11 Mind-Blowing Facts About Sex Testing In Athletics

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09-06-2025

Hormone testing has long been a source of controversy in sports. Female athletes are tested for hormonal and genetic 'defects' to ensure athletes do not have an 'unfair advantage' over one another. Not only is it misogynistic; it is also unfair.
Athletes like Caster Semenya, Imane Khelif, and many more have been subjected to humiliating tests—all in the public eye—that supposedly determine their sex. The practice has been criticized time and again, as they are considered unscientific, unethical, exclusionary, and, of course, deeply intrusive.
After being back in the news again last week, I decided to do a deep dive into why these tests exist in the first place, and what their impact has been. I found 11 facts that might make you cock your head to the side and go, "why?!"
In 1946, the International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF) officially began a 'femininity check' to rule out foul play in sports events.
According to this 'femininity check', athletes were required to produce certificates that proved they were eligible to participate. This was done because there were a handful of cases of ace female athletes that were accused of being male (spoiler alert: they weren't male.)
Dora Ratjen, a 1936 Olympic Gold winner, was incorrectly outed as a man, Heinrich Ratjen. But he later claimed that he was forced to compete as a woman by the Nazis in order to win more medals for Germany.
Thanks to the burgeoning Cold War, rumors around countries sending men in place of women to win medals for their countries were rampant—which is why Ratjen's story gained prominence, years later. But documents released after Ratjen's death in 2008 showed that he was not a man— his gender was 'uncertain', which reduced his claim to mere conspiracy. Ratjen's gender was mixed from birth, and his parents had raised him as a girl.
The first gender 'frauds' in international sport were identified as a British shot putter, and a Czechoslovakian runner.
Two popular cases came up during this discourse: that of Mark Weston, and Zdenek Koubek. Koubek had previously set a world record in the women's 800-meter dash before declaring that he was to transition into a man.
The first 'scientific' sex tests, called 'nude parades', were introduced in 1966, where a panel of female doctors would examine the athletes' genitals and secondary sex characteristics.
Several athletes of the time have talked about how intrusive and humiliating these tests used to be. The worst part? Any female athlete who refused to undergo the test was automatically out of the competition. These tests lasted two years, till the IAAF decided to go for less intrusive methods of testing one's gender (spoiler alert: that also didn't work.)
From the late 1960s to the 1990s, female athletes were tested on the basis of genetics—and given femininity certificates.
Any woman who competed in any sport in the Olympics had to carry this certificate—which looked like a card, that confirmed their 'gender'.
A Spanish hurdler, Maria José Martínez Patiño, was the first athlete to formally protest the chromosome test, which was adopted after the sex tests of the 60s.
Known as the Barr Body test, it was administered to check if the athlete had male or female chromosomes. When Martínez Patiño's test came back abnormal, she was asked to retire.It was only after a detailed investigation that they found androgen insensitivity syndrome (AIS), where she was genetically male (XY), but physiologically female. Her body couldn't use the testosterone, leaving her with lower levels than most women. She fought against the disqualification, and was eventually reinstated with all her titles intact.
Princess Anne was excused from the gender test at the 1976 Montreal Olympics.
In 1992, the IAAF removed all forms of gender verification in favor of doping tests.
Doping tests analyse the presence of certain drugs in the athlete's urine, blood, sweat, or saliva, that are deemed as performance enhancers.
A failed sex verification test sent Santhi Soundarajan, the first Indian athlete to undergo a sex verification test, on the verge of suicide—showcasing the devastating effect of these tests on female athletes.
The talented middle-distance runner was stripped off her medal in 2006. after her failed verification test. After this news became public, she faced immense scrutiny and public humiliation, to the point where she attempted suicide. In 2016, however, she was diagnosed with androgen insensitivity syndrome (AIS), a condition much like Maria José Martínez Patiño's.
In a landmark ruling, Indian sprinter Dutee Chand's case against the IAAF showed how flawed these hormone tests truly were.
When sprinter Dutee Chand was expelled from international competitions thanks to a failed sex test, she reached out to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) to fight. She challenged the IAAF's rules around elevated testosterone levels, which they believed gave female athletes an added advantage. The CAS eventually ruled in her favor, saying there was no sufficient evidence that high testosterone improved athletic performance, and Dutee was allowed to participate again.
And finally: despite the supposed concerns about 'fairness' in sport, no case of males impersonating females has been identified.