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Hi all, I do not research sport at all but I do research issues of trans and intersex embodiment. I have been inspired to contribute to this discussion by Eric Anderson's posting. Eric, you provide a nice outline of some of the issues relating to testing and categorising of athletes, and I am glad that you give examples of similarly devastating sporting 'outings' that have happened to GLB sports people. However, I was concerned by some of the things you wrote. The way you refer to the gender-in-sport issue as a catch-22, arguing that 'you must still have a sex test' and 'there is no way to have it both ways' seems to suggest that we are all stuck in this fixed (binary, sex-policed) framework. As queer academics, we have been fighting this battle for quite some time and it does not help to settle back into such ways of thinking. What we need here is some creativity and will to take up the challenge, not resignation to the 'facts' or the 'logic' of the situation. Interventions that could be made here might include: * obliging sporting authorities to handle such cases more sensitively * urging journalists to report such cases more sensitively * promoting voices within the sporting world that keep issues of sexed embodiment and gender identity on the agenda - that keep challenging sporting bodies to deal better with this - rather than pretending it is a new and shocking issue each time someone like Semenya appears on the international stage * using legal challenges, if necessary, to ensure that privacy in such cases is maintained, and that these issues are dealt with carefully rather than becoming sensational news I am sure there are people working in this field who are far better able to come up with workable interventions, but in order for that to happen, we need to NOT start from a position of thinking that this is an inevitable or logistically insurmountable dilemma. This is a dilemma that requires creative queer thinking, taking into account the fact that such athletes as Semenya are very likely not to want to have anything whatsoever to do with terms such as 'queer' or 'intersex'. Nevertheless, we are in a position to come up with some productive critical thinking here, and I'm glad that others in the critsex list have been doing that. Katrina Roen -- ******************* Katrina Røn (Ph.D.) Associate Professor in Societal Psychology Institutional affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Norway. Postal Address: Psykologisk institutt, Postboks 1094 Blindern, 0317 Oslo, Norge. Office: Harald Schjelderups hus, Forskningsveien 3 A, inngang 1, S0326 Tel: (47) 22 84 50 18 fax: (47) 22 84 50 01 email: [log in to unmask] Webpage: http://www.psykologi.uio.no/pres/kroen.html ********************* Do you know about the new journal: 'Psychology & Sexuality' which will be published by Taylor & Francis from January 2010? Psychology & Sexuality will advance knowledge and understanding of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, heterosexual and queer issues in psychology and allied disciplines. The journal will be inclusive, publishing good quality quantitative and qualitative work, and adopting a broad understanding of psychology. Journal Website: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/rpse