Gender Testing in Sports

Essential Question: How should sports associations fairly and accurately determine an athlete’s gender?

Standards:

• LS3A: Inheritance of Traits

• LS3B: Variation of Traits

• Patterns (CCC)

• Engaging in Argument from Evidence (SEP)

Photo: Runner’s World

This lesson is all about questioning preconceived ideas of sex and gender and breaking down the binary. Traditionally, during a genetics or sex education unit, students are taught that a person that receives two X chromosomes is a female and a person that receives one X and one Y chromosome is male. However, even an organization like the Olympic Committee has had to grapple with the fact that fitting people into the gender binary isn’t always so clearcut.. Since their inception, they have pivoted from using chromosomal identification to hormone levels, but both systems have been flawed. Consider for example, a case study about an athlete such as South African runner, Caster Semenya, who was subjected to gender verification and intense scrutiny after a rapid rise to success in the sport.

Karyotype of an individual with Klinefelter’s Syndrome

Students can apply their understanding of meiosis to intersex and nontradtional sexes, such as situations in which individuals have chromosomal abnormalities (Turner’s, Klinefelter’s Syndrome, etc.). Students may model the process of meiosis that could result in various combinations of sex chromosomes. Furthermore, they can learn about the SRY gene and cell differentiation as well as overall endocrine regulation of cells in the body. Ultimately, all this knowledge can be used to make a recommendation to the Olympic governing body about ways in which they should (or should not) determine the sex of an individual for the purposes of fair and inclusive athletics.