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A review by clairealex
The Other Olympians: Fascism, Queerness, and the Making of Modern Sports by Michael Waters
5.0
Sports is not my favorite topic, but gender issues are along with WWII history, so read this book I did. It is a very readable look at the Olympics of the 1920s and 30s and the place of women and the "danger" of the "man-woman" especially in track and field regulation. Waters tells the story through vignettes of many women athletes whose identity as women is questioned, Koubek's story being the most developed. This is intertwined with vignettes of various Olympics leaders, who among other things absorb an organization of women's sports led by women. Once women were folded into the Olympics the decision makers were all men. And woven through these strands is the history of the rise of Hitler, his effect on the role of Jews in sports and gender deviance. One more issue intertwines; sex science in the 1930s, theories unrecognizable today but used by people who transitioned to explain their changing. ( I for one was surprised to see that gender affirming surgery existed that early.)
Waters points out that terminology in the 30s was not that of today and we can't know if some of the athletes studied were trans or intersexual. But it is clear that athletes whose identity was questioned had lived as girls, some later transitioning to male, but never as the media story went were they cis males masquerading as females so they could win. The "panic" over these women winners led to proposals for verification of feminity--no definition given of course. In fact Waters quotes some of the Olympic leaders' comments showing a preference for petite over bulky women athletes and notes that field and track appealed to working class and rural women, who tended to be more stocky, so there was class bias involved. Waters ends up questioning not only the feminity testing but the division of sports into male and female. But above all wants the history of that testing to be resurrected.
Waters points out that terminology in the 30s was not that of today and we can't know if some of the athletes studied were trans or intersexual. But it is clear that athletes whose identity was questioned had lived as girls, some later transitioning to male, but never as the media story went were they cis males masquerading as females so they could win. The "panic" over these women winners led to proposals for verification of feminity--no definition given of course. In fact Waters quotes some of the Olympic leaders' comments showing a preference for petite over bulky women athletes and notes that field and track appealed to working class and rural women, who tended to be more stocky, so there was class bias involved. Waters ends up questioning not only the feminity testing but the division of sports into male and female. But above all wants the history of that testing to be resurrected.