Today’s New York Times has a superb article on the idiocy of “gender testing” at the Olympics.

If transgender athletes are now allowed to compete officially [in their chosen gender], and if gender testing has been shown frequently to render false results, then what exactly are the Chinese authorities testing for?

In practice what they are testing for is a rare (1 in 20,000) medical abnormality that can cause people who are physically female, able to bear children, and have been raised female from birth, to be mis-diagnosed as “men” and be thrown out of the tournament. One Indian athlete has already had her life destroyed by this absurd test. I cannot for the life of me understand why it is still happening.