elimination of gender verification, including the American Medical
Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American
College of Physicians, the American College of Obstetrics and
Gynecology, the Endocrine Society, the Lawson Wilkins Pediatric
Endocrine Society, and the American Society of Human Genetics.
It was argued that the current clothing used in athletic competition,
as well as the requirement that urine for doping control be voided
under direct supervision, made it virtually certain that male
impostors could not escape detection; furthermore, gender verification
procedures are complex, expensive, and counterproductive.
Still, it was not until the IOC's Athletes' Commission called
for discontinuation of the IOC system of gender verification that
the IOC's executive board, at its June 1999 meeting in Seoul,
decided to discontinue the practice on a trial basis at the forthcoming
summer Olympic games in Sydney. The proposal by the Athletes'
Commission, similar to the IAAF plan that has been in place for
track and field since the early 1990s, permits intervention and
evaluation of individual
athletes by appropriate medical personnel if there is any question regarding gender identity. Since the IAAF policies were instituted in 1992, this has never been invoked, nor is it likely to be in Sydney under the circumstances described above, especially because of the requirement
for freshly voided urine for doping testing. I truly hope that the IOC's decision will become permanent with the conclusion of the Sydney games and that laboratory verification of the gender of female athletes will reside in the historical chronicles of the Olympic Games together with competition in the nude of their ancient male predecessors.
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Myron Genel, MD, is Professor of Pediatrics and Associate
Government and Community Affairs, Yale University School of Medicine, New