NYT Columnist: Don't Test Olympians For Gender

NewsBusters ^ | Mark Finkelstein

[governsleastgovernsbest]

The Cornell golf club championship is next weekend, and I had been planning [brag alert] to defend the senior men's title I won last year. But now, I just might have to think about entering the women's division instead. The field is much smaller, not nearly as tough, and playing from the red tees should give me quite an advantage. But what if tournament organizers balk at my entry, you ask? No problem. I'd just toss down a copy of Jennifer Finney Boylan's New York Times op-ed column of today. The thesis of The XY Games is that "gender is malleable and elusive," and that since "most efforts to rigidly quantify the sexes are bound to fail," the Olympic authorities [and surely the Cornell golf club] shouldn't really bother to try.

Finney Boylan goes so far as to assert that the Olympic medals Stella Walsh won in women's sprint events shouldn't be stripped posthumously despite an autopsy revealing that Walsh had male sex organs [and an ambiguous set of chromosomes.]

Writes Finney Boylan of Walsh [emphasis added throughout]:

She should be celebrated for her accomplishments as an athlete, not turned into an asterisk because of a condition beyond her control.

The triumphant fact of a life lived as a woman made Walsh female, and the inexact measurements performed by strangers cannot render her life untrue

[governsleastgovernsbest]

[governsleastgovernsbest]

Gender bender ping to Today show list.

[Bahbah]

This is one seriously messed up woman...or whatever she is.

[mkmensinger]

I suggest the Crocodile Dundee test. It’s quick and reliable.

[imintrouble]

I wouldn’t be surprised that many nations practice hormonal injections to beef up their athletes in training.

The Olympics has become a sham and a shame on amateur athletics - bearing no resemblance to its original intent.

[mkmensinger]

We didn’t bother watching the Tour de France this year because that too has become a farce.

[SE Mom]

The thesis of The XY Games is that "gender is malleable and elusive," and that since "most efforts to rigidly quantify the sexes are bound to fail,"

Where to begin...

[rod1]

Is Finklestein a Cornellian by any chance?? I hope so.

We need more of like Ann Coulter and Mark Finklestein to counterbalance the stigma of having Janet Reno, Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Sandy “Pants” Burger as alums.

[calex59]

She should be celebrated for her accomplishments as an athlete, not turned into an asterisk because of a condition beyond her control.

If this statement doesn't point out the insanity of liberals I don't know what does. I guess the fact that actually being a woman is what qualifies a person for participating in women's events and that if you are not really a woman and just pretending to be one is cheating. The convoluted logic that liberals use to twist things to their point of view is mind boggling at times, at other times it just makes it crystal clear how insane they all are.

[Mark was here]

If the athlete is not clearly male or female, this condition is clearly different from the norm from birth.

Folks with birth defects can compete in the special Olympics.

[pieceofthepuzzle]

She apparently had both male and female chromosomes in a mosaic pattern. That's a genetic abnormality that must have made life very difficult for her. Whereas I think that gender testing should be done for premiere athletes if there is a question of cheating, I don't think this particular case is the same type of situation as with people who undergo sex change procedures etc. This is a case of genetic ambiguity that she had no control over. Who knows what the psychological ramifications of that mosaicism was.

[imintrouble]

I gave up on that when they didn’t hire a ‘less interested’ testing facility from a non-competing nation for last yeara’s Tour. It was a given no American would be allowed to win after the Armstrong wins.

I guess anything can be bought if you are desperate enough.

I have been arguing the USA should pull out of that Euro-nonsense and put on some huge competitions within the North American continent.

We have the geography and the technical know-how and probably some non-biased scientific testing companies too.

One of my dreams was to witness the Tour live - standing with the crowd feeling that excitement and pride in one’s nation - but all that has gone down the chest pounding need
to win win win.

Europe must miss having wars... they substituted sports.

[governsleastgovernsbest]

Yup, I’m a Cornell alum [governsleast=Finkelstein]. I had the pleasure of meeting Ann at my old fraternity after a speech on a campus a few years ago at which a protester threw orange pieces at her!

[Paleo Conservative]

[expatpat]

Mark, belated congratulations on your golf win last year, and let’s hope you can birdie your way to victory again this year.

[Da Coyote]

Each week the NYT manages to reach a new low in journalism. To paraphrase a line from the Limbo Rock, “...how low can you go?....”

[Gay State Conservative]

I wonder if the author ever worked for the East German Olympic Committee.

[CPOSharky]

Simple fix. Stop having separate men’s and women’s competition.

Put them all in one competition. (Watch the libbers scream at the ‘equality.’)

[FreedomPoster]

I love the fact that FReepers generally come up with the appropriate answer to vexing questions within 5-10 posts.