The soccer player pictured above is a 5'9", 163-pound Korean striker named Park Eun-seon.
Park scored 19 goals in 22 games to lead Seoul City Amazones to a surprising second-place finish in their recently completed WK-League season.
Now, six of the seven other WK-League teams are threatening to boycott next season if Park continues to play. Why?
Because the WK-League is a women's professional soccer league, and they think she is actually, well, a he.
The biggest news story in South Korea right now is the ongoing Park gender controversy. This isn't the first time that Park—who represented South Korea at the 2003 Women's World Cup and at the 2004 Summer Olympics—has had her gender questioned. But now, those murmurs have turned into shouts. Rival WK-League teams claim that because Park is bigger, stronger, and faster than anyone else in the league, it is not only unfair, but actually unsafe to compete against an opponent who they feel is a man impersonating a woman. (Park has expressed a mixture of frustation, sadness, and defiance at these allegations via social media, with many Korean "netizens" rallying to support her.)
Of course, this isn't the first time sports has had a gender-bending controversy. Back in 2009, after she posted impressive times at the 2009 World Championships in Athletics, South African runner Caster Semenya was subjected to gender testing because of her physical appearance. She went on to win a silver medal in the 800-meter at the 2012 Summer Olympics, but speculation about her gender hounds her to this day.
Likewise, there have been quite a few people who have openly questioned the gender of former college basketball/current WNBA star Brittney Griner. And controversies about gender verification in sports actually stretch all the way back to the 1930s, when many female athletes were tested during the Olympics after their genders were questioned by Olympic officials.
In about six hours, there is a press conference scheduled in Seoul in which the Korea Sports Council will address the Park controversy. We will hopefully learn more about the allegations against Park and the future of the WK-League at that time. Stay tuned.
