In a NYT Op-Ed, Selena Roberts utterly takes leave of her senses in waxing hysterical about the International Olympic Committee's ruling to allow transgender athletes to compete in the Olympics, provided the athlete has undergone two years of hormone therapy. Honestly, this article is so bad that the Times (the Times!) should be ashamed for printing it. Roberts claims that male athletes are so desperate to win, especially in poor nations, that they'll go to any lengths, including changing genders, to gain a competitive edge:
The juice gets juicier with White on board U.S.A.D.A.'s admirable efforts to sponge sports free of dirty athletes who are so obsessed with the adulation and wealth linked to winning that they will go to any lengths necessary.Any lengths. So, given the intense political and judicial attention on drug cheats, given the International Olympic Committee's public abhorrence for artificial advantages, why would the I.O.C. tempt extreme risk-takers by approving performance-enhancing surgery?
Out with THG, in with estrogen. Out with Stephen, and in with Stephanie.
In between the updates on the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative investigation, amid the frenzy over the finalists for the 2012 Games, squeezed between athlete denials and accusations over doping, the I.O.C. slipped in a significant rule change this week that will allow transsexuals to compete in the Olympics, beginning with this summer's Games in Athens.
Is she really equating SRS (sexual reassignment surgery) with "extreme risk-taking," like skydiving? Man, that's insulting.
Think a sex-change operation is too radical to contemplate?
In a word, yes. Because it's an incredibly difficult, painful, invasive and (duh) life-altering procedure (not safe for work). Moreover, Roberts' examples show just how untenable, nay, patently ridiculous, her position is:
In recent years, athletes have been known to inject bovine-based cocktails that could cause death, human-growth hormones that distort jaw lines and untested concoctions borne from a bubbling beaker.
Putting aside the last, which is baseless hyperbole, the "bovine-based cocktail" and HGH of which she speaks are not even close to SRS. Ain't no fuckin' ballpark, neither. A distorted jaw line is a far, far cry from having your penis turned into a vagina.
In some underdeveloped nation, officials may wonder if surgery could reap the glory of gold. Who would know, anyway?
With gold medals so lucrative in some poor nations, a sex-change decision may not be that far-fetched.
Actually, it is. SRS, plus hormone therapy, is also quite expensive. Who's going to pay?
Finally, as a practical matter, you have to find someone to do it. Surgeons won't perform this surgery without following the HBIGDA's Standards of Care, recognized worldwide. The Standards include intensive psychological profiling to determine if a person seeking SRS is legit. Oh, I imagine one could find some quack to do one's SRS, but no one could possibly be that stupid. They just couldn't.
Asking questions is not meant to diminish the agony of men and women who feel imprisoned by their given gender, but to point out the Pandora's box the I.O.C. has opened for future abuse by those frantic to do anything to gain an edge.
Actually, diminishing the agony of men and women who feel imprisoned by their given gender is precisely what Roberts has done.
Aside: Also note how Roberts was so quick to libel Marion Jones, who hasn't tested positive for any banned substance ever:
Now an insider could tell doping sleuths how elite athletes outmaneuver drug testers. Is there a Marion Jones method?
It really chaps my ass when people try to diminish the accomplishments of others with zero proof of any wrongdoing. It's not as though Marion Jones came out of nowhere; she was a world-class sprinter when she was in high school. If Jones comes up clean in the BALCO investigation, I hope Roberts and the Times get sued.
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