At the Gay Games in Amsterdam in 1998 a major brouhaha broke out over a requirement that athletes who define themselves as ‘transgendered’, or belonging to the sex different from the one to which they were born should provide proof of what the rules called “completed gender transition.”

One can only dream of what that proof may be, but I’m hoping it was a simple drug test rather than say, a panel of judges having a look see to make the call:

• From the Russian judge: 6.0

• From the American judge: 5.3

• From the English judge: 5.9

• And from the Canadian judge: 3.7

• Commentator:

“Ooooo! No way he’s going to be happy with that! Or does that make him a she?”

Gay Games organizers explained that concerns over fairness made it imperative that transgender athletes be put into the proper physical category so that men, with their greater body strength, “whether born or created,” did not compete unfairly against women.

That was way back in the last century. So why – in straight society – is there another major brouhaha about Michelle (nee Michael) Dumaresq being named to the Canadian National Mountain Bike team?

Well – most likely when it comes to sexual ambiguity, the gay folks have been thinking about it a lot longer than those who aren’t.

But if you are straight, don’t feel bad. Even they are having troubles with deciding who is what – or even if they should be separating athletes by gender in the first place. A theory called “transgenderism”, which holds that all sexual categorization, and the dual-gender system, in particular, is by necessity “oppressive”.

Vive la oppression huh?

This transgender stuff is by no means something new of course. In Berlin in 1936, U.S. runner Helen Stephens won an Olympic gold medal for the 100-meter dash. When Stephens beat Stella Walsh, a Polish-American sprinter competing for Poland, by a couple of yards, a Polish journalist accused Stephens of being a man, Man! And that accusation came even after Stephens was reportedly hit on by Adolph Hitler!

An examination eventually established that Stephens was female.

Now the weird part of the story: Sixty years after losing to Stephens, it was Stella Walsh who was revealed to be transgendered. Walsh had been the 1932 Olympic 100-meter sprint champion and the first woman to break the twelve-second barrier. She had won two gold medals, set eleven world records, and won forty-one Amateur Athletic Union titles. In 1980 Walsh was shot dead while witnessing a robbery in Cleveland. The autopsy revealed that the athlete who had lived her life as a woman had the genitals of a man.

Don’t you just wish Hitler had hit on her instead?

Anywho – at least one athlete, Erika Schineggar of Australia, has competed in both men’s and women’s Olympic events. As a member of the Australian National Ski Team, Schineggar won the 1966 women’s downhill ski title; but shortly thereafter, when genetic testing came into vogue, she was found to be chromosomally male and barred from further women’s competitions. After undergoing four genital surgeries, (four?!!!!) she changed her name to Eric, married a woman, and competed in cycling and skiing as a male.

She even became a father! And if you can figure that one out – you’re a better….ummm…whatever, than I.

It’s apparent this transgender issue has been around as long as man has worn a skirt, and isn’t going to go away anytime soon. That’s because no one knows what to do about it. Or if they do – they aren’t willing to.

The Canadian Cycling association’s executive director, Pierre Hutsebaut, addressing the protests lodged against his newest competitor today, saying Dumaresq has met the qualifying criteria to be on Canada’s team at this month’s world mountain biking championships in Austria and any move to prevent her from competing could result in legal action.

“She is legally a woman,” Hutsebaut said.

“She is competing in the woman category, she met the selection criteria, then she got selected to represent Canada.”

And it also is a human rights can of worms:

“We cannot discriminate,” Hutsebaut insists.

“We are governed by law and we have to enforce the law and citizenship status. People have the right to express their feelings and their opinions. On the legal aspect, she passed all standards and she was nominated to the team and she will compete at the world championships.”

For those of us who believe that an ex-man competing against women has an unfair advantage, there are two things to hope for.

First: That she chooses not to compete in the Worlds until she can prove that she indeed is on an even playing field with the rest of the women…

…or second, she goes out and wins.

Because if she does that – this brouhaha will blow up into a full-blown hullabaloo – and then maybe someone will take her to court.

Someone with the balls to do it that is.