Sex Testing and the Maintenance of Western Femininity in International Sport

During the Cold War, women from Eastern Europe excelled in international sport. Rather than applauding the successes of these female athletes, many in the Cold-War-West responded with suspicion, contempt and derision. Armed with rumours and anecdotes, the International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF) implemented sex testing in 1966, and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) followed suit two years later. Despite the introduction of a compulsory sex/gender control, many continued to lament the muscular physiques of the Cold-War-Eastern victors. The known and suspected sex test ‘failures’ from North Korea, the Philippines, Poland, the Soviet Union and Spain served to exacerbate the fears of gender fraudulence. As global dynamics shifted, however, so, too, did the anxieties in sport. When women from the People's Republic of China dominated the international sports scene in the 1990s, many in the geographic-West again doubted the authenticity of the achievements and called for a return to gender verification. A decade later, the international plights of Indian athlete Santhi Soundarajan and South African runner Caster Semenya convinced the IAAF and the IOC that such a reestablishment was necessary. Using the ‘colonial/modern gender system’ framework, this article explores the political and racialised sex/gender concerns medical professionals and sport authorities possessed, which led to the establishment, abandonment and reintroduction of sex testing/gender verification in elite sport. Through these three phases of sex testing/gender verification, the IAAF and the IOC reaffirmed a binary notion of sex and privileged white, Western gender norms.     

Thyroid hormone levels and psychological symptoms in sexually abused adolescent girls

OBJECTIVE: To explore the relationships between psychological symptoms and thyroid hormone levels in adolescent girls who had experienced the traumatic stress of sexual abuse. METHOD: The study design was cross-sectional/correlational. Subjects (N=22; age range=12-18 years) had their blood drawn, and they completed 2 psychological tests (depression and general distress/posttraumatic stress disorder [PTSD]). A pediatrician completed a sexual abuse questionnaire after reviewing law enforcement and Child Protective Services reports and conducting forensic interviews and medical examinations. RESULTS: Girls' average free T4, total T4, free T3, total T3, and TSH levels were within age-specific laboratory reference range limits, as were most individual concentrations. The strongest correlations (p<.05) were between free T3 and PTSD total score (-.50), PTSD-avoidance/numbing (-.49), and general distress (-.48); and between total T3 and depression (-.46), general distress (-.45), and PTSD-arousal (-.44). CONCLUSIONS: Our findings support one of the two contemporary models of the relationships between thyroid hormones (i.e., free and total T3) and psychological symptoms (i.e., depression, general distress, and PTSD)--one of "shutting down" (vs. "activation") in the face of trauma.