The Challenges of Gender-Verification in Sports

In your paper, make sure to provide an introduction to the topic, including a brief summary of what you will say about it. The topic asks you to engage in various kinds of research, including the analysis of movies and/or texts, and to base your own interpretation and opinion on the result of such research. As such, there are no correct or incorrect answers to the questions raised by the topic suggested. The quality of your paper will to some extent depend on the accuracy and completeness of your analysis of relevant passages of movies and/or texts, on how well you support your views and conclusions by textual and/or other evidence, and, if applicable, on how convincingly you ague against possible alternative interpretations and positions pertaining to the topic you are writing about. For a paper to be excellent, it will also have to include some original contribution from your side and cannot be merely a summary of what others have already written or observed. Such originality can take mane forms, such as asking and discussing questions that go beyond what has been said in the classroom or in the literature, bringing a new perspective to a text that has already been explored in other ways, analyzing and discussing a text that has not been subjected to analysis before, drawing new textual comparisons, coming up with new criticisms of theories or suggesting new solutions to theoretical and interpretation, etc. For this paper, it is important that you clearly indicate all quotations and hat you provide a list of references. This list has include the source for all quotations as well as the sources for all the views you mention that are not originally yours, including the readings and movies on the course syllabus. Permissible 9but not required) additional sources for this assignment are further secondary scholarly literature, movies, television shows, novels, and news articles. Movies and episodes of television shows that you refer to must be available on DVD. Topic: Explain and discuss the difficulties faced by sex-verification using the cases of the athletes Maria Patiño and Caster Semenya as examples. What are the various factors that are relevant in determining the sex of a human being, and how conclusive are these factors individually or taken together? Do you think that the male/female dichotomy is misguided when it comes to human sexuality? Why or why not? Do you think that sex is a natural kind or an artificial kind? Why or why not? Do you think that the pressure on male athletes to prove that they are male equals the pressure on female athletes to prove that they are female? If so why, if not, why not? How would you evaluate the recent decision by the International Olympic Committee and the International Association of Athletics Federations to determine the eligibility for women’s competitions in terms of ‘functional testosterone’? How would you evaluate the practice of having separate athletic competitions for men and women? Sources: Fausto-Sterling: Sexing the Body, Basic Book, 2000; chapter 1: Dueling Dualisms (Attached) Dreger: Where’s the Rulebook on Sex-Verification? New York Times, 08/22/09 http://www(dot)nytimes(dot)com/2009/08/22/sports/22runner.html?_r=0# Kolata: Men, Women and Speed. 2 Words: Got Testosterone? New York Times, 08/22/08 http://www(dot)nytimes(dot)com/2008/08/22/sports/olympics/22women.html Dreger: Redefining the Sexes in Unequal Terms, New York Times, 04/24/11 http://www(dot)nytimes(dot)com/2011/04/24/sports/24testosterone.html Jordan-Young & Karkazis: You Say You’re a Woman? That Should Be Enough, New York Times, 06/17/12 http://www(dot)nytimes(dot)com/2012/06/18/sports/olympics/olympic-sex-verification-you-say-youre-a-woman-that-should-be-enough.html Vilan: Gender Testing for Athletes Remains a Tough Call, New York Times, 06/18/12 http://www(dot)nytimes(dot)com/2012/06/18/sports/olympics/the-line-between-male-and-female-athletes-how-to-decide.html?pagewanted=all