There are several fascinating stories of Olympic Games winners but none like that of Stella Walsh, the intersex athlete praised as one of the greatest women in sports.
In 1951, she had so many medals and trophies that she was named the greatest woman athlete of the first half of the 20th century by the Helm Athletic Foundation.
Yet, it was only after her death on December 4, 1980 that an autopsy showed that Stella Walsh was neither a woman nor a man but intersex.
Intersex is a general term used to refer to an individual born with reproductive anatomy that cannot be defined as solely (or simply) “female” or “male.”
There are various ways in which one may be born intersex. it is possible for individuals to possess (from birth) genitals or internal reproductive organs that cannot clearly be categorized as solely “male” or solely “female.” Such an individual, for instance, might naturally be born with both ovarian and testicular tissues and cannot be placed into any socially-constructed categories.
Other intersex individuals might posses combinations of chromosomes, such as XXY, that differ from the XY associated with the male and XX associated with the female sex. Some people are born with external genitals that fall into the typical male/female categories, but the same is not true of their internal organs or hormones.
The intersex Olympic winner born in Poland who migrated to the United States
Born Stanisława Walasiewicz in Poland on April 3, 1911, Walsh was an infant when her parents emigrated to Cleveland, Ohio, where her father, Julian Walasiewicz found a job as a steel mill worker.
The girl’s name was Americanized to Stella Walsh, and she soon showed a liking for athletics. She was 19 years old when she tied the women’s record of 6 seconds for the 50-yard dash and became a local celebrity. It was obvious that Stella Walsh had a great athletic career ahead of her.
She was already an athletic superstar at her Cleveland high school. She played on numerous sports teams—including the boys’ baseball team—and excelled at almost all sports she tried her hand at. Her physique was distinctly masculine and other students teased her for it. She was 5 feet 9 inches tall with a stocky build, muscular arms, and thick neck. Her schoolmates nicknamed her Bull Montana after wrestler/actor Lewis Montagna who went by the same name.
She was bullied, but she also proved time and again that she was the best athlete around. Walsh won an impressive collection of ribbons, trophies, and medals from track meets, and despite the bullying, she was respected by her peers.
Misses the chance to represent the US in the Olympics
By 1930, the young Polish immigrant was poised to become a US citizen in order to represent her new homeland in the 1932 Olympic Games. Yet, the Great Depression hit the US and turned everything upside down. Her father lost his job at the steel mill, and Stella was laid off from her job just a week before she was scheduled to take her oath of citizenship.
It was then that the Polish consulate offered Walsh a job and a scholarship for higher education, provided that she abandon her plan to become a US citizen and compete for her birth country at the Olympics.
Indeed, at the 1932 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, Walsh ran as Stanislawa Walasiewicz. She immediately matched her own world record for the 100-meter dash, running it in 11.9 seconds during two preliminary heats and the final medal race, winning the gold for Poland.
The Polish government awarded her and honored her. She used her promised scholarship to study physical education and journalism at a women’s college in Warsaw, but she missed the standard of living she had enjoyed in the States. Within six months of moving to the Polish capital, she badly sprained her ankle and decided to return home to Cleveland to recover.
Between 1933 and 1935, Walsh won at various competitions such as the Women’s World Games, earning medals and breaking records for the 100-meter spring, hurdles, and broad jump. She was the undisputed sprinter preparing to win yet another gold in the 1936 Olympics at Berlin.
Stella Walsh and the 1936 Berlin Olympics controversy
Walsh competed for Poland again as Stanislawa Walasiewicz in the 1936 Berlin Olympics, where the famous incident of Adolf Hitler snubbing the African-American gold medalist Jesse Owens took place.
She was ready to defend her 1932 gold medal, but she had to compete with an American wonder of the 100-meter dash, the 18-year-old Helen Stephens. Walsh finished second by only a few inches and won silver for Poland. Stephens won the gold medal for the United States.
Following Walsh’s loss to Helen Stephens, a rumor circulated by a Polish newspaper that Stephens was actually a man disguised as a woman and that the United States Olympic committee had knowingly permitted her to run in the woman’s race.
Humiliated by the allegations, Stephens was forced to submit to a genital inspection—the first of its kind—by the Olympic committee to clear her of gender fraud. The inspection clearly showed that Stephens was a woman. The American athlete successfully sued a magazine for implying that she was a man.
Additionally, German Olympic officials disclosed that they had examined Stephens to determine her sex prior to allowing her to compete in the 1936 Olympic Games.
As a result of the controversy, the US Olympic committee advanced a motion to subject all women entering the Olympic Games to an examination to determine their sex.
After Walsh’s death, amidst the national media sensation over her autopsy findings, there was speculation that Walsh may have started the rumors about Helen Stephens in order to draw attention away from herself.
Back in the US
After the Berlin Olympics, Walsh returned to the United States and resumed her amateur athletic career. She won several US national championships in the 100 meters (1943, 1944 and 1948), the 200 meters (1939–40 and 1942–1948), the discus throw (1941–1942), and the long jump (1938–1946, 1948 and 1951).
She became a US citizen in 1947 and continued to compete in athletics, winning her last US title in 1951 at the age of 40. She married aviation draftsman and former boxer Harry Olson in 1956. Although the marriage did not last long, she continued to use the name Stella Walsh Olson for the rest of her life.
Through her fifties and sixties, Walsh organized athletic competitions and scholarships for Polish-American athletes and coached young sprinters. She was well-respected in her Cleveland hometown, and in 1970, the Cleveland mayor proclaimed April 3rd (her birthday) as Stella Walsh Day. She was inducted into the US Track and Field Hall of Fame in 1975.
The secret of Stella Walsh, the intersex Olympic winner, exposed
On December 4, 1980, Stella Walsh went to buy ribbons for a welcoming ceremony for visiting Polish basketball players. In the parking lot, she was approached by two men who tried to snatch her purse. The 69-year-old woman fought back and was fatally shot in the chest.
After the autopsy, the official report was delayed, but rumors started circulating about Stella Walsh’s real sex. On December 18, 1980, The Washington Post ran a story with the title “Heroine or Hero?” speculating on the rumors.
Coroner Samuel Gerber released Walsh’s autopsy report on January 23, 1981. His examination revealed that Walsh lacked uterus, ovaries, and vagina and instead had a non-functioning, underdeveloped penis.
Genetically, she had mosaicism, a cellular mutation that resulted in Walsh having mostly male (XY) chromosomes along with a few cells with X0 chromosomes, the 0 indicating a missing X chromosome. Gerber speculated that, at birth, Stella probably had ambiguous genitalia and, as was customary in such cases in those days, her parents decided to raise her as a girl.
After the shocking finding of Stella Walsh’s intersex status, reactions were mixed. The tightly-knit Polish community of Cleveland defended her as a great female athlete, while friends and former schoolmates said that they somehow knew of her condition but accepted her nevertheless. A childhood friend recalled her once saying aloud: “Why has God done this to me?”
Others felt that they had been deceived, and a new nickname was attached to the dead woman: “Stella the fella.”
Regardless of the controversy, Stella Walsh’s reputation as an athlete remains untarnished. In Cleveland, on Broadway Avenue, there is a city-owned recreational center named after Stella Walsh. It is attached to Cleveland South High School.
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