m at the Asian games in 2006. Soundarajan had lived her entire life as a woman, but failed a gender test and it is suspected that she has a condition called Androgen insensitivity syndrome, where a person looks like a female, but has the genetic make-up of a man. The embarrassment and humiliation combined with the prospect of having to end her career had a strong impact on Soundarajan who survived a suicide attempt according to Indian newspapers.