I’ve spent over 10 years obsessed with so-called “gender verification” tests. Proponents claim they have history and science on their side. They don’t.

What most people likely don’t realize with today’s news is that sex testing is as old as the modern Olympics. As soon as women were allowed to compete in the games, there were rumors and complaints that the women on the track were simply not womanly. In the 1930s, sports organizations forced women into what are now known as the “nude parades,” in which they asked every woman to get naked in front of a panel of doctors so that they could decide if they looked womanly enough.

Covering sex testing is a lot like documenting a twisted and deeply unethical game of whack-a-mole. The same bad ideas, incorrect assertions, and misguided policies pop up over and over and over again. Today, the mole that has popped up is genetic sex testing. We last saw this particular policy emerge in the 1960s, when every woman who competed in the Olympics was forced to go through an unreliable genetic test looking for Y chromosomal material — a test that about 1 in 500 women failed. (Surprise! Lots of women have Y chromosomal material in their cells.) The women who passed this test got a “femininity certificate” they had to carry with them to every single competition. Those who “failed” were told to fake an injury and leave.

We have no idea how many women that happened to. They were sent home quietly and told to give up their dreams. Researchers, doctors, ethicists, and athletes spent decades fighting these policies, and in 1999, the IOC finally dropped genetic screenings for female athletes.

Today’s test is different, but it’s not necessarily more reliable. Even the scientist who discovered the gene that the IOC is using for this new test has spoken up against this type of policy.