The Gender Policing Of Women Athletes Is A Violation Of Human Rights
By Katie Matlack
I’m not a die-hard runner like I used to be. Still, the website LetsRun.com, and the community it creates, have been responsible for immeasurable joy in my life. LetsRun has been called “perhaps the most engaged online community of runners — particularly those at the front of the pack.” The site’s front page, a compilation of news on runners ranging from obscure eccentrics to world champs, pushes me to seek out other runners, who in turn have provided me with invaluable support.
But LetsRun has a shadow side: Its message boards are running’s equivalent of 4Chan — and sometimes, trolls make it all the way through to the news section. That’s what happened one day about a month ago, when the editors featured a “quote of the day” that I found indescribably unfair: “Untreated hyperandrogenism and transgenderism threatens the very existence of women’s sports.”
LetsRun’s selection of the quote resurrects a longstanding, contentious, and deeply problematic debate — the one over whether women with naturally high testosterone levels — like Olympians Dutee Chand, an Indian sprinter, and Caster Semenya, a South African 800-meter runner — may have an unfair competitive advantage.
