The assistant professor of sport management explores how the International Volleyball Federation enforced decades of sex testing after the 1972 Olympics – finding no fraud yet reinforcing rigid gender norms that shape current debates on fairness and inclusion.
New research from Assistant Professor of Sport Management Lindsay Pieper sheds light on an often-overlooked chapter in volleyball history: three decades of mandatory gender testing that never uncovered a single case of fraud. Pieper’s study, published in September in the International Journal of the History of Sport, examines how the International Volleyball Federation (FIVB) required on-site sex verification from 1974 to 2004 – testing thousands of female athletes, including teenagers, at tournaments worldwide.
Pieper’s research, “Sex Testing in Volleyball,” details how the practice began after a single cheating accusation at the 1972 Munich Olympics. Concerned that men might try to compete as women, volleyball leaders adopted a laboratory-based Barr body test, believing it could definitively determine female sex. In reality, the testing not only failed to identify imposters but also penalized athletes with natural differences of sexual development (DSDs), removing some from competition despite no wrongdoing.
The issue resonates today. World Athletics, the international federation that oversees track and field, has recently reintroduced sex testing in elite sport – a reminder that the debate over gender verification is far from settled.
“This manuscript shows the problems with sex testing in volleyball,” Pieper said. “Like World Athletics today, the FIVB believed it could use a scientific technique to verify women’s sex; however, it instead discriminated against young women who challenged conventional understandings of the body.”
By documenting volleyball’s history of sex testing, Pieper’s new research provides important context for today’s debates over fairness, inclusion and the regulation of women’s participation in sports.
Published by Routledge (Taylor & Francis Group), the International Journal of the History of Sport is a peer-reviewed academic journal devoted to the historical study of sport in all its forms and contexts. It features research articles, reviews, and special issues exploring the social, cultural, political, economic, and global dimensions of sport—from ancient practices to contemporary developments.
Pieper joined Elon University this fall after a 13-year tenure at the University of Lynchburg. Her research interests include women’s sport history, Olympic history, and gender issues in sport, and she has authored two books: “Sex Testing: Gender Policing in Women’s Sport” and “Women in the Olympics.”