Zdeněk Koubek

Zdeněk Koubek

Zdeněk Koubek in 1936
Personal information
Born	(1913-12-08)8 December 1913 Paskov, Moravia, Austria-Hungary
Died	12 June 1986(1986-06-12) (aged 72) Prague, Czechoslovakia
Sport
Sport	Running, high jump, long jump
Club	VS Brno VS Praha
Medal record Representing Czechoslovakia Women's World Games 1934 London 800 m 1934 London Long jump

Zdeněk Koubek (born Zdena "Zdeňka" Koubková, 8 December 1913 – 12 June 1986) was a track athlete from Czechoslovakia. He won two medals at the 1934 Women's World Games and several national titles in the 100–800 m running, long jump and high jump, and set a few world records in running events. He retired from athletics and changed his gender to male. Koubek is one of the earliest recorded gender transition in athletics at the international level.

Biography

Koubek was born in Paskov, in a family of eight siblings. He was born without male genitalia, so he was raised as a woman. Soon after his birth, the family moved to Brno, where he finished school and started training in athletics. Koubek continued his education and training in Prague.

In 1934, he won five national titles, in the 100 m, 200 m and 800 m running, high jump and long jump. On 14 June 1934, he set his first world record, in the 800 m at 2:16.4. His next world record came in the medley relay (2×100 m, 200 m and 800 m), at 3:14.4. Later in August, Koubek won the 800 m event at the 1934 Women's World Games, in a world record time of 2:12.4, and finished third in the long jump with a national record of 5.70 m.

According to his diary, despite being raised as a woman he started to feel more and more like a man. In 1935, Koubek retired from competition, announcing his intention to live as a man, and underwent a series of medical examinations. The physicians diagnosed him to be an intersex person with prevailing male sexual characteristics. The next year, he underwent genital surgery and had his name officially changed to Zdeněk Koubek. He abandoned athletics and a potential coaching career, and only after World War II did he join the team of his brother Jaroslav to play rugby for a local club. His records in women's athletics were canceled, and he returned all of his medals and awards. At the time of his retirement, however, the head of the Women’s World Games, Alice Milliat, replied to a question about whether to revoke Koubek’s gold medal “If it is proved that [Koubek] has become a man, it is logical to consider that previously she was a woman.” American Olympic Committee president Avery Brundage grew concerned about athletes he called “hermaphrodites” entering Olympics sports and urged International Olympics officials to require a medical examination before participation in the Olympic Games; a rule allowing for medical examinations of athletes whose sex was called into question was passed in time to be in effect for the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

Koubek went to New York and Paris, where he talked about his history and performed athletics in cabarets. He returned to Czechoslovakia, got married, and worked as a clerk for Škoda Works. Koubek spent his later years living with his wife in Prague, where he died aged 72. A 1935 novel Zdenin světový rekord (Zdena's world record) by Lída Merlínová is based on his early life and career. The book The Other Olympians: Fascism, Queerness, and the Making of Modern Sports (2024), published by Macmillan and written by journalist Michael Waters, delves into the story of Koubek and other early Olympic trans, intersex and gender-diverse athletes, placing them in relation to the 1936 Summer Olympics and the bureaucratization and catalogation of gender in sports.