But why?

The figure skater has not commented publicly about his sexual orientation. Rather, he is the big gay story out of Vancouver because fans and sportswriters — including gay sportswriters — have pre-conceived, biased notions about gay athletes and masculinity.

Should you be bothered by this?

Yes, it is part of the reason homophobia in sports persists.

Weir is a tremendous skater — a U.S. champion. He’s thrilled those fortunate enough to attend the Olympics and those of us watching on television and the Web.

Weir is a tremendous performer. There’s no question we’ve been watching a proud peacock on NBC. As one AP report noted, “Weir’s strength has always been his presentation, which can range from lyrical to avant garde to outrageous. No American skater has matched persona with performance the way Weir does.”

Weir is a tremendous diva — on the ice and off. The New York Times published a short report Feb. 14 about the pairing of U.S. ice dancer Tanith Belbin and Weir in a suite at the Games. Belbin tells the story of Weir visiting her family in Detroit: He came down to breakfast wearing a pink bandana on his head and sunglasses “the size of is face.” Belbin said her dad “was just staring at him while eating his breakfast, and Johnny just said, ‘Please, I don’t have my face on yet.’”

Weir is one of the biggest personalities in the Games.

These are reasons Johnny Weir should be a big story out of the Vancouver Games.

But, contrary to what so many writers in the press have indicated, these are not reasons to say that Johnny Weir is gay anymore than “tough” or “butch” implies a female athlete is a lesbian.

In one Web-based LGBT blog about Weir’s sexual orientation, the columnist wrote, “If you have watched Weir, last night wearing a black-and-pink corset with pretty pink frills down his arm, and you are still asking whether Weir is out or not, you need to check the prescription on your contact lenses. Actions speak louder than words, and whether or not Weir says the words ‘I’m gay’ to a reporter, he is the outest, proudest man in sports.’”

No kidding?

That pretty pink frills is a “Yep, I’m Gay” statement?

What about the other men in the figure-skating competition, which has been far more colorful than in past years?

I didn’t see any men in the speed-skating competitions wearing black-and-pink corsets with pretty prink fills, does this mean they are straight?

Does this mean if team uniforms were done away with, we might know right off who the gay players are in Major League Baseball? In the NFL? In the NBA or the WNBA?

How ridiculous.

We’ve been fighting “that’s so gay” comments in schools for years, let’s not tolerate them in our sports coverage, especially from our LGBT writers and editors.

If we can’t get past the stereotypes in sports within our community, then we likely will never get past homophobia in sports.

Last week, Australian commentators Eddie McGuire and Mick Molloy generated controversy for their coverage of men’s figure skating.

Molloy watched the procession of skaters and said, “They don’t leave anything in the locker room these blokes, do they?”

McGuire added, “They don’t leave anything in the closet either, do they?”

Australian TV viewers and anti-defamation groups are calling for the dismissal of Molloy and McGuire, but after all my reading last week I can say that their comments are not so different from the remarks I found on a number of LGBT news sites.

Do LGBT writers and readers really get to say that Weir is as gay as a balloon because he’s flamboyant, but not Molloy and McGuire?

Where oh where does Johnny Weir fall on the Kinsey scale?

I don’t know.

Pretty pink frills may tell us he’s got a unique eye for fashion and a big personality, but the frills don’t tell us whether he’s a gay guy or a straight guy.

One of the managers left a detailed voice mail message on Bellamy’s phone in July, saying “It doesn’t matter how many times you go down there, you will not get hired. We do not hire faggots. You lied to me.”

That manager has been fired.

A spokeswoman for McDonald’s told the Orlando Sentinel that the person who left the voice message for Bellamy with antigay slurs was let go. She said that the employee “acted outside the scope of his authority and was not responsible,” adding “[McDonald’s] has a zero tolerance policy prohibiting discrimination or harassment in the restaurant.”

Bellamy, 17, who has been living as a woman for six years, said that on two separate occasions in July, she tried to get an interview at the Orlando McDonald’s. Two separate managers refused to hire her.

The Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund (TLDEF) then filed the complaint with the Florida Commission on Human Relations on Bellamy’s behalf.

Although one of the managers has been fired as a result of the derogatory statements made in the recording, McDonald’s did not indicate what happened to the second manager.

Today, a decision was released by the International Association of Athletics Federation that Caster Semeya, the South African runner whose gender identity stirred up huge controversy after her decisive win in the 800m race at the world championships, will be permitted to keep her title and prize money.

It is, without a doubt, the right decision.

But that does not mean that this is a moment to celebrate.

The debate surrounding Semenya’s gender illustrates the real lack of understanding – around the world – for gender identity and the many permutations that exist within the spectrum of male to female.

Semenya was subjected to gender testing because of her muscular build, deep voice and quick improvement in running times. In short, she just seemed too boyish to be a girl.

She was tested for not being female enough even though the kind of conditions required to disqualify a self-identified girl from competing in boys sports are quite extreme. In fact, according to the IAAF’s own policy document on gender verification (2006), women can compete even if they are genetically male:

Conditions that should be allowed:

(a) Those conditions that accord no advantage over other females:
- Androgen insensitivity syndrome (Complete or almost complete – previously called testicular feminization);
- Gonadal dysgenesis (gonads should be removed surgically to avoid
malignancy);
- Turner’s syndrome.

As well, athletes who choose to have sex changes are permitted to continue to compete in sport as long as they have completed a mandatory number of months in hormone therapy.

If we know that women presenting some male characteristics are still likely to permissibly compete with women, then why are we singling those individuals out for genetic testing? More importantly, how do we really define what is too male to compete in women’s sport? And how do we distinguish being too male from being too tall, too efficient at using oxygen or too small? How do sex characteristics take on a level of importance above and beyond any other genetic advantage?

Well, I can answer that question: While we as a society are trained to celebrate strength, efficiency, natural talent and intelligence, we are not trained to celebrate those who stray from understood gender norms. Being too male is a serious transgression of social protocol, one to be punished and rectified.

But being born intesexed or identifying as a gender other than male or female might be no more of an advantage than Michael Phelps’ arm span. They are simply aspects of an individual’s make-up that assist their pursuit of athletic greatness. Nothing is stopping us from celebrating these athletes and their counterparts in everyday society as the unique and talented individuals they are.

I am happy that Semenya, after her long journey, will be recognized as an international athletic superstar. I hope that her struggle illustrates just how much work there is left to be done to promote understanding of and support for the variety of human gender expression all around us.

But when Sturgis – an honor student, trumpet player and goalie on the school’s soccer team – wanted her senior photograph in a tuxedo used in the 2009-10 yearbook, school officials balked. Traditionally, female students dress in drapes and males wear tuxedos.

Now, the American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi has gotten involved, issuing a demand letter to Principal Ronald Greer to publish the picture of Sturgis in the tuxedo. The ACLU says it’s giving the school until Oct. 23 to respond before pursuing court action, said Kristy L. Bennett, the ACLU’s legal director.

A secretary for Greer referred questions to Copiah County Schools Superintendent Rickey Clopton, who declined to comment on Thursday.

Sturgis said she should get to decide how she looks in the senior photo.

“I feel like I’m not important, that the school is dismissing who I am as a gay student and that they don’t even care about me. All I want is to be able to be me, and to be included in the yearbook,” Sturgis said in a statement.

Veronica Rodriguez, 47, said school officials are trying to force her daughter – who doesn’t even own a dress – to appear more feminine.

“The tux is who she is. She wears boys’ clothes. She’s athletic. She’s gay. She’s not feminine,” said Rodriguez during an interview Thursday at the ACLU office.

Rodriguez said Sturgis took her pictures over the summer instead of with the other students last year, but she used the same studio.

In August, Rodriguez said she received a letter from the school stating that only boys could wear tuxedos. Rodriguez said she met with assistant Superintendent Ronald Holloway who told her he didn’t see regulations about the issue in the student handbook.

But when she talked with Greer, she said he told her it was his “conviction” that Sturgis wouldn’t appear in the yearbook in a tuxedo.

Bennett said the teenager’s constitutional rights are being violated. Bennett said similar cases, including same-sex prom couples and girls wearing tuxedos to proms, have been successfully challenged in court in other states. ACLU officials said they were unaware of any other constitutional disputes involving gay teens at Mississippi schools.

“You can’t discriminate against somebody because they’re not masculine enough or because they’re not feminine enough. She’s making an expression of her sexual orientation through this picture and that invokes First Amendment protection,” Bennett said.

There’s no state policy that deals with the yearbook photo issue, said state Department of Education spokesman Pete Smith.

The deadline for the photo to be accepted for the yearbook was Sept. 30. But advertisements for the publication are still being taken so Sturgis has time for her photo to be included, Bennett said.

Sturgis lives with her grandparents in Wesson, a town of about 1,700 founded during the Civil War in southwest Mississippi. The town’s Web site said residents “pride ourselves on our quiet way of life.”

South African officials have repeatedly said tests were done only abroad, not in South Africa, before Semenya’s 800-meter world victory in Berlin.

In e-mails published Friday by Mail & Guardian, general manager of Athletics South Africa Molatelo Malehopo apparently gives team doctor Harold Adams permission to “go ahead” with tests requested by the international track and field body.

ASA president Leonard Chuene was copied in on an earlier e-mail to Malehopo asking for advice on handling the “confidential matter.”

Neither Chuene, Malehopo nor Adams were immediately available for comment.

Noluthando Mayende-Sibiya says the international athletics governing body failed to safeguard the confidentiality of the runner whose sex has been questioned. She says they showed “blatant disregard” for Semenya’s “human dignity.”

The complaint made Monday asks the UN Division for the Advancement of Women to investigate the matter.

The International Association of Athletics Federations has refused to confirm or deny Australian media reports saying sex tests show that the women’s 800-meter world champion has both male and female characteristics.

International track officials initiated the tests before Caster Semenya won the 800-meter world championship in Germany, and results are awaited. That did not mute the mood Friday in her home village, which she is visiting for the first time since the race.

Relatives and others at the celebration say they want to support Semenya so she can continue to succeed. They marvel at what she has achieved since leaving Ga-Masehlong, where many live without electricity or indoor plumbing.

Local entrepreneurs gave her a laptop computer and promised to help fund her education. Municipal officials say a nearby stadium will be renamed for her.

South Africans have rallied behind the 18-year-old, who is not accused of trying to cheat but of perhaps unknowingly having a medical condition that blurs her gender and gives her an unfair advantage over other female runners.

The governing African National Congress party, unions and other groups were urging their members to come to the airport Tuesday morning to greet Semenya at a rally.

“I’ll be there,” Semenya’s father, Jacob, told The Associated Press Monday. He said his daughter would then return to university in Pretoria.

Jacob Semenya said it was not clear when his daughter would visit the family’s village in northern South Africa. But Sammy Molofo, an ANC Youth League leader in the area where the runner grew up, said a weekend homecoming celebration was being planned there.

President Jacob Zuma was to meet Semenya and the two other South African medalists, men’s 800-meter champion Mbulaeni Mulaudzi and men’s long jump runner-up Kgotso Mokoena at the presidential guest house in Pretoria. According to a statement from his office Monday, Zuma wants “to congratulate them on their sterling performance in Berlin.”

COSATU, the country’s main trade union federation, said Tuesday’s welcome would be for the whole team, but “especially Caster, who has been the victim of such a despicable campaign by international athletics officials to discredit her magnificent achievement by maliciously raising unfounded questions about her gender.”

Semenya’s family and friends say there is no doubt she is a woman. But it is not always easy to get a clear-cut answer from scientists on the question in some cases.

The IAAF, track and field’s governing body, will decide Semenya’s case according to whether her “conditions … accord no advantage over other females” after consulting a gynecologist, an endocrinologist, a psychologist, an internal medicine specialist and a gender expert. Her genes and physiology as well as how she sees herself and how she is seen by her community could play a role in their determination.

South Africans have been outraged not just that questions have been raised, but that they have been made public.

On Sunday, Lamine Diack, the IAAF president, said the affair was handled badly.

“I deeply regret that confidentiality was breached in this case and that the IAAF were forced into a position of having to confirm that gender testing was being carried out on this young athlete,” Diack told reporters in Berlin. “It is a regrettable matter and I have requested an internal inquiry to ensure that procedures are tightened up and this never happens again.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/12/eudy-simelane-corrective-rape-south-africa

Many of you might remember the flurry of testing that happened before the Beijing olympics. Gender testing, age testing, drug testing, hit the news pretty much every day.

Well this time a South African athlete is subject to a media flurry about her gender identity after winning the 800 metre at the World Championships.

It’s not that gender in sport is irrelevant. Although I believe in gender neutrality in all things, I understand that those who take competitive sport seriously have science that explains exactly why men and women should not be forced to compete against each other. As a person who feels that the gender binary is only harmful, it would make more sense to me to have gender neutral world competitions allowing for the idea that a man, woman or person who wishes not to identify as either gender could be the world record holder in any one sport.

Still, understanding that I’m not going to change the way the entire world of sports operates, it still seems particularly cruel to judge those who might be more masculine in appearance more harshly. Is it not possible that a man with a particularly feminine build would slip by the judges unnoticed because he fit their stereotyped understanding of female? Shouldn’t testing be mandatory for all athletes rather than only subjecting those who look “different” to a public humiliation?

This is especially true for the South African runner in the news today. She comes from a country with rigid concepts of gender identity. It is a country where lesbians are brutally murdered, even in large urban centers, for simply being out. Her masculine appearance has, according to her father, always caused her great hardship and now her parents are forced to defend her “femaleness” to the world.

Well, I find it outrageous.

The international world of sport has dealt with intersexed people for its entire history and benefits from the talents of individuals who don’t fit into gender norms. They should be forced to lead the way in gender openness and inclusion, not target its own superstars for being different.

Proving one’s gender isn’t always so easy. Aside from the obvious physical signs, chromosomes usually determine whether a person is male or female. Males are born with XY chromosomes while females have two X chromosomes.

About 1 percent of people are born with some kind of sexual ambiguity, sometimes referred to as intersexuality. These people may have the physical characteristics of both genders, a chromosomal disorder, or simply have ambiguous features. People who have both male and female organs are hermaphrodites.

Until 1999, the International Olympic Committee analyzed chromosomes from saliva samples to confirm the gender of female competitors and prevent men from masquerading as women. Other sports organizations have called the tests unreliable. The tests were scrapped before the 2000 Sydney Games.

The most common cause of sexual ambiguity is congenital adrenal hyperplasia, an endocrine disorder where the adrenal glands produce abnormally high levels of hormones.

In women, this means a masculine appearance. They may have female sexual organs, but the ovaries may be unable to produce estrogen, preventing the growth of breasts or pubic hair.

There are also several rare chromosomal disorders where women may have some male characteristics. Women with Turner syndrome, which affects about 1 in 2,000 babies, typically have broad chests and very small breasts. Their ovaries do not develop normally and they cannot ovulate.

About 1 in 1,000 women are also born with three X chromosomes. They tend to be exceptionally tall, with long legs and slender torsos. They usually have female sexual organs and are fertile.

A handful of athletes have typically dropped out or been thrown out of the Olympics for failing gender tests over the years. But no evidence supports the idea that such competitors have an unfair athletic advantage.