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Description
This paper investigates the co-construction of hyperandrogenism as a sports-medical pathology, by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and World Athletics (WA) on the one hand, and media reporting on the other. In the last decade, the term hyperandrogenism became the buzzword regarding eligibility criteria for women elite athletics. According to so-called ‘hyperandrogenism regulations’, which were effected by WA in 2011 and IOC in 2012 and which were effective until 2021, certain female athletes with a higher-than-average testosterone level were required to regulate their hormone levels in order to compete. In their regulations however, WA and IOC enacted hyperandrogenism in a different way than ordinary medical parlance suggests, that is, hyperandrogenism originally only referred to medical conditions mainly caused by Polycystic Ovary Syndrome and is hence not an equivalent to Intersex-Variations. In this paper I assume, that the news media took over WA’s and IOC’s usage of hyperandrogenism and consequently contributed to their enactment of the term. My aim was thus to scrutinize the development of this co-construction and furthermore the medias role in the stabilization of this re-newed sports-medical pathology. Drawing on discourse-analytical methodology, I analyse 32 Norwegian news articles dating from 2011 to 2020 regarding the appearance and development of hyperandrogenism, it’s framing and social meaning making. My findings show how the framing of hyperandrogenism in my data material develops from a vague medical condition to an axiomatic diagnosis. Regarding social meaning making it shows for instance, that one single person, has become the collective symbol of hyperandrogenism, which enables othering processes that are embedded in Western media discourse.
