Transsexuals Push Sports to Think Anew: Who Is Male, Female?
By Curtis Eichelberger, Bloomberg.com

John Harper was his high school valedictorian and Male Athlete of the Year. In college, he became an All-Canadian cross-country runner and earned advanced degrees in physics. Yet he carried a gnawing secret. While he had male physical characteristics and sex organs, his brain had developed female, leaving him feeling from a very young age that he was a girl locked in a boy's body. He would eventually lose two marriages -- the second after he told his wife he wanted to correct his sex organs and live as a woman.

“It’s a genetic mistake that makes me the way I am,” Harper says. “But this is the life I have. And I’m happier now than I've ever been.” In January, at age 49, Harper underwent gender reassignment surgery after taking the name Joanna. A top over-40 runner in Portland, Oregon, she is one of a growing number of transsexuals whose love of sport, determination to compete and willingness to speak out are forcing sports leagues and governing bodies to redefine who is female and who is male. “We are delving into the investigation of what is sex, and we are learning it is a far more complex question than we ever imagined,” says Arne Ljungqvist, 75, a Swedish pathologist on the International Olympic Committee’s medical panel.

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