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The Spectre of the ‘Man-Woman Athlete’: Mark Weston, Zdenek Koubek, the 1936 Olympics and the uncertainty of sex

This article argues that women athletes were implicated in discussions of sex changeability occurring in 1930s Britain. The topics of the suitability of sport for women and of sex changeability were both given considerable press coverage. Sports officials were faced with the practical problem of how to differentiate female competitors from male ones. Medics at London's Charing Cross Hospital interpreted athleticism and an interest in sport as signs of maleness in patients. Sports practice developed muscles, which were held to be akin to a male secondary sex characteristic. An awareness of the unfixity ascribed to somatic sex means appreciating that debates about the masculinity of sportswomen cannot be understood simply as homophobia—the possibility of changing sex was a real concern.