Indeed, some therapies that are being developed to help people with degenerative diseases and genetic defects live longer and more high-functioning lives might also be used to boost healthy bodies. These include “treatments that regenerate [...]]]> Apparently gene therapy is working well enough to warrant some athletes using it, despite being largely un-tested on humans:

Indeed, some therapies that are being developed to help people with degenerative diseases and genetic defects live longer and more high-functioning lives might also be used to boost healthy bodies. These include “treatments that regenerate muscle, increase its strength, and protect it from degeneration,” H. Lee Sweeney, a physiologist at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine who was not involved in the new paper, wrote in a July 2004 article for Scientific American. “Among these are therapies that give patients a synthetic gene, which can last for years, producing high amounts of naturally occurring muscle-building chemicals.”

One molecular manipulation in particular, a modulator of peroxisomal proliferator-activated receptor delta, “regulates expression of genes involved in lipid metabolism, energy utilization, and insulin action,” noted the authors, and it “increases the production of slow twitch oxidative energy-efficient muscle fibers.”

It’ll be interesting to see how gene therapy plays out in something like the Olympics or MLB. I wonder if we’ll have a bunch of famous athletes coming out of the gene therapy closet in another decade or so.

Unless you’ve been affected by it, understanding how social realities like a sex binary get reified and justified through technology can be hard to see. It all gets framed as “natural” and “normal,” while anything that disrupts social [...]]]> Andrea James has an outstanding essay on the gender binary and sports over at Boing Boing:

Unless you’ve been affected by it, understanding how social realities like a sex binary get reified and justified through technology can be hard to see. It all gets framed as “natural” and “normal,” while anything that disrupts social realities gets labeled “unnatural” and “abnormal.” The words created by “sex science” reinforce the binary and uphold the primacy of procreation: homosexual, bisexual, transsexual (across to the “opposite” sex), intersexual (between two). There’s an inherent danger with looking to the body for absolute truths, but that’s in fashion right now. Famed sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld believed in “justice through science,” meaning that findings would eliminate prejudice against sex and gender minorities. That has not come to pass. We know of several genes that affect skin and hair pigment, and that hasn’t stopped racism. We know of several genes and environmental factors that affect characteristics associated with sex, but that hasn’t stopped sexism. Researchers have recently found genetic repetitions implicated in gender identity and expression, but that hasn’t stopped transphobia. In fact, science, as we see in the Caster case, it often misused to reinforce prejudice and prevailing ideology.

It’s supremely well written and makes points far better than those I was grasping towards in the last post. James calls out techno-progressives and cites Martine Rothblatt. Read the whole thing.

While this clearly solves a problem for the IOC, the decision to “treat” athletes with genetic abnormalities will likely have far reaching repercussions for those with other types of genetic endowments. The IOC is in danger of opening a pandora’s box in which virtually every [...]]]> Dvorsky points out the slippery slope in their logic:

While this clearly solves a problem for the IOC, the decision to “treat” athletes with genetic abnormalities will likely have far reaching repercussions for those with other types of genetic endowments. The IOC is in danger of opening a pandora’s box in which virtually every athlete with a biological advantage will be questioned.

Immediate examples include swimmer Michael Phelps with his many advantageous traits (including the possibility of Marfan Syndrome) and those athletes with higher levels of hemoglobin which gives them superior oxygen-carrying capability.

Dvorsky has a point, but it seems he misses the larger problem with the IOC’s recommendation: the assumption that there is anything wrong with the intersex at all. Because of the hysteria and ignorance surrounding intersex individuals, athletic competitions have ignored and mishandled the complexities of the issue instead of addressing them.

As it stands, many sports do benefit from a male/female split due to the general strength and size advantages of males. Gymnastics is my favorite example, where the events themselves are male/female only, tuned to the unique advantages of the sex of the body competing. Intersex individuals become problematic for the regulation of sport because they defeat the purpose of the gender divide. The problem is real, but not because the intersex are “diseased,” but because most sports’ rules are not designed to account for them.

Well, knock me over with a vial of deca. Here’s the main thought I have: why do Americans obsess about steroids in baseball when obviously they’re focused on the wrong sport. How many football players in this country are not on steroids? And the effects of [...]]]> I have nothing to add to Sully’s point:

Well, knock me over with a vial of deca. Here’s the main thought I have: why do Americans obsess about steroids in baseball when obviously they’re focused on the wrong sport. How many football players in this country are not on steroids? And the effects of these super-huge juiced-up athletes running hard at each others is an increasingly worrying amount of brain damage.

I mean: look at those dudes. They look like contemporary cattle in human form. I’m fine with it and wouldn’t interfere. But the cognitive dissonance is amazing.