For the first time in three decades, women who compete at this year’s Olympic
Games in Sydney won’t have to undergo a “gender verification” test to prove they
are female. The authorities have never actually found a man masquerading as a
woman, but they have identified—and humiliated—athletes with genuine
medical conditions, such as androgen insensitivity syndrome, a chromosomal
abnormality in which a genetically male person develops as female. The
International Olympic Committee has decided to suspend the testing on a trial
basis.
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