Foekje Dillema

Foekje Dillema, (Burum, September 18, 1926 – Kollum, December 5 2007) was a Dutch athlete.

Dillema was named "athlete of the match" in 1949 after winning the 200-meter during a tournament in London. She was an important competitor for another Dutch athlete Fanny Blankers-Koen, who won four golden medals during the 1948 Summer Olympics and was voted "Female Athlete of the Century" by the International Association of Athletics Federations in 1999.

In 1950 Dillema was expelled for life by the Dutch National Athletics Federations. A gynaecologist concluded that Dillema was an intersex. Her national record of 24.1 seconds on the 200 meters was erased. This highly controversial decision is still being discussed in the Netherlands. After she was thrown out of a competition in 1950 she returned to Friesland. She did not leave her house for at least one year and lived a quiet life in her home town.

Dillema was born a daughter, raised as a girl and lived her life as a woman. Her brothers and sisters never expected her not to be a woman having seen her so many times in the bathtub (fenotype female). This is the main reason for us today to conclude that she was indeed a woman and should be allowed to compete today.

In 2008, a controversial DNA-test on dead cells found in her clothing found that she may have been a Genetic Mosaic, having both 46XX (female) and 46XY (male) chromosomes in approximately a 3 to 1 ratio. Professor Anton Grootegoed of the Erasmus MC concluded that Foekje Dillema was female. This means that she would have been allowed to race, if she would have competed today.

But having a Y-chromosome she would never have been alowed to compete in the 20th century. It was always the main reason to expell an athlete. At the end of the century renowned institutions worldwide protested against the viewpoint of the IOC leading to skip the compulsory gendertest. But no official standpoint was formulated by the IOC. The IOC stills want the right to test if an athlete is under suspicion.

External links

* [http://www.cultuurwijs.nl/nwc.internationaalinstituutvoorsocialegeschiedenis/cultuurwijs.nl/i000006.html Article]
* [http://www.foekjedillema.nl/ Foekje Dillema tribute]