The Legacy of Gender Testing in Sports

The episode discusses the historical context of gender testing in sports, tracing its origins back to the formation of the Modern Olympics. Pierre de Coubertin's initial exclusion of women from competition ultimately led to the creation of separate categories for men and women. However, this segregation posed challenges in defining who qualifies as a woman, resulting in the establishment of various gender tests over the years. Many female athletes faced invasive scrutiny to prove their gender under this binary classification, leading to a continuous evolution of rules that do not accurately reflect the complexities of human biology.