As Berlin Held the 1936 Olympics, These Athletes Changed Their Sex
Assigned female at birth, some went on to live as men
I’ve just read The Other Olympians: Fascism, Queerness, and the Making of Modern Sports by Michael Waters. It’s coming out June 4 from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Here’s what I learned: The moral panic about trans people in sports wasn’t originally about trans women. It was about trans men. It was about intersex people who were assigned female at birth.
The central characters are already known to history — I found their photos online — but somehow I’d never heard of any of them before I read this book.
If you want more information, I encourage you to pick up The Other Olympians, which is 368 pages in hardcover. It will show you the 1936 Olympics through a new lens.
These Athletes in Women’s Sports Were Accused of Being Too Masculine
Japanese track-and-field athlete Kinue Hitomi (1907–1931)
Kinue Hitomi was a woman athlete who died young. She was mocked in the press for supposedly appearing too masculine.
At the 1928 Olympics, following the 800-meter sprint, Hitomi showed signs of…
