Little Known Side Effects of Steroids
Monday, August 11th, 2008Wow. Despite my so-far successful resolution to personally boycott the Olympics this time around, I still see some of the news coming up on the web. Like this story of a former Olympian medalist who claims the steroids he was fed by his government turned him from female to male.
Heidi Krieger, the 1986 European women’s shot-put champion, became Andreas Krieger after a sex-change operation in 1997. He says he had been fed so many steroids by his coaches without his knowledge that physical and emotional problems began.
The young woman’s physique changed drastically, as did her feelings. “I felt much more attracted to women and just felt like a man. But I knew I was not lesbian,” Krieger told CNN.
Her coaches said they were giving her vitamin pills, but they were actually feeding her Oral-Turinabol anabolic steroids.
At least they followed the NLGJA supplement to the AP style guide and used the correct gender pronouns.
Anyway, the Olympics have something for everyone – crazy authoritarian government schemes, sex change operations, drugs… all we need now is a car chase and some stupid character for comic relief. Wait, I think we have that last one covered…
First of all the changes that occured was due to the use of TESTOSTERONE! An androgen. There are plenty of anabolic steroids that do NOT alter one’s gender. There needs to be a clarification on anabolic and androgen, anabolic simply builds up tissues it does not in any way change one’s gender. The human body is either in an anabolic or catabolic state. Androgen is in reference to male hormone. She was given male hormones..period.
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1. I don’t think the distinction is all that important to the story, unless you’re trying to defend the idea that it’s okay to secretly feed an athlete performance-enhancing steroids. He was given steroids without his permission or knowledge…period.
2. I even drew attention to this in my comments. When someone has decided to change their gender, either through clothing or surgery, we respect the pronoun choices they currently present. Andreas is a man. We use “he” when referring to him.
3. The odd or awkward thing about this story is that this is the first time I’ve ever heard steroids (of any kind) being the cause of “gender identity disorder” or a transgender identity. With the exception of Andreas’s tale, I think it’s safe to say that most steroids will not change your innate gender identity. Androgen steroids might alter your overall gender characteristics toward male, but this is the first time I’ve ever heard of them “causing” a switch in gender identity.
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