It appears that the South African sports minister, Makhenkesi Stofile, has threatened the world with war should hermaphrodite runner, Caster Semenya, be disqualified. In his defense, there is no video, so he may well have been wearing a cape or brandishing a carrot as a saber.
In all seriousness, I do feel very bad for the girl. I wish this was not a public event. But there’s no way she should be allowed to compete with women.
Hijack: Why not? If she has androgen insensitivity syndrome (which seems likely), my (admittedly limited) understanding of it is that the huge amounts of testosterone that her body is producing does pretty much nothing special for her muscle development and so forth.
The Sports Minister was of course exaggerating about ‘third World War’.
In the same breath he said South Africa would appeal through the Sport’s Governing Bodies.
Why not?
This is an 18 yr old girl! She was a girl from birth, she has always lived as a girl, she trained and competed as a girl. She KNOWS she is a girl, her family knows she is now and has always been a girl.
It is an absolute tragedy that she has had to have such huge news about herself spread all around the world. Can you imagine hearing something like that at 18?
She absolutely should be able to keep competing as a a woman because that is what she is! What is the alternative? You take a girl and make her run with men or worse ban her forever?
She didn’t spring into the world as an 18 yr old runner. She clearly has been competing for years as a GIRL, running against other girls and winning fairly.
Usaim Bolt ran freakishly fast…maybe he has a uterus or perhaps he is an alien.
If Bolt has a uterus, he wouldn’t be this fast. If he’s an alien, he shouldn’t be allowed to run (have you seen MIB?!?!?). She shouldn’t be allowed to compete, either. Maybe after hormone therapy or surgery or something.
The reason he’s shouting so much and so loudly is because the South African authorities are most culpable in this sad saga – they used this naïve country girl for their own purposes and now seek to deflect blame anywhere and everywhere.
The IAAF asked that she not go to Berlin for the World Championships and she was even - according to her coach who resigned this week from the shame of the way he and the authorities had treated her - gender tested without her knowledge before leaving for Berlin.
It’s brazen politicking in the hope of saving his and the Federation’s own skin – again at huge cost to the poor girl.
The breach of trust is just appalling.
Seriously? This is an 18 yr old GIRL!
She has clearly raced for years in order to compete at an international level. Did every girl she raced against in South Africa know she had no ovaries?
Usaim Bolt may be able to compete after proving he is not a freak of nature or…something.
Isn’t that what’s in question, though? I mean, clearly Semenya has grown up as a girl, and believes that she (for lack of a better pronoun) is a girl. But if what these tests are saying are accurate, than Semenya is neither a boy or a girl.
I’m *nearly *convinced by your impeccable logic and sharp rhetorical skills. I think in order for you to win me over to your point of view you just need to assert this point a few more times. Perhaps you should use all caps for the whole sentence instead of just the word “girl” and you could try a large font, perhaps in bright pink. That oughta do it.
FTR, Ms. (I use the term advisedly) Semenya isn’t a hemaphrodite.
My understanding is that androgen insensitivity produces the opposite result - a hyperfeminine appearance. The whole reason people were suspicious is that her appearance is so masculine.
nevermind
This is probably overly simplistic, but the athletic performance differences between men and women are due to hormones, right? In my opinion, if her hormones test to be within normal female limits, she can compete with women.
I know, someone is going to come in and say, “Well it’s possible her female competitors have abnormal hormone levels too, are you suggesting we test them all before every match, to be certain?” And no, I’m not. If this particular woman’s genetics put her hormone sex* identification in question, it’s logical she be tested. As long as her competitors are genetically female/have no disorders that put their sex in dispute, there are no extenuating circumstances that raise the question. In my humble opinion, anyway.
No comment on how it’s being treated by her country, as I am entirely ignorant on the subject. I do feel incredibly bad for the poor girl, though, having it broadcast internationally and all.
*I use “sex” instead of “gender” because I seem to recall that intersex/transgendered people view sex as biological and gender as whether you identify as male or female from a mental standpoint. Apologies if I got that wrong.
Edit: erg, overlooked the androgen insensitivity possibility. I amend my stance about testing her hormones to see if they’re within female limits to whatever approximation can be made about how much and which kind of female/male hormones her body is able to make use of and where those fall on the “which sex” gradient, not just what her body produces, in that and similar instances.
I want to see the chromosome tests. No womb. No ovaries. Testes. Masculine appearance and performance. I want to see the chromosomes.
Does “she” have a Y?
Some women have a “Y”; the ones previously mentioned with androgen insensitivity syndrome for example…
However much some people dislike it, some people don’t fit into the neat categories we prefer. She’s externally female, thinks of herself as female; she should be treated as female.
There’s ‘female’ for most purposes and there’s ‘female’ for athletics purposes. It’ s not enough to say she has only female external organs and is therefore a woman.
In her line of work, which is worth millions to the successful, it’s important everyone is seen to be competing on the same terms, not just for the issue of fairness but also for the credibility of the sport/business.
She isn’t the first by some measure, just the one that’s received the most attention. There is the additional concern that, if she isn’t excluded, five years from now all female sport will be dominated by unfortunates like Semenya.
In the tabloid culture we’re surrounded by, how far is that from a ‘freak show’, I’d say no distance at all.
If Usain Bolt put on a dress, should he be allowed to compete in women’s events?
The whole point of “women’s sports”, as opposed to “sports”, is that men tend to be bigger and stronger than women. For instance, in the recreational hockey leagues where I grew up, there’s a women’s hockey league that only allows women to play. And there are “mens” leagues, but plenty of women play in the “men’s” leagues, including my sister. This is because while my sister is one of the top players in the women’s league, she’s an average player in the men’s league.
If you allow men to compete in the women’s league, then there’s no point in having a separate women’s league, just have open enrollment. The trouble with that is that there are lots of women who want to play, but wouldn’t play if they had to compete against the men. The point of the separate women’s league is so that women can play without getting crushed by the men. Any woman who wants a tougher level of competition is free to play in the mens–really the open–leagues.
In lower level sports it doesn’t matter. But at the upper levels of sports the women could beat most men–except the top level men. There’s a reason there have only been a handful of women who have been able to compete in major league sports. At the top levels only one man in a thousand is able to compete. But there are hundreds of guys who wash out of the NBA that would be top players in the WNBA, if only they were allowed to compete against women. There aren’t any WNBA players who would be stars if they were allowed into the NBA. There aren’t any WNBA players who are qualified to sit on the bench in the NBA. That’s what testosterone does to your body, and that’s why male athletes take artificial steroids too.
So, since the whole point of women’s sports leagues is to have a place where women can compete without having to compete against men, it seems to me that intersexed individuals should compete against men. It doesn’t matter what gender you identify as, if you’ve got the metabolism and physique of a man, you shouldn’t be allowed to compete in the women’s leagues, only in the men’s leagues. It might be sad to be a top woman runner, and then discover you aren’t allowed to compete against women, and you’ll only be a mediocre men’s runner. But there are millions of men who are mediocre runners who can’t compete against the top male runners. That doesn’t mean they should be allowed to compete against women.
She doesn’t. Men generally have much more testosterone then her.
Well said. Rather obvious if you ask me, but it appears that some need the obvious stated.
Some, like yourself.
No one is saying women should have to compete against men. There are physical differences that everyone is aware of. But where you fail is that you have a definition of “woman” that seems to include “less athletic”. I guess sports should be some sort of Harrison Bergeron sort of thing, or maybe we should just have a league for great athletes and one for not-so-great athletes, regardless of gender.
So what you need to do, before you can say the issue is simple or straightforward, is to define “male” and “female” in a way that doesn’t depend on their ability to perform. There aren’t any bright-line rules, and each test would have some edge cases, but when you’re claiming it’s obvious because she runs faster than other women, then you are arguing from a bad position.
Pick a test and argue why the test is valid instead of patronizing women athletes by defining them as less capable.