Gender Categories in Sports: Determination or Discrimination?

Newsclick interviewed Dr. Satyajit Rath from the National Institute of Immunology on the issue of gender determination in sports in the context of the recent case of Indian sprinter Dyuti Chand. On the question of whether it is only the XY chromosome combination that leads to the birth of a male child, Rath believes that while in general it is true exceptions do exist. There are combinations like XXX chromosomes, making purely chromosomal gender determination difficult. Sports authorities treat parameters like body structure and level of testosterone as factors in determining gender which is often arbitrary. Situations may exist where the individuals find themselves in grey areas in terms of these parameters, as has happened in the case of Dyuti Chand. Rath points out that these arbitrary categorisations have more to do with socio political factors than biological ones. They are linked with concrete questions of patriarchy, gender discrimination and injustice. The glaring differences in prize money and pay between male and female sportspersons is a case in point.

Rough Transcript:

Rishab Bailey (RB): Welcome to Newsclick. The last couple of years have seen a number of instances in the international arena which have focused on the issue of gender determination in sports. The latest case is that of the Indian Sprinter Dyuti Chand. Chand who is a national champion sprinter and a medalist at the Asian games was recently told that she has to undergo surgery and hormonal therapy in order to keep competing as a woman. We've seen several cases in the past too which have usually been handled pretty badly by our authorities. The Pinky Pramanik and Shanti Sangharajan case comes to mind. To discuss this issue we have with us Dr. Satyajit Rath from the National Institute of Immunology. Thanksfor joining us today Satyajit. Now, what determines the sex of a person. I always thought that if you did not have the Y chromosomes that was it, you were doomed to be a woman.

Dr. Satyajit Rath (SR): Doomed, deemed whatever, at one level that is perfectly true that if you have two X chromosomes, in the human species, you are a female. If you have one X and one Y-chromosome, you are a male. This is not necessarily true of all species, remember. But within the limited context we are talking about, that's certainly true. The difficulty is there are always exceptions. So, there are individuals with only one X-chromosome, there are individuals with three X-chromosomes, there are individuals with other combinations which make it very awkward to determine what the sex of this individual is. This is particularly so because in many of these situations, and indeed, in a few other situations, without alterations in chromosome numbers for variety of other reasons, the so called sexual characteristics don't necessarily match. What would you at that point? Now you could always turn around and say as you did that anybody who has a Y-chromosome is male and anybody who doesn't have a Y-chromosome is a female. The biological basis if this unfortunately, even though it gets highlighted isn't really the question at stake. The question at stake is why is it rational to have men compete separately from women. And the biology of why men compete separately from women is related to but not identical to the issue of whether there is a Y-chromosome or there is not a Y-chromosome. You have a situation in which the physical characteristics the so called body stature, the so called skeletal muscular organisation, the so called the sex based distinction. These distinctions mean that if men and women compete together, men are likely to win disproportionaly high proportion of times.

Is it therefore reasonable for us to have men and women competing, that's a socio political question, my answer would be yes, but, that's still a socio political question, not a biological one. But, if they are to compete separately then we need some sort of biological determination of who's a man and who's a woman. That relates much more directly to these differences in strength and stature and musculature and so on and so forth. And that I think, I gather, is the basis for the sports bodies determining that testosterone levels will be treated as one if not the major distinction between men and women. Now unfortunately, you will always have situations where individuals are unfortunate enough to be caught in gaps and that's precisely what seems to have happened in Dyuti Chand's case.

RB: Now, you have, of course, you just talked about gender or sexuality in a sense, being a continuum, I mean, and of law placing arbitrary lines here and there, so in this instance, are there rational reasons to place these particular lines at for instance, saying you are considered female if you have less than 10 nanomoles of testosterone in your blood. So how is that determination actually made?

SR: It as given, as you point out, that these are arbitrary lines because they convert what is a continuum into a Yes/No situation. So always going to be, at some point unfair to somebody. Given that, as far as I can tell, it's not an unreasonable line, because it includes as large a proportion of variation based diversity as it is possible to include.

RB: This follows on from something you were speaking about earlier. Then are we actually categorizing people wrongly when it comes to sports? Instead of saying male & female, should we actually have testosterone 1 category, where the participants have testosterone levels up to a certain amount, then you have testosterone 2 category where they have testosterone up to a particular amount since that seems to be the determining factor ?

SR: There are socio-political reasons for creating categories not so much the biological reasons alone. The biological reasons are, in my eyes, surrogates for socio-political reasons. So I'll give you an example, what you were proposing is actually exactly what is done in boxing. You have feather weights, bantam weights, welter weights, heavy weights, super heavy weights, etc. all of these are x-many kilos to y-many kilos, y-many kilos to z-many kilos of weight. Is that reasonable? Should it be between 50 kilos and 60 kilos, why not between 48 and 50? On the other hand, gender based distinction is not quite as unmeaning fully arbitrary is that, I will argue, because it is not simply a matter of biological distinctions that make the sport competitive and interesting. It adds to itself the socio-political context of patriarchy, of gender based under privileging and of gender based traditions of injustice. And because of those, I think that it is important for us to make a distinction between categorization based on biology alone which allows for competitive sports versus categorization of the gender kind.

RB: We've seen to be picking only amongst, well, specifically on the issue of gender. I mean, we don't discuss why Usain Bolt's legs are so long, is it fair for him to compete with other racers with normal legs because it gives him a huge advantage. Similarly, Michael Phelps has tremendously long arms and flat feet and so on which helps him to swim really fast. We don't talk about these. Again, you've mentioned why this system of patriarchy, which ensures that gender is brought to the fore front of it but how can this actually be changed in something which is considered fairly neutral, like sports, I mean it's something every country in the world takes part in, so ideally, or one would like to think of it as being above these sort of issues. Obviously it isn't ?

SR: Nothing. Nothing is neutral in those terms. Clearly, gender distinctions in sports are anything but neutral. Let me remind you in the classic tradition of neo-liberal capitalism, let me remind you with an example of money. In professional tennis, in the debate about how much prize money male versus female tennis players should get, a point that has been repeatedly made is that women tennis players should not get as much money because they are really not very good, and as part of, as a subcomponent of that discourse, there are comments where, well, really what they are is, eye candy, more than sport.

RB: Of course. Blatter saying that female footballers should wear short shorts...

SR: In all of this, the point being made using money as a surrogate is that sports for society as an activity of consumption is anything but value neutral. So it's not surprising that this issue comes up in this context quite as much as anywhere else. What for me is deeply troubling in the Chand case is not so much the unfortunate situation that she finds herself in with regard to sports bodies and their regulations. That will play itself out the way it does.

RB: Now, unfortunately, that's all the time we have to talk to Satyajit today. Do join us again on Newsclick for another episode. Thank you.