Imagine growing up in a poor South African village, being 18 years old, and winning the women’s 800 meter title at the World Championships in Berlin. In the midst of feeling pride for your country and for your achievement, imagine being scrutinized due to suspicions about your sex and having this very sensitive issue handled with little discretion by the media.
Imagine searching your name on the Internet and viewing hundreds of articles in which people are questioning your sex, making a mockery of your looks, and accusing you of not being worthy of your medal. Now imagine being forced into hiding, driven into trauma counseling, and placed on suicide watch, all over rumors regarding your biological sex. This is the life of Caster Semenya, South African middle distance runner and world champion.
Semenya does not fit into the traditional mold of what a woman is expected to look like. As a result, she has suffered publicly as people have made assumptions about the sex she has identified with for the last 18 years. In the wake of these rumors, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) commissioned sex-determination tests, and there are now rumors claiming that the tests showed Semenya has no ovaries or uterus and that she has internal testes, which produce large amounts of testosterone.
Caster Semenya at World Championships in Berlin
Semenya has become a spectacle as people hash out their views regarding traditional gender norms. In an attempt to quell these rumors, Semenya received a makeover and appeared on the cover of the South African magazine You. The picture is clearly an attempt to make Semenya “look like a girl,” to offer society proof that she is indeed a woman.
You, South African Magazine
The chair of South Africa’s sports committee reportedly said that Semenya is “like a raped person,” because of the brutal, public humiliation she has endured. What started out as a competition and a chance to represent her country has turned into a public struggle of trying to fit people into specific gender categories. We must go back to basic human decency and show our respect for Semenya—this situation should have been handled privately.
I just found this article on Semenya: http://msn.foxsports.com/other/story/10089346/Track-chief-sorry-for-lying-about-Semenya-test
It talks about how she didn’t even know gender verification testing was taking place and the violations to her privacy by releasing the test results to the media before informing her of the results.
No human should have to endure what she had to go through, including ignorant responses referring to her any anything other than female — the gender that she has always identified with.
Contrary to popular belief, gender isn’t binary. And while I think international sports organizations need to clearly define rules that are inclusive, Semenya has done nothing wrong. I applaud her for her extraordinary win!
In my opinion the major concern is the fact that Semenya has identified as being of the female sex since her birth. Right now all we have is rumors. Rumors are not worthy of blatantly stating that, “they cheated by enrolling her/him in a category Semenya doesn’t belong to.” She deserves the respect of basic human rights, and yes she is entitled to those rights. If this situation was handled with discretion until the “truth” actually comes to light, the media would not be exploding with unverified accusations.
Flora, I am disappointed by your comment.
It is interesting that you bring up the question of decency, because in addition to being thoroughly confused as to what I should or not call Caster, I am also confused about what or who has been decent or not in her case.
If you are following the most recent developments of the case, you know that it is all very confusing.
Why did Chuene lie about the sex tests performed in SA to allegedly “protect Semenya?” Why is he being asked to resign if he was simply protecting the “little girl” this way? What kind of test results does he claim he didn’t have at the time, when he insisted in enrolling “her” in the race, even though Dr Adams counseled him against it based on these very same test results? Why did the IAAF invite Chuene back on board, after Chuene publicly ranted against them in the media? Is it to work out a “decent” deal for all those involved? Why did Chuene say he will not accept the IAAF’s sex test results because he alleges the IAAF did not follow protocol? What do both the SA and the IAAF sex tests show? In other words, what is Semenya’s biological profile? Is it being further manipulated by drugs to give her/him a considerable advantage as compared to the other competitors? Why did Semenya laugh when asked if Arbeit had given her drugs? Does the Caster YOU photo shoot reveal that she looks like a black version of Pamela Anderson or a young man in drag? What did the psychologist who counseled Caster on her SA sex tests tell her/him? If Semenya is told she can no longer compete with the women because of an yet undeclared intersex condition, will “she” all of a sudden start claiming to be a he? If that should happen, what kind of signs should the SA politicians use to welcome Caster at the airport: “Our Ex-First Lady of Sports?” Our “10 percent female woman” has landed? How about our “former queen of the track, now mediocre third-rate duke?” How do you explain her meteoric performance rise in less than a year, in a way that no other of her competitors ever achieved? Is Caster a super-sheman, a cheat or an extremely rare athletic phenomenon? Is “she” a very young go-along intersex opportunist or an innocent, little girl, victim of vicious racism, sexism, and imperialism? Why has Caster been sequestered and muzzled by the ASA, when victims should be the first ones to speak? Are the current sports principles about fairness “fair?”
On my book, this is all so very confusing and I have yet other questions than those outlined above. Until more information is revealed, I really don’t know what to call Semenya, in more ways than one.
Which brings us to the question: if Madoff calls himself honest, does it mean no one has the right to call him a crook?
Male athletes take simple blood tests to determine drug use. Only women are violated by invasive tests to determine their gender. This is shameful.
And Alessandra, please have the decency to say “her” when referring to Ms. Semenya. She deserves at least that human respect and not the him, her, or whatever you call it attitude you seem to have taken.
I am extremely disappointed by this article, given the association blog it belongs to.
“What started out as a competition and a chance to represent her country has turned into a public struggle of trying to fit people into specific gender categories.”
The major question here is if SA and Semenya engaged in deliberate fraud at all levels of competition, and most recently, at the highest international levels.
The allegations that Ms/Mr Semenya did cheat are not trivial.
If what is being reported in various papers is true, SA officials knew the rules of the competition and Semenya did as well. They all knew about her intersex condition before Berlin (whatever it is), and they cheated by enrolling her/him in a category Semenya doesn’t belong to. Whether they agree or not with the reasoning behind the two-sex sport division is irrelevant to their dishonest behavior.
Furthermore, they lied when they said they had no information about Ms/Mr Semenya’s biological make-up before Berlin.
The reason the ASA looks so guilty is because if they had a solid case on Semenya being able to compete as a woman, they would have presented their case and sex test results a long time ago, including in the public media, if necessary. Why lie about having done tests, if the tests prove you right?
Additionally, we may never find out if Semenya also cheated by taking “medications” which alter his/her hormone levels, as previously alleged in the Swiss paper, but that is also a possibility.
In the media this week:
Name of the LAB DOCTOR, name of the LAB, NAME OF PSYCHOLOGIST WHO COUNSELED SEMENYA that s/he is intersex, and name of the DOCTOR who counseled the ASA on Semenya’s case, ALL BEFORE BERLIN.
If the info below is correct, one more layer of SA’s fraudulent endeavor exposed.
(http://www.dispatch.co.za/article.aspx?id=346287 for full article)
The M&G reported that Semenya had been tested at the Medforum Medi-Clinic in Pretoria early last month and that she had received counselling from ASA board member and psychologist Laraine Lane before hand.
The tests were conducted by Oscar Shimange, a medical doctor specialising in obstetrics and gynaecology.
The M&G said Chuene had also denied Adams was the official doctor of team SA. Adams was, in fact, commissioned by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) to oversee Semenya’s gender tests in SA, and was listed in an ASA press release for the championships as a “team doctor”.
The M&G quoted a senior official close to ASA saying that when Team SA was in Neubrandenburg, Adams received a call from Medforum Medi-Clinic informing him of Semenya’s gender test results, which were “not good”.
The official said Adams then convened a meeting with Chuene and ASA vice-president Kakata Maponyane, among other ASA officials.
Adams advised them to withdraw Semenya from the competition, but they refused, said the M&G.
Meanwhile, the National Assembly’s sport committee yesterday postponed its meeting with ASA, which was scheduled for Tuesday.
This was because of the change in the parliamentary programme next week.
The meeting will be rescheduled in the next parliamentary term, starting on October 6 . — SDR, additional reporting by Sapa
This is a tragedy of the worst kind; a young girl who is passionate about her hopes and dreams and works hard to make them come true, only to be mocked and, as they said, RAPED in every sense in the public eye is the harsh reality of society’s mandate for pigeon-holing. It made me sick to see her interview that was designed to placate her critics – ooh, look at her now! I knew there was a “real woman” somewhere in there… <>
Please read my article on Semenya: Proving It
http://www.sheword.com/news/proving-it/
Nikita