Stella Walsh, the Intersex Olympian
SB Nation just published the long, and at times tragic story of Stella Walsh (née Stanisława Walasiewicz), the intersex Polish-American Olympian who competed in the 1932 and 1936 Games and achieved a deserved legendary status in Cleveland, her “adopted hometown.” Here’s Matt Tullis on Walsh’s turn in the 1936 Olympics, when she lost to American Helen Stephens:
At the Olympics in Berlin, Walsh demanded private quarters, refusing to take a roommate. She kept to herself and stayed away from the other female sprinters, especially Stephens. She avoided the women’s locker room entirely, changing in her room and showing up at the track already in uniform. The other girls, all of whom had roommates and shared some kind of camaraderie, thought she was stuck up and standoffish.
[…]
At the gun, Helen sped down the track, her long, lanky legs carrying her farther away from Walsh with every step. Walsh her face grim, pushed hard but couldn’t catch her. She finished in second place, winning the silver medal.
For Walsh, it wasn’t good enough. Apparently, it wasn’t good enough for Poland, either. Perhaps that’s why either Walsh or someone else in the Polish contingent let the rumors start flying. Helen Stephens is not a woman. She is a man in disguise. She’s a cheat.
The accusation was formalized the next day when a Polish newspaper made the claim publicly. The Associated Press picked up the story and repeated the claim, attributing it to Walsh. They said she made the accusation to the International Amateur Board.
Stephens was angry, and humiliated. She was forced to undergo testing and a physical examination of her genitals to prove her sex.
The irony of the situation would go unnoticed for another 44 years.
Walsh was murdered in an attempted robbery in 1980, and the results of her autopsy — and the media’s attempts to obtain them — brought up the same questions she’d faced in Berlin. Her story, Tullis writes, “combined sports, sex and celebrity, one that had all the elements of a great narrative — a meteoric rise, a tragic death, and an unbelievable revelation.” [SB Nation]