TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/022492/0224130.000

Text File | 1992-10-19 | 3.7 KB | 82 lines

                                                                                HEALTH, Page 65

Genetic Tests Under Fire


A sports panel says a glance in the pants is enough to determine
the sex of an athlete


    Spanish hurdler Maria Jose Martinez Patino never doubted her
femininity until she arrived in Kobe, Japan, in 1985 to compete
at the World University Games. Like all female athletes
participating in international tournaments, she had to take a
genetic sex-determination test, aimed at preventing men in drag
from unfairly competing against women. Though Patino had passed
such an exam in the past, she had forgotten to bring along
proof. This time, to her amazement, she failed. The first test
had evidently been botched. Patino, though clearly a female
anatomically, is, at a genetic level, just as clearly a man. She
was disqualified.

    Every year a handful of women share Patino's fate -- the
result of certain genetic anomalies. In Patino's case, and
doubtless in many others, the repercussions were devastating and
humiliating. Not only was she barred from competing, but she
lost an athletic scholarship and watched her boyfriends walk off
in confusion.

    Gender tests first appeared in 1966, in response to
suspicions that muscular, medal-winning East bloc women were
really men in disguise. Female athletes had to parade nude
before a panel of gynecologists to be certified as women. By
1968, this demeaning practice was abandoned in favor of a more
dignified and supposedly more scientific chromosome exam. But
no one guessed that it would backfire against women like Patino.

    So last year the International Amateur Athletic
Federation, which governs track-and-field contests, decided to
go back to something closer to the original method: during a
routine physical, a team doctor simply and discreetly takes note
of an athlete's genitals. In a report in last week's Journal of
the American Medical Association, the organization proclaimed
its satisfaction with the practice and called upon groups
governing other sports to follow suit. Timed to coincide with
the Winter Olympics, the report is sure to embarrass the
International Olympic Committee, which remains wedded to
chromosome testing.

    "The big mistake," says Alison Carlson, a tennis coach and
member of the I.A.A.F. committee that recommended the new test,
"is in the simplistic idea we all learned in high school that
chromosomes determine gender." While a Y chromosome ordinarily
makes someone a man, explains Dr. Joe Leigh Simpson, a
University of Tennessee gynecologist who was also on the
I.A.A.F. committee, "about 1 in 20,000 people has genes that
conflict with his or her apparent gender." In some cases, the
Y chromosome is defective and fails to properly signal the body
to produce masculinizing hormones -- or in the case of men who
are genetically female, an X chromosome inappropriately signals
the body to produce excess testosterone. In instances such as
Patino's, male hormones may be present, but the body lacks the
proper receptors to respond. Such individuals look female and,
significantly for sports, have the size and musculature of a
woman; the Y chromosome is irrelevant.

    Patino spent three years fighting to regain her female
status and won, even before the I.A.A.F. changed its procedures.
She hopes to compete in this summer's Olympics, which will be
held in her native land. Luckily for her fellow track stars,
Olympic officials will now accept an I.A.A.F. certificate of
femininity instead of chromosomal proof. But XY women in other
sports will be out of luck, unless the International Olympic
Committee updates its policy.

    By Michael D. Lemonick.