In medieval Islamic society, babies who were born with ambiguous sex organs underwent several tests to see which gender a baby will be. Not only are these doctors determining a major life decision for a baby, but they are also reinforcing the rigid gender binary. In this Islamic society, it was believed that men and women both contributed to the creation of a child and that if the “fluid of the man dominates the fluid of the woman, they will produce a male child. If the fluid of the male precedes the fluid of the female, she will bear a male child, if God wills." However, if neither the male’s nor the female’s fluids are dominate, the child would be intersex. And as Sanders points out, there is not “even the slightest suggestion that a khuntha [hermaphrodite] is both a man and a woman. Human beings had to be either male or female; sometimes they seemed to be neither, but they could not be both.” There is a necessity in this culture to have one sex dominate the other or have neither dominate but both can not. Because of this, a highly divided society is created in which an intersex person has no place.

You would think that modern day society would be different than a medieval society, but is it? Take Caster Semenya and Dutee Chand, for example. They both have a lot in common. Both were raised as females, both went on to pursue running careers, and both were forced to prove their gender to compete in their sport once they were deemed too masculine. Semenya and Chand went their whole lives never knowing they were intersex. Semenya was a junior champion in 2008, beating her own personal best, breaking the South African record, and setting a world-leading time. Then it was almost all taken away when it was discovered she has internal testes, leading people to assume her success was due to extra testosterone that made her faster. In actuality, “The biochemical processes that lead to intersexuality often affect the body's ability to make use of the testosterone inside it.” When Chand was 18, she reached a final at a global athletics event, making her the first Indian sprinter to ever do so. She was well on her way to becoming an Olympic medalist when she was tested and was found to have testosterone levels that were normally only found in men, and she was withdrawn from the national team less than 2 weeks before an opening ceremony in Glasgow.

Although it is very rare, since the beginning of women’s sports, there have concerns about men pretending to be women to win medals. So this brought in the seemingly necessary testing in sports to make sure there were no men trying to take an unfair advantage to win. As many now know, gender is not so black and white, and it turns out, and neither is sex. There are so many genetic possibilities to be labeled as intersex. However, both of these cases are not actually about whether or not these women are truly women, but are they woman enough. Just like in the medieval Islamic society, a person is either a woman or a man, or neither. It seems as though society has no room for anyone in-between.

So what are sports supposed to do? It is a tough question. If the segregation of sex sports is done away with, men will most likely dominate the field of sports leaving many women who want to be an athlete to find a new career. On the other hand, there would also be a lot more inclusion for transgender athletes, athletes who are aware of their intersex, and possibly could be the beginning of deconstructing the gender binary and stereotypes. The rules of the IAAF, International Association of Athletics Federations, state an athlete can be put under gender view through any reliable source and if after further testing the athlete is confirmed for Hyperandrogenism then, “In such a case, the Expert Medical Panel may specify conditions under which it would be acceptable for the athlete to compete. These conditions may necessitate the athlete undergoing treatment by her personal physician to normalize her androgen levels and, in such a case, it would be the athlete's responsibility.”However, the rules have been suspended for two years and will be scrapped if the IAAF can not bring evidence to support gender testing around testosterone levels in women.

A lot of complicated questions come up through this topic. Are men put under this kind of scrutiny to prove their testosterone levels are of abnormal levels and therefore have an unfair advantage? Can this be determined a form of discrimination not only between men and women but also against intersex people? With these accusations of Semenya and Chand, the implications are because a girl is good at a sport, she must be a man, and as one rival of Semenya criticized, “Just look at her,” implicates that because she does not match the standard of beauty set for women, she must be a man. Semenya and Chand have been cleared to race, but at the cost of invasive testing and scrutiny they never should have had to go through in the first place. Like Chand says, “I am who I am.” It is sad that this is not always enough in a society that likes to have its labels.