The Gender Trap

I have often found that in our society, people tend to see things as “either/or,” submitting to one of two options. Black or white. Democrat or Republican. Pepsi or Coke. Boy or girl. However, this way of seeing things does not tell the whole story. As Saner (2008) describes in her article “The Gender Trap,” there is a huge world population of “intersex” or transgender individuals living in the world today (roughly .1% of the world’s total population), blurring the lines of the traditional “male-female” idea of gender. Clearly, these people are part of an often forgotten and ignored population, and, in a sport environment, they represent an issue that must be properly addressed and dealt with.

As Saner (2008) states, women whose gender is in question are put through a series of tests to determine if they are in fact female. This process is extremely humiliating for the athletes themselves and has been the subject of much criticism in recent years. Still, one has to ask- if athletes are able to slip between gender lines, does that create an unfair advantage? Conversely, if an athlete is found to have an intersex condition, such testing can publicly “out” them, creating another questionable ethical situation.

Of course, simply looking at it from an administrator’s perspective ignores the very human element of such controversy. Intersex individuals often naturally feel confused and alienated from much of society because they fall outside of the “male-female” gender dichotomy. This pressure and feeling of alienation can lead to tragic results, as was the case of Santhi Soundarajan, an Indian athlete whose public humiliation from being stripped of her medal helped lead her to attempt suicide. Such attempts are not uncommon for people with intersex conditions; however, the publicity that came from Soundarajan’s attempt may help shed light on the stigmas that accompany such conditions, causing people to take a closer look at an often silenced minority.