Ahead of the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, KPE's Professor Bruce Kidd shared his thoughts with the Globe and Mail about the fear among the women athletes of the world that IOC will reinstitute the female sex test.
As the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo approaches, a chill is descending upon the women athletes of the world: the fear that the International Olympic Committee will reinstitute the female sex test.
Throughout its long, tragic history, the sex test has been used to denigrate, exclude, and in a few documented cases, coerce healthy athletes from the Global South into completely unnecessary and crippling surgeries because they did not conform to the European ideal body type. In some countries, the mere threat of the test has been used to expel female athletes from national programs, deny them benefits, and force them into poverty and even suicide. As scholars and investigative journalists uncover the great harm it has caused – most recently, a German documentary by Olga Sviridenko, Edmund Willison and Hajo Seppelt on Ugandan running champion Annet Negesa – the focus has been on Africa and Asia, where athletes are the most vulnerable.