Embodying American democracy: Performing the female sporting icon

Heidi/Andreas is the literal embodiment of the fantastic figures that have historically propelled America's anti-Communist sport narratives - narratives themselves driven by diagnostic tools like drug- and sex-testing. ′Heidi′ is an expression of a governing narrative about the nation constituted at the crossroads of sport, sex, and American democracy. The authors argue that Tamara Press and sex-testing were mutually constitutive: gender verification brought an aura of scientific authority to America's claims about Tamara Press's female masculinity, and Tamara Press was the ironic proof of gender verification's necessity. The possessive pronoun ′our′ positions women as part of national culture and points to their bodies as signs of community, nation, gender, and American identity. This chapter examines the cultural politics of and backlash to the steroid admission of five-time US Olympic medalist sprinter, Marion Jones, and the gender performativity of South African middle distance runner Caster Semenya..