The symposium is at the French Embassy, followed by a reception at the Maison Française in Washington, DC. 4101 Reservoir Rd NW, Washington, DC 20007.
Contact & info: dcartron@email.gwu.edu
A Symposium organized by the International Research Unit (Epi)Genetics, Data, Politics (EpiDaPo – UMI 2006).
A cooperation between CNRS and GWU, EpiDaPo aims at investigating the social aspects of the deciphering of the human genome and epigenome. The speakers gathered for this inauguration event will address some of the recent challenges related to personalized genomic medicine.
Important information : ID card needed to enter the Embassy and pre-registration required before Friday 5/31 at noon at: https://forms.gle/Npj16P11TtRSBMKw6
Who may compete in the female category in elite sports? The ancient Olympics has solved this question: no females were competing. The history of gender segregation in Sports is complex, going from anatomic examinations to genetic testing to hormonal testing. 100m hurdler Spanish Maria Patiño was barred from competing in 1985 based on her number of sex chromosomes. In May 2019, the Court of Arbitration of Sports upheld new regulations from the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) limiting the participation in the female category to some athletic events based on the level of Testosterone, defeating the challenge of South African middle-distance runner Caster Semenya. Questions of fairness, sex testing in sports and the inclusion of athletes with differences of sex development in competitions will be discussed.
List of speakers:
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Stéphane Bermon, PhD, MD, IAAF Health & Science Department Director.
DSD individuals in female Athletics: the basis of the regulations on eligibility
Dr. Bermon is the Director of the Health and Science Department at the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF). He also works as a Sports Physician (MD) and Exercise Physiologist (PhD) at the Monaco Institute of Sports Medicine and Surgery. He is a Common Room Member at Oxford, Green Templeton College.
Stéphane holds a Specialised Master (Ecole Centrale de Paris) in Health Engineering. He is or has been a medical advisor for several International Federations (UIM, IBSF) and Anti-Doping Organisations. Since 2004, Dr Bermon works on the subject of DSD and transgender eligibility in elite Athletics. -
Anaïs Bohuon, PhD, Professor at Paris-Sud University:
Does sport have a sex ? From muscle sex to testosterone gender.
Anaïs Bohuon is Professor in sociology and history of sport since 2018, at the University of Paris South, France. Anaïs’s main research interests are focused on sociology and history of body, sport and gender. Her PhD obtained in December 2008 (University of Paris South) deals with medical discourse and women’s physical and sporting activities (1880-1922). She is otherwise project manager "sex equality ", appointed at University of Paris South. In 2012, Anaïs has published her first book. It is focused on “gender verifications in sport”. This book aims at revisiting to the social and political history of “gender controls” in sport and showing to what extent they constitute a real domination device, in order to comprehend the naturalization of power and the relations of domination that are at stake. Ultimately, those gender tests perfectly illustrate how – with the desire to maintain gender domination in sport – “race” and class domination implicitly follows. Thus, presented as a tentative to prevent men from competing with women and to maintain sexual categorization by way of certifying the sex of competitors, “gender verifications,” in the form of medical examinations, were introduced in 1966 to high-level athletic competitions. She is co-authoring and editing books on the history of sports medicine in Europe, from 1945 to the present, including some translations and totally new research inside the archives of sports médicine. -
Joanna Harper, PhD, Medical Physicist and Adviser to the IOC:
Athletic Gender.
In 2015 Joanna Harper published the first peer-reviewed paper analyzing transgender athletic performance. Since then she has continued to study transgender athletes and a second paper is in the works. She will be moving to Loughborough England in September to join the nascent program at Loughborough University devoted to transgender athletic research. Joanna was a member of the working group that helped develop the 2016 IOC transgender guidelines. She has served as witness for the IAAF in the Chand and Semenya trials. She is the author of the forthcoming book Sporting Gender – the history, science and stories of transgender and intersex athletes. -
Maria José Martínez-Patiño, PhD, Professor at Facultad de Ciencias de la Educación y del Deporte:
My experience as a woman tried and tested.
Athlete at the Spanish National Track and Field Team - speed, hurdles and relays. (1980 – 1992). Scientific Advisor at IOC Medical and Scientific Commission – International Olympic Committee (2013 to Present). Expert in the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) – (2015).
Editor in Chief Journal of Human Sport and Exercise – (2017-). Professor and Researcher of the University of Vigo, Spain – (2000 to Present). Member of the Academic Commission of the Master in Physical Activity and Sports Sciences - University of Vigo, Spain. Member of the Royal Olympic Academy of the Spanish Olympic Committee. -
Rachel Mc Kinnon, PhD, Associate Professor of Philosophy at the College of Charleston:
Sport is a human right, even for trans athletes.
Dr. Rachel McKinnon is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at the College of Charleston. She is an expert on trans athlete rights and barriers that trans athletes face while competing. In 2018 she became the first ever openly trans woman to win a world championship in an Olympic sport, winning the UCI Masters Track Cycling Championships sprint event for women 35-44. She continues to be an academic, activist, and athlete promoting fairness and inclusion in sport. -
Roger Pielke, PhD, Professor at University of Colorado:
Scientific Integrity and International Sports Governance.
Roger Pielke, Jr. has been on the faculty of the University of Colorado since 2001, where he teaches and writes on a diverse range of policy and governance issues related to science, innovation, sports. Roger holds degrees in mathematics, public policy and political science, all from the University of Colorado. In 2012 Roger was awarded an honorary doctorate from Linköping University in Sweden and was awarded the Public Service Award of the Geological Society of America. In 2006, Roger received the Eduard Brückner Prize in Munich, Germany in 2006 for outstanding achievement in interdisciplinary climate research. Roger served as a Senior Fellow of The Breakthrough Institute from 2008 to 2018. He has been a Distinguished Fellow of the Institute of Energy Economics, Japan since 2016. Before joining the faculty of the University of Colorado, from 1993 to 2001 Roger was a Scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. His books include The Honest Broker: Making Sense of Science in Policy and Politics published by Cambridge University Press (2007), The Climate Fix: What Scientists and Politicians Won’t Tell you About Global Warming (2010, Basic Books) and The Edge: The War Against Cheating and Corruption in the Cutthroat World of Elite Sports (Roaring Forties Press, 2016). His most recent book is The Rightful Place of Science: Disasters and Climate Change (2nd edition, 2018, Consortium for Science, Policy & Outcomes). - Eric Vilain, MD, PhD, Chair of the Department of Genomics & Precision Medicine at George Washington University ; Director of the Center for Genetic Medicine Research at Children’s National Medical Center:
Hitting Below the Belt: Athletes with a Difference of Sex Development in Elite Sports.
Eric Vilain is the director of Epidapo and of the Center for Genetic Medicine Research at Children’s National Health System and the Chair of the Department of Genomics & Precision Medicine at George Washington University. His laboratory explores the impact of genetic changes on human development in health and disease. Eric Vilain is specialized in gender-based and endocrine genetics for the Division of Endocrinology.
Moderator: Michel Dubois, PhD, CNRS Senior Research Fellow, Deputy Director of EpiDaPo.
Important information : ID card needed to enter the Embassy and pre-registration required before Friday 5/31 at noon at: https://forms.gle/Npj16P11TtRSBMKw6
After the symposium a reception will take place at the Maison Française in Washington, DC. Unique among French diplomatic missions, The “Maison Française” at the Embassy of France in Washington, D.C., offers an environment that encourages friendly relations between states, promotes outreach and cultural events, and serves as a center for professional and educational activities.
Organization: the symposium is organized by EpiDaPo (CNRS – GWU) with the support from the CNRS office in Washington DC.