On Your Knees

Marcin Urbaś’ masculinity is feeling mighty threatened right now. The former Polish sprinter turned track coach, turned desperate-to-remain-relevant-and-can’t-handle-that-his-time-was-beaten-by-a-girl-crybaby, is demanding that the Olympics Committee investigate whether Christine Mboma is a woman after she won the silver medal in the Tokyo Olympics for the 200-meters.

If only we could just shake our heads and dismiss his temper tantrum as irrelevant. Unfortunately, there’s a whole push in track and field to eliminate women with higher than average testosterone levels (DSD/Differences in Sexual Development) under the guise of fair competition. Women with DSD who do not synthetically alter their hormones have already been barred from races between 400 and 1600-meters by World Athletics. Never mind that there is no science behind this and it’s all purely conjecture.

But let’s be clear—this has nothing to do with fairness. If fair had anything to do with it Michael Phelps would have been banned from swimming for his body’s extremely low lactic acid production—an unfair bodily advantage if ever there was one. Make no mistake, this disgusting trend has nothing to do with fair competition and a whole lot to do with men not being able to handle a woman who can run faster than them.

Just imagine if the women’s world record time was faster than the men’s in any of these distances. Imagine the reaction from men like Urbaś. Certain parts of their bodies might just shrivel up and fall off.

Nowhere else do we use testosterone levels to demarcate the difference between males and females. And to say that these women should have to synthetically alter their natural hormones in order to compete is akin to saying that Michael Phelps should have to pump himself full of lactic acid. Ridiculous, right?

Punishing female runners for a genetic condition that increases their natural testosterone levels is extra ridiculous in light of the fact that we teach girls to underperform before testosterone even comes into play.

Remember Physical Education? Gym class? Remember when girls were told to do pushups on their knees and pull-ups on their backs? (Nothing has changed, by the way.) Boys are not stronger than girls in elementary school. Until puberty hits, we’re pretty much equal. Funny thing is—girls hit puberty at a younger age. So for a few years, we are actually bigger, stronger, and faster. But we’re taught not to be. We’re taught to protect fragile male egos. We’re taught to do pushups on our knees, pull-ups on our backs, slow down, and let the boys win. Just as we could be developing athletically we are taught by society that sweating is gross, sports are for boys, our bodies are weak. Just giggle and smile and run slow like a girl is supposed to.

Imagine how different the world of sports would look if girls didn’t have to push past everything trying to make them weak and everyone trying to hold them down. If a fair playing field were really the issue we would tackle the fact that girls are taught to underperform instead of punishing the ones that push through those extra hurdles and still manage to run times that trigger crybabies like Urbaś.

Mboma, who was forced to compete in the 200-meters instead of her usual 400, was born with female genitalia and has lived her entire life as a woman. It is insane that this needs to be pointed out, that this is even being brought up—but it is the same with her teammate Beatrice Masilingi, who was banned from the 400- meters. And Margaret Wambui, a Kenyan runner banned from the 800-meters. And Burundi’s Rancine Niyonsaba, who also runs the 800-meters. And Caster Semenya, the 800-meters gold medal Olympian from South Africa who was the first to be targeted.

Is it any coincidence that all five of these women banned from their sport are Black? Is it any coincidence they are all from African countries? Not any more of a coincidence than a certain fragile group of Americans seeing Michelle Obama’s Blackness and toned, muscular arms and railing that she must be a man. Or going after Wendy Williams in spite of her curves. Comparing strong Black women to men is nothing new. Nor is the extra policing of their bodies. The stench of colonialism hangs thick in the air around the Olympic track.

It is a sad old trope when Urbaś compares Mboma to an 18-year-old boy. And thinly veiled racism when he says things like—“The testosterone advantage of Mboma over other participants is seen with the naked eye.” But he takes it full crybaby and demands a “sex reaffirming test” even though we already know that Mboma has hyperandrogenism. So what does he want exactly? To humiliate her with a pelvic exam? What else could he possibly mean by “I would like to request a thorough test on Mboma to find out if she definitely is a woman”?!

The intent here is clear—to use humiliation as a gatekeeper to keep strong Black women out of track and protect the sport for white women who can’t compete with them. Afterall, what better way to dissuade women who don’t fit the white standard of femininity from running? As far as discouragement goes, the prospect of having one’s sexual identity picked apart in front of the entire world and being subjected to a pelvic exam beats the recent ruling against Soul Caps in swimming and takes a few laps.

The argument has been made that a third, intersex category is needed—that this would solve the issue of sports categorization for intersex and transgender people alike. And while it would be an improvement for some, wouldn’t that just increase the number of white fingers pointed at Black women demanding testosterone tests? Wouldn’t it just give crybabies like Urbaś more impetus to degrade the third category and demand sex reaffirming tests of any Black women who are performing better than him? Maybe the way to a fair playing field is getting rid of sex-based categories altogether and replacing them with height or weight or something entirely different that we haven’t conceived of yet. One thing is for sure, there will be no level playing field until we get our daughters off their knees.