Thursday, August 20, 2009

Undressing Semenya!

By now you may be aware of the news surrounding South Africas 800 metre sprint sensation Caster Semenya. After setting an 800 metre world record sprint time at the ongoing Berlin Olympics, rumours of "her" gender have clouded her victory. Is she a "she"? That is the question.

Semenya looks anything but an 18 year old girl. Semenya also acts anything but a woman. At the finishing line of the 800 metre race in Berlin she performed weird gestures that are uncharacteristic of females. Her pictures circulating on the internet also show a small bulge on her trunks depicting what looks like a not so well endowed male organ. The whole fiasco is dumb founding!

Yet can any person be judged on looks alone? Why was she not tested before the race as this is not the 1st time these rumours have erupted around her? Is she a victim of an unfair process? Why has this been announced before the test results are out?

Interestingly her former High School Headmaster even admitted that he only discovered Semenya was female when she was about to graduate! But her father has said he is prepared to say a hundred times that Semenya is a girl. Her grandmother is shocked! Her mother cannot understand why the world is being cruel to her little girl.

I am looking at pictures of Semenya right now. She does not look or act like a woman. What tests are they going to conduct on her? How? Where? When? Who? Many questions, little answers.

Your thoughts!

13 comments:

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  2. This whole thing is bordering on the ludicrous.I really feel bad for Caster with this all being played out on the world stage. The ideal of gender testing is also kind of ridiculous. I'm sure she does not have male external genitalia.. So if an endocrinologist finds that Caster has levels of testosterone comparable to a male but has female external organs does that mean that she is actually a man and should be stripped of her medal? Would that mean that she should compete in the men's races hereafter? So if Usain Bolt has naturally elevated levels of testosterone does that mean that he has an unfair advantage and should not compete?

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  3. Like Nana F said, Hormones, man, Hormones. We had a girl like that in Ghana about a decade ago. Her name was Agnes Afiyo. She looked like a boy, played in all sports, and was a national athlete in athletics as well as hockey (and God remembers what else). After one competition, the Nigerians protested, and "tests" were carried out. She was a hermaphrodite (physically) complete with penis and testicles and vulva and all. But she had more male than female hormones (if I remember right). Then girls who had grown up with her would came out to say that she never change or showered with the other girls during games. She disappeared from the public eye. And that was that.

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  5. These IAAF people should have known this all this time. What makes us female and male goes beyond looks and this is where the problem is. If someone has male features but has a female reproductive organ, does that makes her a female. At the gene level it is possible to have more testosterone (hormones that give men their features) which makes her have more male features and less of the female hormones oestrogen. So I ask how is gender determined? At the gene level? so that even if I have a female reproductive organ and male hormones I become a male?

    Then also there is the problem of those who undergo sex-change (this is not the case of Caster Semenya). If a man becomes a woman through sex change, can the new 'she' runs or compete as a she or as a he? We have a lot of problems to solve.

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  6. Have you considered how this can impact on homosexuality? Think of a woman trapped in a mans body kind of arguments!

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  7. @Abena, makes one think the lawmakers should sit down and decide "what is a woman" at law. Organs vs hormones vs testesterone...what determines what? Is a female a being with less levels of testesterone? Or with female genitalia but with male chromosomes? Or a woman is any woman who looks like a woman? How about how they act? Where is the line?

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  8. @NYA, interestingly, I grew up knowing a guy who was trapped in a womans body. He had male organs, be he was the "perfect woman" we had ever known at the boys residences. In the end the jokes about her stopped, we called him "Sis Taye"(Sister Taye)and life went on...

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  9. @NFA, the tests should be done before the race, whatever tests they are to avoid this confusion of men competing in female races. I wonder what gender Usaine Bolt is? It would be interesting to test him too!

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  10. I think this controversy just shows how arbitary the notion of male and female is...I really like the post at http://www.blacklooks.org/2009/08/gender_terrorism_we_are_all_sara_baartman.html on the subject

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  11. this whole issue got me wondering whether i was male or female myself.

    but again? why not Semenya just strip for all to see on a good bet! if i were her that is what i would have done: challenge the world to a strip 'tease' for a lofty sum. i might even ask for a pole to complete the show. yiweeee!

    so again, am i male or female????????

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