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Loading ...Reports claim South African Runner is Intersex
The Associated Press reports that gender test results for running sensation Caster Semenya are in, but the International Association of Athletics Federation will not release them until November.
Semenya underwent both blood and chromosome tests as well as a gynecological exam.AP also reports that the IAAF has neither confirmed nor denied the claims made by the Sydney Daily Telegraph about Semenya’s biological make-up.
Pink News reported these claims:
“The report said the 18-year-old has three times the usual level of testosterone for a woman and has internal testes rather than ovaries and a uterus.
“Semenya was hailed as a heroine in her country when she won the 800m in 1min 55.45 secs but since she arrived at the Berlin Athletics contest, there have been rumors over her apparent facial hair and masculine appearance.
“The athlete is currently keeping a low profile but her mother has reacted angrily to the latest report, telling South Africa’s Star newspaper that she and Semenya’s father had not been consulted over developments.”
In addition, Semenya has also pulled out of a race amid the public controversy. She will not run in a 4,000 meters Cross Country championship on Saturday.
Selena Watkins is a 365gay.com editorial intern
I know it’s fiction, but I found the book “Middlesex” to be incredibly enlightening about this issue. (Warning: there’s an “ethnic cleansing” military scene that I found very rough. I put the book down for about six months before picking it back up again. The good news is that there are no other scenes in the book that are that disturbing…get past that chapter and you’re OK the rest of the way.)
I do feel for her, I really do. I feel for the other women in the races as well. The other, all female, competitors dont have the advantage this person does. Maybe she cant help it, but either way, having so much testostorone IS an advantage over females. If she had taken the hormones artificially, she would not have been able to compete and everyone knows it. Other people have physical issues that prevent them from competing in something they may want to, but competitions have requirements one must meet, and having unfair advantages over the others gets you disqualified.
Leeanne Henry,
My parents gave birth to me. I will never insult my parents by referring to them as “breeders”.
No group of living things (humans included) can prevent extinction unless it replenishes itself via reproduction.
Here’s the choice, Leeanne, which do you prefer for the future of humanity in general, always some cute young women and some cute young men to be seen on the streets and to continue the energy, vibrancy and future innovations of a society, or one day 30 or 40 years from now, nothing but the old pushing the very old around in wheelchairs and wiping their dripping noses and caring for their every need and society grinding to an economic halt due to lack of more youthful people with the drive and energy needed to keep things running?
If you don’t like heteros reproducing (the usual ways future lesbians and gay men and the intersexed enter this world) then do the reproducing yourself via donating eggs to match up with donated sperm in an externally fertilized method if the usual route threatens to take away your “your queer “license”.
None this does it for you, then don’t complain if one day we turn into a society of nothing but the old and the very old with no more middle aged and no more youth walked the streets, in other words future extinction.
Since I am gay and never reproduced, I don’t complain about the fact that heteros are keeping our society renewed and energized with youthful vigor while I approach sixty in 4 years from now living alone and with no children to take care of me when I eventually need it.
This is a new day and age when gay male couples and lesbian couples with the youth and energy can adopt children in more states than used to be possible and in some places get access to fertility services and surrogate moms via gay-run places like Growing Generations. So good for the gays and lesbians are happily coupled and happily adopting kids and creating kids and loving them.
And meanwhile, hopefully this world will one accommodate those who physically can’t “fit a mold” like this runner and learn to treat all with compassion.
I thing the way she has been treated is quite inhumane. She is not a spectacle and regardless of the situation it could have been handled much better than it has been.
http://www.lesbiansontheloose.blogspot.com
Technology makes it possible to identify this poor woman’s physical condition. Undoubtedly there are other atheletes from the past who didn’t have to face this horrific invasion of privacy. She doesn’t have an all-important penis, so therefore has no male privilege. That would seem to be the reason to exclude her from a race with other females. It should be enough that she appears to be a woman. The situation is shameful that she didn’t compete afterall.
Of course there is a reason for sex segregated sports. Let take softball and baseball for instance. A guy throws a ball and hits a female player. i am not certain but i think there is a sensitive place on a female you can hit and kill her.
is there a pronoun for both. i know there is he and she. i am asking because i do not want to insult anyone on this comment page. i love everyone
Caster Semenya should be proud of having both parts
oh come on people the only way to fix this is to have sports for intersex people only. they have them for males only. females only
They are treating her like a show animal. Its deplorable.
I think she was set up and pressured to go girly for the magazine spread.I think she sways more towards wanting to being male.She might want to change her sex,like some other female athletes did when they found out they internal testes and were very male orientated anyways.I like caster,and wish her well on whatever she decides.
Aren’t ovaries just testes inside the body?
Can the world stop discussing her genitalia now? It’s no one’s business. Now she fems out for magazine covers. Are the breeders happy now? They are forcing her to become just like everyone else now. Next she’ll be wearing mascara when she runs. Shame on the poor sport that challenged her sex. I demand a gender test on Tiger Woods. His hands are so girly and he has such soft female lips. Clearly he is a female.
This is why there should not be sex-segregated sports. When you artificially break it down into male and female, rather than by ability, there is no place where intersex individuals can fairly compete because they are not male or female. Forcing such a person to choose is in my opinion insulting. This is even more so when that option is denied to everyone else.
What a well thought out article. Finally an really exquisite story on what this woman is going through.
She is not cheating and probably didn’t even know that she has testes. The fact that this is being played out in the press with 99% of articles declaring that she is a man is horrifying. If this had happened to her in the US she would have quite a lawsuit going over breach of confidentiality and HIPPA regulations.
My heart goes out to her.