A silver medal-winning Indian sprinter in the Asian Games has failed a gender test requested by competitors who suspected her of a little stuffin’ in the muffin (thanks for ruining the dream, Turbanhead):

One of India’s medal winners at the Asian Games in Doha, Santhi Soundarajan, is likely to be stripped of her silver medal [for the 800m] after it was found that she did not have the “sexual characteristics of a woman…”

“… nowadays the prize money is so high that athletes take to shortcuts to win.” [Link]

“Santhi has been training with me for the past two and a half years. I never felt that ’she’ was a man and such things are [too] scientific for me to comment on…” [Soundarajan] is to be given Rs 15 lakh for the silver medal. [Link]

The Indian delegation apparently knew of the issue even before the Games:

Santhi Soundarajan… had apparently failed a similar test in India… the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) had cleared Santhi, despite the findings, to represent the country in the 800m race… An athletics selector said officials knew before the competition that Santhi had been denied a job in the Railways on similar grounds. [Link]

This has happened before at the Pan American Games:

The test doesn’t detect drug use. It merely determines chromosomal make-up…

“The first [test] was called a peek-a-boo test. They would literally pull out your track pants and make sure you had the right genitalia, that was in 1966 shortly to be followed by what was called the naked parade…” At the 1967 Pan Am Games in Winnipeg, female athletes had to strip nude and walk in front of three female gynæcologists… [Link]

Intersex people and those with abnormal chromosomes do exist…

Though high school biology teaches that men have XY and women XX chromosomes, in fact there are quite a few other possible combinations such as Turner syndrome (XO), Triple X syndrome (XXX), Klinefelter syndrome (XXY), XYY syndrome (XYY), Mosaicism (XO/XY), de la Chapelle syndrome (XX male), Swyer syndrome (XY female), and there are many other individuals who do not follow the typical patterns (such as individuals with four or even more sex chromosomes). [Link]

… but so do male athletes posing as women:

… a male [Pan American Games] athlete masqueraded as a female back in the 1930’s. [Link]

Humping the rubber is a pretty good sign of maleness

Whatever Soundarajan turns out to be, she’s from a humble background in Tamil Nadu:

Her parents, Manimekalai (48) and Soundararajan (61), labourers in a brick kiln, barely had enough to feed their five children. Santhi survived on rice gruel or cooked rice soaked in buttermilk as staple food during her school days… The family still finds it difficult to make ends meet. They are able to sustain [themselves] courtesy the cash prizes that Santhi keeps winning…

Both parents rue the fact that they were not able to watch Santhi’s performance on television, as they could not afford one… a neighbour lent them a cellphone for them to speak to their daughter in Doha…

“It was sheer grit and zeal, rather than physical fitness that saw her win the silver…” [Link]

If we find out that Manjeet Kaur’s fakin’ the dromedary, just keep me in the dark. A man’s gotta dream.

Update: Soundarajan has been stripped of her silver, and the culprit appears to be chromosomal abnormality (thanks, Mo):

[The Indian Olympic Association] has asked the Athletic Federation of India to return the medal as desired by the Olympic Council of Asia…The test revealed more Y chromosomes than allowed

The medical evaluation panel usually includes a gynecologist, endocrinologist, psychologist and internal medicine specialist…

Soundarajan almost certainly never had sex-change surgery. Instead, the official said Soundarajan appeared to have “abnormal chromosomes.” … the test revealed more Y chromosomes than allowed. [Link]

… Buccal Smear Analysis… meant analysing the chromosomal pattern through human cells. However, that was also scrapped since certain diseases can temporarily change this pattern.

The present test follows an elaborate procedure, and results can take up to two weeks to come out. A gynecologist first examines the athlete physically, before a hematologist examines their blood sample and an endocrinologist checks their chromosomal pattern. A psychologist, meanwhile, reassures the examinee and provides insights on their psyche. Gender tests are not really in vogue in the world of athletics because of this elaborate procedure, and unfortunately for Santhi, it also means the absence of a proper system for appeal. [Link]

Indian athletes have failed gender tests before:

This is not the first time that an Indian athlete has been involved in a gender controversy with Anusuya Bai and Nani Radha having failed such tests earlier in 1970s…

… the Tamil Nadu Government decided to brush aside the entire controversy and awarded the Chennai athlete Rs. 15 lakh for her Doha show on “humanitarian” grounds. [Link]

Assuming Soundarajan is XXY rather than a regular XY male, wouldn’t she be at a competitive disadvantage because of the spare chromosome?

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