Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Butch women to be sex tested at the Olympics

Women who look too manly may have to go through sex tested at the Olympics.

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

Wtf? You just know that this will only apply to women, and I betcha anything there will be physical tests involved too. Wtf is wrong with people? Who thought this up?
Interestingly, male to female transsexuals won't have to undergo the test.

How about intersex people? Where do they fit? Actually that's the wrong question to be asking.
How fucking dare they* take it open themselves* to ascertain and second guess who isn't womanly enough? As the F Word article says what parameters are they going to use to choose who to test? Hips and Arse not round enough? Boobs not big enough? Too lean? Too muscly? They're athletes for fucks sake, they're meant to be lean. is the implication that you can't be a real woman if you're an athlete?

I can't help but think that is meant to put women in their place and publicly humiliate them for not looking like good little wifeys. (I don't mean that this was done on an explicit conscious level, but I think that anyone reading this blog will realise and know about the subconscious effects of living in a patriarchal society that produces and encourages many subtle codes and methods that criticise women for not adhering to the proper model of femininity.)

I think that if Ami reads this she'll go justifiably mental.

On a funny note, read this taken from the Guardian article:
'It is believed that as many as 10,000 East German athletes were caught up in a nightmarish state-sponsored attempt to build a race of superhuman communist sports heroes and force-fed cocktails of steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs.'

That's just hilarious - superhuman communist sports heroes! It's like a comic gone bad. And before anyone gets the wrong end of the stick (this being the internetz I'm sure I'll find someone to offend) I am well aware that's it's not funny for the individuals involved, and it's a deplorable thing to do to someone, but the idea is very funny. Which is where it should have stayed.**

*No I'm not quite sure who 'they' are. The morons who thought up and then agreed and then put in place the facilities to do this stupid test I think.
**Whew. back covered.

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