Sports has always been running on a bimodial categorial system wherein we assume that men and women fall in neat little categories and there is neither anything in between nor any deviation from the assumed “normal” whatsoever. This bimodial categorization wherein we classify people with higher levels of testosterone as men and the ones with lesser amounts of that as women leaves out large categories of people wo might fall in between these categories.

A fact that seems to shock most people that women also have testosterone in their bodies. Afterall, testosterone is the parent of eostrogen (testosterone when reacted with aromatase enzyme gives eostrogen). So it is inevitable for a woman to not have testosterone in her body. All of our bodies are a concoction of various hormones and of course, its natural for the ratios of each hormone to vary slightly or drastically in our bodies.

There are elite women with higher amount of testosterone in their bodies and there are elite men with low amount of testosterone in their bodies and still perform way above their peers. So the question comes down to does testosterone levels really affect the performance of an athlete?

Continued in the next post.