ATHLETICZZzzzzz has been enlivened by South African Caster Semenya, favourite to win the women’s 800m at the World Athletics Championships and facing accusations that she is a man.
Semenya. Is this suspicion rooted in nominative determinism, where a person’s makeup is shaped by their name? Semen-ya.
There would be an easy way to tell. Female athletes wear bikini briefs. But Semanya sports an elongated Bermuda brief. Is that bulge muscle, a handkerchief stuffed into a pocket or is she dressing to left or to the right?
Semenya’s people have been forced on the defensive:
[Coach Michael Seme] added that when they stopped at a petrol station in Cape Town recently and Semenya entered the female toilets, the petrol attendants prevented her from doing so because they were convinced she was a man.
“Caster just laughed and asked if they would like her to take off her pants to show them she was a woman,” said Seme.
Molatelo Malehopo, general manager of Athletics South Africa, says:
“She is a female. We are completely sure about that and we wouldn’t have entered her into the female competition if we had any doubts. We have not been absent-minded, we are very sure of her gender. We are aware of the claims that have been made but our aim at the moment is to prepare Caster for the race this evening.”
So no need for gender testing?
“We have not started testing and we have no plans to do.”
And what is gender testing? The Mail knows:
The well-placed source said Semenya would be subjected to a complex process of gender testing which could take several weeks.
How complex can it be?
Science of Sport says:
Even genetic testing cannot confirm male or female. In fact, it is so complex that to do proper gender testing, you have to take a multi-disciplinary approach, and make use of internal medicine specialists, gynecologists, psychologists, geneticists and endocrinologists. I am afraid that dropping your pants is not proof at all.
One person who might know is Kenya’s Janeth Jepkosgei Busienei, whose fall in an earlier heat caused Semenya to vault her.
What view did Busienei have?
But more than this - should all figures in the public eye be sex tested? Sex dictates how the media labels people, so it is only fair. Is Lady Gaga a man or a woman? Has anyone seen Prince Edward naked? Ann Widdecombe - he or she?
More to follow… And a gallery of evidence:
Posted: 19th, August 2009 | In: Key Posts, Sports Comments (17) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink
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August 25th, 2009 at 4:54 am
Joel Guy did ur mother drop you face first when you were a baby…cause i really don’t get it..? you have to be retarded or something…lol.. i mean if you are not blind..or cross-eyed.
August 25th, 2009 at 4:50 am
joel guy says: dude are you freaking blind? are you joking? please say that you are because i really want to vomit right now. cute? i can of many words to describe this thing and cute aint’t one of them. jesus freaking chrsit. I mean “she” is so ugly jesus would turn away and weep….damn she is so nasty… mother teresa would refuse to touch her.
and yampster that was freaking awesome…yes, a secret MAN!!! lmfao
August 22nd, 2009 at 2:17 pm
And everybody that is saying she a man can go to hell you shit heads
August 22nd, 2009 at 2:05 pm
It is sad to see all the reporters on her that she wins one and now she is a man she a girl and a very cute at that. It is bcuz she is black that is why you guys want to make this up. You know I have a way to check if she is a boy. You what you do check out wat she got and then you see if she has what a boy has she a boy and she got what a girl got she is a girl and that’s it now a days people don’t care other peoples feelings so semenya you want to talk call this number
(1347-657-4466
August 21st, 2009 at 9:39 pm
The sex of every athlete is everybody’s business, just like their drug habits, their age, and any other criteria that is used in competitive sports. People who are up in arms concerning the testing are just afraid of the test results. There is hardly a sport that has not been marred by multiple attempts at cheating. That’s why we have the right to test everyone that presents a suspicious set of circumstances. If Semenya is shown to be some kind of hermaphrodite, or even worse, a man brought up to think he was a “she,” than all her care-takers and sports officials involved in her career are to blame. The other suspicious thing not often mentioned is her own attitude. If you are a woman and you are suspected to be a man all the time, that would be surely distressing. Apparently she can care less. If you are a woman and you look in the mirror and you see the image of a grown man, that would be enough to make normal women seriously psychologically disturbed. But if you were a man, claiming to be a woman, and people suspected you were a man, why would you care?
And if she is a hermaphrodite in the sense of having more of a man’s muscular build, then she shouldn’t compete in women’s sports. Put her into her own category and let her compete there. Then it’s fair. There is a biological reason why men and women have different categories in such sports and it would not be fair to have just one category. The same applies to people who cannot normally fit into either male or female sex.
Moderator - Surely its a congenital condition , and not choice nor commonplace. Or are you suggesting some kind of freak show?
August 21st, 2009 at 10:24 am
Lesego, all good publicity for Lady GaGa and the runner could turn all this around and make good out of it. What people were wasn’t a big deal was it years ago. Now it is spoken about freely. In Australia there is a couple who are legally married = hermaphrodite one partner is, and the other is a lady. Both look female.
August 21st, 2009 at 10:10 am
…sad that she regards herself a man = woman
August 21st, 2009 at 10:05 am
Lyn, I believe you, it’s the same situation as Lady Gaga and really sad that she regards herself a man but has both a vagina and a little penis which is most probably a dud. Like Lady Gaga once said she regards herself as a woman even though she has a penis as it’s just too small to be a big deal.
August 21st, 2009 at 9:50 am
yampster - wow! Thanks for that.
August 21st, 2009 at 9:38 am
yampster, thanks for that. Very clever and hope DNA sorts it all out.
August 21st, 2009 at 9:38 am
I’ve been running with the wrong crowd for years
August 21st, 2009 at 9:11 am
The name is a dead giveaway…
Caster Semenya is an anagram of “Yes, a secret man”
August 20th, 2009 at 10:26 am
“should all figures in the public eye be sex tested? Sex dictates how the media labels people, so it is only fair”
Public figure or not, that would only be fair if you chucked away people’s human rights in favour of trashy entertainment. Might happen on the day we vote Jeremy Kyle to be PM, perhaps…
Anyways, this boils down to her having a manly face, the physique is pretty much the same as tonnes of female pro runners / athletes (as your own photos illustrate)
August 20th, 2009 at 9:31 am
Perhaps this runner is a hermaphrodite. Certainly has an unusual shape for a lady.
August 20th, 2009 at 8:59 am
I’ve looked. That might be enough for a man in South Africa but over here it’s barely enough for a boy. Lets wait and see what the experts say
August 20th, 2009 at 7:45 am
Sorry, but this is a man. Look there in the front
August 20th, 2009 at 5:15 am
World class cock-up by the powers that be though, but?
This should have been laid to rest long before a world championship event.
The plea: “The times were only dramatically improved three weeks ago,” means sod all when a winning athlete is given her country’s flag for a victory lap which raises no cheer. Trial by innuendo or Justice’s Funeral in Berlin?
World class cheating gender bender or innocent fast tracker? Whatever the truth of this, the man/woman deserves a gold medal for running at all.
Boy, but can she run girls?