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- In December 1935, the Czech track star Zdeněk Koubek announced that he was going to be living as a man. To sports fans, the news seemed hard to believe: Koubek had been assigned female at birth, and he had competed, and set a world record, in the women’s 800-meter dash.
www.history.com/news/athlete-gender-barrier-zdenek-koubek
Jun 1, 2024 · Koubek spoke and wrote about his experience extensively, but he did so in an era before people recognized a psychological and social category of gender that was distinct from biological sex; at...
- Michael Waters
Aug 1, 2024 · Koubek was more welcomed and celebrated than we might imagine. There was an open-mindedness and empathy to the reception of Koubek and his gender identity and expression in the 1930s.
- Alex Abad-Santos
Aug 3, 2024 · Koubek struggled with his victory in the Women’s World Games and almost considered publicly returning his medal during the event given his struggles with his own gender identity.
- Sydney Bauer
Jun 11, 2024 · When he stepped away from competitive sports, athletes who competed at the international level were often required to participate in invasive and demeaning tests to test the athlete’s sex to ensure they were not committing gender fraud, as described in the Making Queer History article on Koubek.
Koubek was born in Paskov, in a family of eight siblings. He was born without male genitalia, so he was raised as a woman. Soon after his birth, the family moved to Brno, where he finished school and started training in athletics. Koubek continued his education and training in Prague.
A year after Koubek won gold, he told the world that he intended to live as a man. He received surgery to affirm his gender, masculinized his name, and attempted to change the sex marker on his...
