GolfPlus - Nov 19 Digital Edition (Nov 19) | Page 40

Feature
By Michael Wilson
Whilst next year’s Olympic Games in Tokyo prepare themselves for
the thorny subject of gender identity in general, and the highly-
sensitive and personal issue of hyperandrogenic athletes, Bunker
Mentality finds that the game of golf has yet to comprehensively
and seriously address the issue.
erhaps it’s a refl ection of the more
open and socially liberal times in
which many of us now live, but it
is, for sure, a highly-controversial,
deeply-personal,
exceedingly
sensitive
and
decidedly
litigious, headline-grabbing and potentially-
signifi cant issue now affecting elite sport all
around the world. Bunker Mentality talks
of course of a basket of several often-linked
issues involving sexual self-identifi cation,
Disorders / Differences of Sex Development
(DSD),
Hyperandrogenism (characterized
by the elevation of male sex hormone levels),
and Sexual Transitioning in general, and
specifi cally males transitioning to females.
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NOVEMBER
However, despite the International Olympic
Committee (IOC) and several global governing
bodies, including World Athletics (formerly
IAAF), the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI)
and the Fédération Internationale de Volleyball
(FIVB) having scientifi cally-constituted and
legally-enforceable – and, it must be said,
highly-controversial – rules and regulations
now in place and under development since
2011, the game of golf, despite a clear potential
impact on it, appears not to have considered a
potential sporting and legal challenge, let alone
consulted on or legislated for it.
Asked recently whether, ‘The R&A [was]
aware of any such cases and, in general,
what [was] the organisation’s approach to
2019
WHY
GOLF
MUST
GET GENDER ON THE AGENDA
such matters,’ concerning the generic issue
of ‘Intersex athletes,’ a spokesperson said,
“The R&A is not aware of any such cases,”
whilst failing to address the wider question of
any work it may be conducting on what is a
potentially-explosive matter.
Yet this issue has been hitting the headlines
ever since South African double Olympic and
three-time World Championship 800m gold
medallist Caster Semenya – and several other
similarly-diagnosed female athletes – have
been forced by the IAAF to take prescribed
medication to lower their inherent levels of
testosterone in order to compete.
The IAAF and the IOC edict, requiring
athletes presenting with Hyperandrogenism /
DSD to take, albeit under medical supervision,
what are, in effect, performance-reducing
drugs could be legitimately argued as being
as morally and ethically questionable as
illegal doping, both hypocritical artifi cial
interventions into natural and authentic
performance. Indian sprinter Dutee Chand,
the national record holder for the women’s
100m and 2019 Universiade champion in the
same event, her country’s fi rst-ever openly
gay athlete, who is also, in theory, affected
by the Hyperandrogenism rule of the IAAF is
unaffected by the forced-medication provision,
due to the narrow scope of the regulation,
which only apply to athletes competing in the
400m, 800m, and 1500m.
And volleyball has been in the eye of the
transgender storm too, Brazilian former elite
men’s professional player, christened Rodrigo
- but now called Tifanny - Abreu, the 35-year-
old, 6’ 3” (1.94m) Wing Spiker was cleared to
play as a female in 2017, and now she hopes to
represent her country in next year’s Olympics
in Tokyo, already part of the female training
squad.
But, back to golf, whilst the R&A may be
correct in asserting that it is, “Not aware of
any such cases,” for golf, as in any sport where
physical strength and prowess is a major factor,
some believe it may only be a matter of time
before a male transitioning to female gains
membership of one of the professional tours
and / or qualifi es for the women’s Olympic golf
tournament.
Alison Perkins