Born in the Wrong Place at the Wrong Time: The Tragedy of the East German Olympic Young Women

Brett and I watched this documentary last night on PBS. Secrets of the Dead: Doping for Gold tells the story of the young women of the East German Olympic team in the 70s. They were born behind the Iron Curtain, part of a country under constant surveillance of the Stasi while living in constant fear and paranoia. Gulags and disappearances loom as a threat to any person that disobeys the Soviet regime.
These girls were doped, mostly without their knowing, with steroids. This resulted in increased liver trouble and incredible masculinisation: deepened voices, pale pattern body hair, Adam's apples and the like.
These women suffer irreversible damage. Katerina (I believe that is her nam) is now in her 40s. She looks like a man. She said that she just stopped trying to wear feminine closthing since so many commented in public that she looks like a man. This breaks my heart.
Another figured that she was so far down the man path already, she had a sex change. Andreas married a former swimming medalist from the same era.
What broke my heart the most is what I now have led up to. A silver medalist swimmer of that era, an American, traveled to Berlin to make sense of this. She felt that, in a sense, she deserves the gold medal and wished that the gold medalist would give it up for her. That would be right to her. She met this woman. This East German woman suffered abuse under the communist regime and has incredible health issues as a result. The markings on her soul will be taken to her grave.
As the American medalist said "As an American..." it just ran fingernails over my inner chalkboard. I know what she was meaning. When I moved back to the States, its the thing that infuriates me: entitlement. I deserve what I want because: I earned it, worked hard for it, paid for it, I'm an American.
As a barista in the coffee capital of the world, I deal with rather particular people on their purchase: not too hot, extra hot, no foam, split shot, wet cappuccino, dry, espresso picked by an old blind man in Zimbabwe while whistling show tunes.
At what price?
Somewhere along the line, humanity is ignored. We may not see it, but there is a person behind our purchases. There are people behind our "entitlement".