Is the favorite in the women's 800m actually a man?

DrMoriarty said:

When she won the race I was hoping one of the English tabloids would run with a headline like "Mighty Hermaphrodite".

They've gone very dull lately.

Click to expand...

Probably cos most of their audience couldn't get past the second syllable, let alone get the pun ?

ney001 said:

If she does have male and female chromosomes and has done from birth, has been brought up as a female, lived as a female, legally is considered female then why should she have to go through any form of testing?. For the sake of argument, what will happen if her tests were to come back and say that actually she should have been brought up as a male as she has more male chromosomes/dna - would she be disqualified even though she has been raised as a female since birth?? - When the gender is a grey area who decides?

Click to expand...

Expert opinions from the medical community will decided.

Just because someone was registered as female, it doesnt mean that they are actually female. Could have been registered incorrectly due to medical condition not been known at the time.

There are a number of possibilities in this case. Could be a male with a genital deformation which made him appear female at birth. Could be a genetic condition - one of the intersex cases.

The IAAF also need to guard against deliberate cheating - found it interesting that one of the BBC analysts drew attention to the things that some people are willing to do to win. While a medical condition would be unfortunate, I think the IAAF also need to guard against e.g. a "promoter/manager" locating a teenage boy from a poor third world background who is a reasonbly good male athlete and promising the family riches if their son is sugically altered to run as a female. There are poor families in third world countries who sometimes sell one of the children to the sex industry, child slavery etc. etc. Horrible to imagine, but it does happen.

Why go through all the expense and delay of a DNA/gender test? If they want to know if “she” is a man or a woman just get her a park a car

Purple said:

Why go through all the expense and delay of a DNA/gender test? If they want to know if “she” is a man or a woman just get her a park a car

Click to expand...

I think you'd need further tests, just to be sure.

I would be get them to walk past several items left on the stairs. If they just walk past them, sorry but it's a bloke.

However, if on a nice sunny day the first thing that comes into their heads is "it's a great day for getting a wash on", rather than "thank god I put the beers in the fridge last night", the odds are its a woman.

Then the parallel parking.