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This paper examines how international discourse on sex testing is localized in South Korea and used as a means of policing athletes’ bodies in local sports leagues. Since the World Athletics and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) instituted sex testing in the 1940s, it has provoked a persistent debate on its aim, necessity, effects, standards, legitimacy, and practices in public as well as academia. While the majority of feminist sociologists highlight the imperialistic procedure of sex testing which mainly targets athletes of color in female leagues by reinforcing Western norms of femininity and race all over the world, little scholarly attention has been paid to its local effect; how it affects a local sports culture and gender discourse which envision and regulate athletes' bodies in local leagues. Park Eun-Sun, a female soccer star in South Korea, was subjected to sex testing to play in the national female soccer league in 2013. Sex testing has never been officially practiced or legitimized in South Korea's sports history, and the affair brought controversy to the nation. Combining content and textual analysis including 513 news articles, I conducted a discourse analysis of the Park Eun-Sun affair in the South Korean media. Findings demonstrated that international sex testing is localized through patriarchal nationalism in South Korea. In this process, Korean athlete’s body is reimagined along with the Western norms of race and femininity by using abstract terms such as hormone level and testosterone level.
