Santhi Soundarajan, a female runner in India who was stripped of her Olympic medal has, perhaps, tried to commit suicide. She ingested pesticide but it’s not clear that she did so in a suicide attempt, and may have taken it for stomach pain. There are more details in an India Times article.
The Indian Olympic Association (IOA) announced she failed a sex test and implied Santhi had deceived the sporting world by competing as a woman when she was a man, effectively ending her career.
But Santhi, who returned home to live in humiliation, insisted along with her parents and coaches she had done nothing wrong. . .
Seven of the eight women who tested positive for Y chromosomes during the 1996 Atlanta Olympics had AIS. They were allowed to compete.
Because the International Olympics no longer do these tests, exactly in order to prevent this kind of outcome, and The Hindu reports that endocrine test results were probably not in when she was disqualified.
Thanks for posting this, Helen. I feel so sad to see another life ruined by others’ ignorance. The world of sports is busy defining which of us qualify as women and which don’t–sometimes with devastating effects on those, like Santhi, who fall outside the norm.
Santhi probably has androgen insensitivity syndrome (AIS), which means that her body can’t even process testosterone, which is the thing that would give her an advantage over other women. However, no one even knows what her condition is. She was disqualified without a diagnosis.
If anyone has contacts with any athletic organizations, please lobby for it to follow suit with the International Olympics committee and end chromosome tests. These tests do nothing but shock a few women athletes with the news that, despite their female genitals and female identity, they have XY chromosomes.
Hormone levels are a better primary indicator of competition gender. If a woman has hormone levels within the normal female range, she does not have an advantage over other women no matter what her chromosome configuration is. If a woman’s hormone levels show too much testosterone, she can take drugs to lower the levels to a normal female range. Lowering the levels removes the speed advantage that testosterone gives. For example, trans women in the US can compete in races after they have been on hormone treatment for a certain length of time. See “A 6-Minute Difference” in Runner’s World magazine for one such example: http://www.runnersworld.com/ar.....-0,00.html
If the previous link errors on you, go to http://www.runnersworld.com and search for “A 6-Minute Difference.” The article will come up in the Search results and you can access it from there.
How to determine someone’s gender?…
Santhi Soundarajan was a talented female runner whose reputation has been sullied by an allegedly ‘failed gender test’. She is now in the news for having attempted suicide.
Given the confusion and uncertainity over determining a personR…
The use of the pesticide paraquat to commit a lingering and painful suicide (it destroys the liver as I recall), is common in the third world.
WindyCity
just wanted to point out that you made a great argument for not testing hormone levels to determine gender. If a person has AIS (androgen insensitivity) and cannot respond to testosterone, even with “male” levels of testosterone present, the person would still appear “female” though probably lacking the full complement of female internal organs.