Controversies
The practice has come under fire from those who feel that the testing is humiliating, socially insensitive, and not entirely accurate or effective. The testing is especially difficult and problematic in the case of people who could be considered intersexual. Genetic differences can allow a person to have a male genetic make-up and female anatomy or body chemistry.
A commentary published in the Journal of the American Medical Association stated,
Gender verification tests are difficult, expensive, and potentially inaccurate. Furthermore, these tests fail to exclude all potential impostors (eg, some 46,XX males), are discriminatory against women with disorders of sexual development, and may have shattering consequences for athletes who 'fail' a test."The article also states:
"Gender verification has long been criticized by geneticists, endocrinologists, and others in the medical community. One major problem was unfairly excluding women who had a birth defect involving gonads and external genitalia (i.e., male pseudohermaphroditism). ...A second problem is that only women, not men, were subjected to Gender verification testing. Systematic follow-up was rarely available for athletes "failing" the test, which often was performed under very public circumstances. Follow-up was crucial because the subjects were not male impostors, but intersexed individuals."
Read more about this topic: Gender Verification In Sports