4:05

The history of women's sports

4:07

is full of men doubting

4:09

women's sports. But it's

4:11

more than just being skeptical of

4:13

women as athletes, or the marketability

4:15

of women's sports, or even whether

4:17

sports might damage women's health. From

4:21

the very beginning of women's inclusion

4:23

in the Olympics, the

4:25

men in charge doubted that they

4:27

were even women at all. From

4:30

CBC and NPR's Embedded, this

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4:35

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a matter of time. be

10:00

a man. And it

10:02

turns out that idea that elite

10:04

women are actually secretly men goes

10:07

all the way back to the very

10:09

beginning of women's competition in sports. When

10:16

I started researching the history of gender

10:19

verification policies over ten years ago, one

10:22

of the first and most surprising

10:24

things I learned was that sex-testing

10:26

policies are not new. In

10:29

1928, in the Olympics I was just telling

10:32

you about, people immediately started

10:34

pointing fingers at athletes, accusing

10:36

them of being too manly.

10:40

She had all the power of a halfback. That's

10:43

how newspapers wrote about Hitomi Kinwe, the

10:45

woman who won silver in that 800-meter

10:48

race. Another reporter said

10:50

that Hitomi was taken aside and

10:53

examined to make sure she was

10:55

actually a woman. A

10:57

few years later, the American Helen

10:59

Stevens was hit with the same

11:01

accusations. Polish scribe Douts Helen

11:04

Stevens' sex claims she runs too fast

11:06

to be normal woman. In

11:08

response to these accusations, American officials

11:10

put out a statement saying that

11:13

they had indeed verified that Helen

11:15

was a woman. The

11:19

same year, 1936, the governing

11:21

body of track and field

11:23

created the first official policy

11:25

on the books to

11:27

allow for examination of

11:29

suspicious women. And

11:32

for years, I've wanted to understand why.

11:36

Why did these sports officials decide it

11:38

was necessary to confirm a woman's sex

11:40

in the first place? What

11:42

were they so worried about? What were

11:44

they trying to achieve? Okay,

11:50

so we are walking into

11:53

the Olympic campus, I would

11:55

say. To

11:57

try and answer that question, I

14:00

mean, their kings were members of

14:02

the IOC, their princes were members of the IOC, and then

14:04

there are just kind of like

14:06

titled nobility, often with wealth going back

14:09

centuries. This is Michael Waters,

14:11

author of a recent book called The

14:13

Other Olympians. He went to

14:15

the archives too, with a similar mission, to try

14:18

and find explanations for why sports

14:20

officials were so adamant that they

14:22

had to check the sex of

14:25

female athletes. And

14:27

he never found any. Neither

14:29

did Ozzy and I. But

14:31

I checked like all the other correspondence files where it

14:33

might be and it wasn't in there.

14:36

Yeah. I'm looking to see if there's

14:38

just like— When they do talk about sex testing, they do

14:40

so vaguely. The

14:43

only thing we found from these early

14:45

days that directly referenced these women is

14:47

a letter from 1936 from

14:51

a man named Avery Brundage. He

14:53

was the president of the American Olympic

14:56

Committee. The letter

14:58

referenced female question mark athletes.

15:01

And Brundage wrote that he felt

15:03

compelled to pass along a correspondence

15:05

he'd received, in which an

15:07

observer describes a woman's appearance, called

15:10

her a borderline case, and

15:12

went on to say, rules should

15:14

be made to keep the competitive

15:16

games for normal feminine girls and

15:19

not monstrosities. Other

15:23

than that, mentions of

15:25

sex testing in the archive from

15:27

this era are sparse. Here's

15:30

Michael Waters again. I mean,

15:32

it's kind of a wild experience where you're

15:34

going through this like folder after folder of

15:37

just dozens and dozens of letters arguing

15:39

about the rules around like

15:42

how much an athlete could get paid as

15:44

a travel stipend. But then when it comes

15:46

to this policy around sex testing that we're

15:48

really living with today, it's really

15:50

just a few letters back and forth. I

15:52

mean, there just wasn't very much thought at

15:54

all into it. But

15:58

after talking to a bunch of historians taught

16:00

me how to read between the lines of

16:02

these documents, I can say

16:04

that the men in charge of sports

16:06

seemed to be concerned about three different

16:08

things. The first

16:11

was straight up cheaters, men

16:13

dressing up as women and sneaking

16:15

into women's sports to win medals.

16:19

The second was this idea that

16:21

women who did sports might actually

16:23

turn into men, which was

16:26

a thing they really thought could happen. And

16:29

the third was the most complicated,

16:31

this idea that women who were

16:34

drawn to sport, women who wanted

16:36

to compete, were actually

16:38

not really women in the first

16:40

place. But

16:43

I couldn't find any set of

16:46

letters or meeting minutes in which

16:48

they untangle these things or grapple

16:50

with the fact that they aren't

16:52

all the same, not

16:54

in the IOC archives, nor in any

16:56

of the records I was able to

16:58

see from track and field history. The

17:02

experts I talked to about

17:04

this told me that probably

17:06

that's because these conversations weren't

17:08

happening at official meetings. You

17:10

know, they had some very close friendship

17:12

that evolved around beer drinking. They

17:15

would meet in a hotel lobby or wherever

17:17

it would be and would gather and chat.

17:19

This is Jorg Krieger, a sports

17:21

historian and the author of Power

17:24

and Politics in World Athletics. And

17:26

in his research, he found that these men in

17:29

the 1930s literally

17:31

called these get-togethers the beer

17:33

drinking society. So we can

17:35

only imagine how they talked about, you

17:38

know, these women in those informal settings.

17:41

So they didn't write this stuff down. But

17:43

there are a few bits of context

17:46

that can help us all understand their

17:48

worldview a little bit better. The

17:52

first thing to know is that ideas

17:54

around sex and gender were really different

17:56

in the early 1900s. were

18:00

just starting to figure out human

18:02

genetics. At

18:05

the time, the dominant idea around

18:07

sex was something called balance theory.

18:10

The idea here was that every

18:12

person is born with a mixture of

18:14

male and female elements in them.

18:17

If you have a bit more male stuff,

18:19

you are a man. If you

18:21

have a bit more female stuff, you are a

18:23

woman. And this is where the percentages come

18:25

in, that people aren't 100% one or the other, and

18:28

we're seeing people quote unquote in the middle. That's

18:31

Lindsay Piper, a professor at the University

18:33

of Lynchburg and the author of Sex

18:36

Testing, Gender Policing in Women's Sports. What

18:39

she's saying is that, in the world

18:41

of balance theory, someone might be 70%

18:43

woman, or

18:45

just 55%. Ironically,

18:48

this is in some ways more accurate

18:51

than the really rigid sex binary we

18:53

tend to think about today. But

18:56

anyway. Back then,

18:58

if you believed in balance theory,

19:00

you also believed that this balance

19:02

could be tipped. That someone

19:04

who started out as 70% woman,

19:07

but who exercised like a man

19:09

and ran on the track and

19:11

competed in sports, could

19:13

slowly shift. And

19:15

wind up on the other side of

19:17

that invisible line and become a man.

19:23

And so there's this fear that

19:25

there's women who are participating in

19:27

sport who aren't really women, but

19:30

then also there's this undercurrent too

19:32

that sports going to masculinize women

19:34

as well. So there's

19:36

that going on. It's

19:39

also worth remembering when we are

19:41

in time. Women first

19:43

competed in track and field in the Olympics in

19:45

1928. Just

19:48

five years later, Hitler was named

19:50

Chancellor of Germany. In

19:53

1936, the Nazis hosted the

19:56

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water, land, wildlife, and the people

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who live there. In

23:00

November of 1935, the men of

23:03

athletics opened up their newspapers and

23:05

saw a story that gave them

23:07

an almost perfect example of everything

23:09

they had been looking for, evidence

23:12

that their ideas about women in

23:15

sports had been right all along.

23:18

And that evidence came in the

23:20

form of a Czechoslovakian athlete named

23:22

Deneck Kolbek. The women

23:24

track star decides to change sex. Through

23:26

a rare phenomenon of nature, Czechoslovakian world

23:28

champion track star will shortly become a

23:30

man and in all probability will retain

23:32

the two women's running records she set

23:34

in London in 1934. The

23:41

modern women I'm following in this

23:43

series are not transgender. And

23:46

these days, track and field

23:48

has separate policies for trans

23:50

and DSD athletes. But

23:52

when you trace these kinds of policies back

23:54

to the origins, they lead

23:57

you to Deneck Kolbek, an athlete

23:59

who competed and won as

24:01

a woman, and then transitioned. Zdeniak

24:04

Kobek is a Czech athlete who was born

24:06

in 1913. He

24:08

was from this poor family, and he spent

24:11

a lot of his life basically working retail. As

24:14

part of his book research, Michael Waters

24:16

had Kobek's memoir translated into English. In

24:19

the memoir, Kobek writes poetically about all

24:21

kinds of things, including his love of

24:23

running. The

24:28

greatest reward for the hard life of track and field is,

24:30

of course, victory. When

24:35

the announcer names the winner over the

24:37

megaphone, it is as though someone

24:39

very dear and close to you gently stroked

24:41

your cheek. In

24:45

1934, Kobek was at the peak of

24:47

his career. By that point, he

24:49

had broken the Czech women's record in the 800 meters. Later

24:52

that year, he'd break the women's world record in

24:54

the 800 and win gold at

24:57

the women's world games. But

24:59

instead of being able to celebrate these wins,

25:02

Kobek was inundated with accusations.

25:05

In his memoir, he writes about receiving

25:07

anonymous letters accusing him of being a

25:10

man in disguise, and

25:12

about newspaper columnists and other athletes who

25:14

would make comments about his physique, here

25:17

referring to himself in the third person.

25:19

It was said in jest that she wasn't a

25:21

girl, but a boy with the devil in her

25:24

body. And he even

25:26

talks about being stopped at a border crossing. At

25:29

passport control, an inspector was taken aback

25:31

by his then-gos masculine appearance. Kobek

25:36

returned from the 1934 women's world games a

25:39

national hero of women's athletics. But

25:42

privately, Kobek had been struggling for

25:44

years with his gender. Once

25:47

the 1934 season ended, he

25:49

began quietly contacting lawyers and doctors

25:51

in his home country and

25:54

started the process of transitioning. Which

25:56

brings us back to November of 1935. when

26:00

the story broke in Prague newspapers

26:02

announcing Zdenyek Kobeck's name and gender

26:05

change. Czechoslovakian world champion

26:07

track star will shortly become a

26:09

man. Here, finally, in black

26:11

and white newsprint, was the proof that

26:14

the men in charge of sports had

26:16

been seeking. To them,

26:18

Kobeck represented everything that was

26:21

wrong with women's sports. In

26:26

response to Kobeck's public transition, many of

26:28

these men jumped at the chance to

26:30

weigh in. One of them

26:33

was a prominent Nazi sports doctor named

26:35

Wilhelm Noll. He wrote an

26:37

op-ed in the magazine Sport. Accusing

26:39

Kobeck as being a fraud and

26:41

insinuating that he in some

26:43

way had been cheating the whole time. And

26:46

Noll wasn't alone in his complaints.

26:49

Here's Lindsay Piper again. They

26:51

point to Kobeck and say, see, if

26:53

you compete in elite sport, look what

26:56

can happen to you. Sport

26:58

will turn you into a man. Some

27:02

people believed that Kobeck represented a

27:04

threat to real women on the

27:06

track. The manager of

27:08

the Canadian women's Olympic team, a

27:10

woman named Alexandrine Gibb, wrote that it

27:13

was not fun to watch the games,

27:15

quote, when you were there and saw

27:17

real feminine Canadian girls forced to compete

27:20

against that sort of a manish athlete

27:22

in track and field events, end

27:25

quote. Those

27:27

real women had to be

27:29

protected. And

27:32

so in August of 1936, a

27:35

year after Kobeck's public announcement,

27:37

the governing body of track and field

27:39

instituted a new policy. As

27:42

far as we know, this was

27:44

the first ever official rule on

27:47

paper that allowed sports governors to

27:49

pull aside female athletes and examine

27:51

them. And the rule

27:53

went like this, as read by

27:55

Michael Waters, author of The Other Olympians.

28:00

questions of a physical nature. The

28:02

organization responsible for carrying through the meet

28:04

shall arrange for a physical inspection made

28:06

by a medical expert. The

28:08

athlete must submit to the inspections as well as

28:11

the decision taking on account thereof. Yeah,

28:14

so what does that actually mean? It

28:17

really, to some extent, doesn't mean

28:19

anything. It can mean whatever these officials want

28:21

it to mean. It's really, we'll know it

28:23

when we see it. It's not

28:25

a one-to-one to today, but I do think what

28:27

NOL is really doing is creating a script we're

28:30

living out in various forms sort of later in

28:32

the 20th century and into today. The

28:34

organization responsible for this policy,

28:37

the International Amateur Athletic Federation,

28:40

is now known as World Athletics. That's

28:43

the same organization that passed regulations

28:45

requiring Christine to alter her body

28:47

if she wants to compete. For

28:50

decades, a series of vague

28:53

policies like this hung over

28:55

women's sports. Sex testing

28:57

happened in the shadows, mostly

28:59

on a case-by-case basis, without

29:01

any official guidance from sports

29:03

officials about who exactly they

29:06

were trying to keep out.

29:09

But then, in the 1960s, a

29:11

new era of sex testing

29:13

began. ["The

29:16

Cold War"] It

29:19

was the Cold War, and tensions were

29:21

high between the Soviets and the West.

29:24

The rivalry was playing out in all

29:26

kinds of places, in space, in research

29:28

labs, in the press, and

29:30

in sports. And the

29:32

women of the Eastern Bloc decimated

29:35

the West. They were bigger,

29:37

faster, and stronger. Here's how

29:39

the New York Times News Service wrote about some of them

29:42

at the 1964 Olympics. A

29:45

shot-and-discus double was achieved by Tamara Press, who's

29:47

big enough to play tackle for the Chicago

29:49

Bears. At the rate the Bears are going

29:51

this season, they could probably use her, too.

29:54

There had been a lot of

29:56

ideas swirling around about the appearances

29:58

of the Soviets. There's

30:01

an unfortunate number of

30:03

quotes where a female athlete

30:06

say something along the lines of, we'll just look at her. There's

30:09

no way. Here's

30:12

Sheila Lorwell, a British high jumper, speaking with

30:14

the British Library for an oral history project.

30:18

We came from an era

30:20

that had all these big,

30:23

beefy Russian girls, and

30:25

they were gross. They really

30:27

were. Well, wait, did

30:29

you think these are blokes, or did you think

30:32

they were on drugs? No, drugs

30:34

wouldn't have known what a drug

30:36

was. I would have said they were

30:38

just freaks of nature. Some

30:42

of these women were probably doping. Lots

30:44

of people were at the time,

30:47

including Europeans and Americans. And

30:50

so the big sporting organizations established

30:52

medical commissions and gave

30:54

these commissions two main tasks. Figure

30:57

out what to do about doping and

30:59

handle their so-called sex control. They're

31:02

given oversight of both. You can see some examples

31:04

where the members don't really know the difference. They

31:08

think that some of these doping

31:11

tests will prevent male imposters. So

31:14

you have this surge in suspicion that

31:16

some athletes aren't really women. And

31:19

you also have the establishment of doping tests

31:21

at competitions where everybody

31:23

is potentially being tested for something.

31:26

So why not throw a little

31:28

sex testing in there, too? And

31:30

in 1966, after 30

31:32

years of case-by-case suspicion-based testing,

31:35

the governing body of track and field rolled

31:37

out a new policy, mandatory

31:40

examinations of all female

31:43

athletes. Today

31:46

Summer Sound of Sports visits the eighth British Empire and

31:49

Commonwealth Games in Kingston, Jamaica. Everything

31:52

is so soft and warm and lush.

31:55

Beautiful. Carol

31:57

Martin was 18 when she landed in the United

32:00

States. in Jamaica to compete in the 1966 Commonwealth

32:02

Games. This

32:05

was her first ever international

32:07

competition. And I mean, hello,

32:09

that was a little bit of

32:11

a high. But then again, I didn't know anything from

32:13

anything. And I was just there having a good time,

32:16

right? And she was there to

32:18

throw the discus. Let me tell

32:20

you, you don't want to choke when you're throwing

32:22

the discus because it won't go anywhere if you're

32:24

tight at all. You have to be loose as

32:26

a goose, fast as blazes, and

32:28

stronger than, you know, a pit bull.

32:31

But before Carol was allowed to throw a

32:33

single disc, she had to

32:35

be examined to make sure she was actually

32:38

a woman. I

32:40

remember we were taken under the stands

32:43

before the competition into

32:46

a large room and had to pull my

32:48

pants down in front of this woman so she

32:50

could see I had a vagina. These

32:54

inspections have come to be known as

32:56

the nude parades, or

32:58

as some of the athletes called them

33:00

at the time, peak and poke tests.

33:04

I remember thinking, what

33:06

the fuck is this?

33:10

And I was a nice person. I never

33:12

said that at the time. But I remember

33:14

thinking, whoa, this

33:16

seems a little invasive. This

33:19

seems a little inappropriate. I

33:22

mean, can't you see I'm a girl? Every

33:27

single woman who competed in elite athletics in

33:29

1966 and 1967 had to undergo this

33:31

exam. Those

33:34

who refused were not allowed to

33:36

compete. And

33:38

to this day, people argue that refusing to

33:40

show up for a nude parade was

33:42

an admission of guilt, when in fact, we have no idea

33:47

if the women who didn't want to be peaked and poked

33:50

were guilty of anything other than embarrassment.

34:00

Nude parades only lasted two

34:02

years. They were

34:05

unsurprisingly deeply unpopular. Many

34:08

athletes from the era have since spoken

34:10

about how humiliating and terrible they were.

34:14

Sporting bodies knew that if they

34:17

insisted on testing everybody to verify

34:19

their sex, they would

34:21

have to come up with another way. Something

34:24

less invasive and more

34:26

reliable. Something

34:29

objective, ideally, that was beyond

34:31

reproach or accusations of bias.

34:35

And they were in luck because

34:37

science was about to deliver

34:39

something that seemed like salvation.

34:46

Coming up, sports thinks it

34:48

has found the perfect scientific test

34:50

that could tell once and

34:52

for all who was male and

34:54

who was female. And then we

34:57

got to carry a card that said, I

34:59

am female. You've

35:04

been listening to Tested from CBC,

35:06

NPR's Embedded and Bucket of Eels.

35:08

The show is written, reported, and

35:10

hosted by me, Rose Evelyn. Editing

35:13

by Alison McAdam and Veronica Simmons. Production

35:16

by Ozzy, Lena Scudman, Andrew Mambo, and

35:18

Raina Cohen. Additional development,

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