Gender games

STELLA WALSH, ATHLETICS: Born in Poland as Stanislawa Walasiewicz in 1911, Walsh's family moved to America when she was three months old. She became one of the best known female athletes of the 1930s, setting more than 100 records and taking sprint gold at the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics and silver at the 1936 Berlin Games.

She died in bizarre circumstances in 1980 when she was accidentally shot during an armed robbery in Cleveland, Ohio. Her autopsy revealed that she had male genitalia, but her birth certificate states that she was female; the question of her gender remains unresolved.