I caught some of the sports news online last night, and it was all abuzz with reports of an African woman whose gender was being questioned. I watched some of the interviews on Youtube and I can unfortunately see why people are judging her.
Her name is Caster Semenya, she's 18, and she runs for South Africa. On Wednesday, she won the 800m run in the World Championships. Actually, she dominated the race...outpacing the nearest competitor by more than 2 seconds. Caster, herself, was about 2 seconds off the world record.
Part of the controversy is that this girl rose to greatness out of nowhere. She has grown up playing soccer and has had her gender questioned before. Just this track season she posted a world leading time in basically a high school track meet. The South African team pulled her up into their national team so fast that they didn't have a chance to deal with the questioning of her gender in quiet fashion. At least her family and country are sticking up for her.
Personally, people are questioning her sex because she tore up the competition. If she got last place, I bet there wouldn't be this outcry about her gender.
I feel for her. I've run into a number of women while playing sports that may not fit what most people consider female. She does have some male characteristics, and testing may not be conclusive, but at what point do we judge? It's just too bad they weren't able to clear this up before the championships.
Caster has had her gender questioned before, and it appears that she has been teased about her appearance for a good portion of her athletic career. This is nothing new for her...except that the audience just got a bit bigger.
2 comments:
I've been reading about this too and my take is a bit different than yours. I suspect that she will indeed fail the gender test and be stripped of the world records. There are just too many things that don't add up here.
Despite what anyone says, those who undergo gender transition from male to female still have a significant advantage when it comes to things like sports, strength, speed, etc.
There are only three people at my place of employment who could exceed my strength and they are all men. Despite years of hormones and anti-androgens, my muscle tone, speed and physical size just didn't change all that much.
If I'm wrong and the test come back indicating female, well, I'll eat my words but I still stand by my contention that we still have an edge.
one of the oddest features of this story is how even her own personal best times just suddenly shot up. plus the fact that, given the way top athletes train and compete in almost any sport, it's very improbable to just come out of nowhere. you have to train, compete locally, in any sport. and a reputation starts.
What's this girl's athletic record in local competitions?
there are some very odd features here, which don't necessarily point towards any form of gender fraud.
there are just a lot of curious features here. At the moment, I have no opinion, really, but am interested to see how things roll out.
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