For nearly 80 years the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and other sports organisations have struggled with the challenge of making women’s sport ‘fair’. The reason they have struggled is because most sports events function on the assumption that there are only two sexes, which can be neatly distinguished, ideally using a scientific test of some sort. Sadly for sport, nearly everything we know about biology - including genetics, endocrinology, anatomy and psychology – suggests that human beings do not neatly fit into two clear cut subgroups relating to sex.

The main problem has been that while it is possible to test for the various kinds of sex (e.g. genetic sex, chromosomal sex or hormonal sex) it is not the case that these tests successfully predict sporting ability. Every test introduced has been challenged by scientists and athletes on the grounds that it unfairly excludes women who have no particular physical advantage. The proposed new tests for testosterone – which might require female athletes to undergo medical interventions, including surgery, before they can compete – have already been criticised by experts in endocrinology and human sex differences.



Given this focus on fairness, it might seem bizarre that something that really could give a woman a huge ‘unfair’ advantage over her peers has been completely ignored by sports organisations, even though it was statistically proven in 1968 – the year the first formal sex tests were introduced at the Olympic Games

The other ‘T’

In 1968 Thomas Khosla, a lecturer in medical statistics at the Welsh National School of Medicine in Cardiff, published an article in the British Medical Journal on what he called the ‘Unfairness of Certain Events in the Olympic Games’. The unfairness was caused by another controversial T: Tallness.

Khosla crunched the numbers and concluded that “[d]ata on Olympic winners show that many running and jumping events are seriously biased in favour of the very tall.” As he pointed out, weight categories already existed in Olympic sports to ensure ‘fairness’ – so why not height categories too? As he says

"Short champion throwers, runners, hurdlers, and jumpers are waiting to be discovered. Within every nation shorter enthusiasts, however athletically able, are systematically screened off by a process of selection in the open events which favours the very tall."

There seemed no logical reason to have weight categories in boxing or weightlifting, and not height categories in high jumping or javelin throwing. (There may be some sports where height is a disadvantage too, so height categories might even make sports fairer for some taller participants).

Tall women: naturally unfair?



Of course, maybe we don’t care about ‘fairness’ in men’s sports – we might argue that we want to see the fastest, strongest, and highest, and that if this excludes shorter men that’s just tough. But that’s pretty inconsistent, as in women's sports ‘fairness’ is heavily relied upon as an argument to support the the use of sex tests to decide who can and can’t compete.

Perhaps, instead of testosterone, we should test for tallness. After all, height is a sex-associated characteristic. In most human populations the height of any group of people who identify as male will on average be higher than any group who identify as women. We recognise height as a sexual characteristic in a social and cultural way too; taller women do sometimes have anxieties about being seen as ‘masculine’, and in heterosexual couples there can be anxiety if the female partner is taller. Maximum height is probably genetically determined (although, of course, environmental deprivation can mean someone doesn’t reach their ‘full potential’ height).

So height is significantly biologically determined, demonstrably linked to sex and gender identities, and gives a clear advantage in at least some sports. Why, then, aren’t we measuring our female athletes and excluding those who have a height that is ‘too masculine’, giving them an unfair advantage over normally-tall women?

Clearly, we’re not consistent in our ideas about sex and gender and fairness. For some reason genitals and hormones seem very important to our notions of maleness and femaleness in sport, even though they may have no effect whatsoever on sporting prowess. If we’re going to continue to insist that female athletes undergo invasive tests and medical interventions, or be excluded from sport because they fail a test or because they are ‘too good’ due to their strong, tall bodies, then we need to think hard about why we’re doing it. Our desire for ‘fairness’ in sport doesn’t seem to be a complete explanation.

This article was edited on 30 Apr. 2014 to correct T Khosla's affiliation, which was not Cardiff University but the older Welsh National School of Medicine.

