Mark Etheridge, spokesman for the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee, says the hearings began Friday and would go into next week.

The committee is looking into the role of Athletics South Africa in the gender testing of Semenya. ASA president Leonard Chuene admitted that he lied about knowledge of gender tests involving the 18-year-old athlete.

Semenya won the 800 meters at the world championships in August in Berlin. Before the final, the world governing body for track and field said it had ordered gender tests on the runner.

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.

As the debate rages on about health care, issues of basic rights and essential services are the focus of much discussion. Just what should our government provide for us? If services are provided, how much should each citizen get?

In South Africa today and tomorrow, the Constitutional Court will be looking at exactly those questions. And their conclusions will be instructive.

When I lived in Cape Town and Johannesburg, the most shocking difference, and there are a lot of differences, was the lack of water fountains. We expect, in North America, to pause on our bike ride or run by a standing tap to fill up our water bottles. Practically speaking, those without homes, can do the same – ensuring that, of the many ailments plaguing our poorest citizens, dehydration won’t be top of the list.

In the southern part of Africa, water is a scarce resource, kind of like trying to find a knee surgeon in rural Illinois.

When the Apartheid government crowded Black South Africans into townships to provide cheap labor for the adjoining white neighborhoods, water was provided free to every home. Fifteen years after Mandela’s victory, water is sold, at a profit, to most township homes. Those who cannot afford to pay are provided with just enough water per month, per household to flush the toilet a few times a day.

Those cholera outbreaks that make the news every few months are no accident. They are the product of a government that decided essential services don’t need to be provided for free.

Well, residents of Johannesburg grew tired with the lack of government support and brought a legal challenge to the water privatization scheme. In the lower courts, their argument for government-provided essential services has been accepted. We will soon see what the high court has to say about free basic water for all.

South Africa’s constitution is very different from that of the United States. They have the tools to demand essential services in court and we are left with political wrangling in Washington. But the argument is the same.

If the government abandons the most basic needs of its population, the result is widespread disease and death. It may be cholera in South Africa and swine flu here in the North, but the consequences will be dire.

Let’s hope that the Constitutional Court and the U.S. court of public opinion come to the right conclusion and accept responsibility for essential services.

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.

The 18-year-old runner’s father, Jacob, told the Sowetan newspaper: “She is my little girl. … I raised her and I have never doubted her gender. She is a woman and I can repeat that a million times.”

Semenya dominated her rivals to win the 800 on Wednesday despite revelations that surfaced earlier in the day that she was undergoing a gender test. Her dramatic improvement in the 800 and 1,5000, muscular build and deep voice sparked speculation about her gender.

“She said to me she doesn’t see what the big deal is all about,” South Africa team manager Phiwe Mlangeni-Tsholetsane said Thursday. “She believes it is God given talent and she will exercise it.”

Mlangeni-Tsholetsane said Semenya was thrilled about winning the race and picking up her first world title.

“She was over the moon,” Mlangeni-Tsholetsane said.

Semenya wasn’t the only one wondering what all the fuss was about.

Semenya’s paternal grandmother, Maputhi Sekgala, said the controversy “doesn’t bother me that much because I know she’s a woman.”

“What can I do when they call her a man, when she’s really not a man? It is God who made her look that way,” Sekgala told the South African daily The Times.

About three weeks ago, the IAAF asked the South African athletics federation to conduct the gender test after Semenya burst onto the scene by posting a world leading time of 1 minute, 56.72 seconds at the African junior championships in Bambous, Mauritius.

The test, which takes weeks to complete, requires a physical medical evaluation, and includes reports from a gynecologist, endocrinologist, psychologist, an internal medicine specialist and an expert on gender.

Semenya did not attend the news conference after winning Wednesday night’s race by a margin of more than 2 seconds, in 1 minute, 55.45 seconds. She was replaced at the dais by IAAF general secretary Pierre Weiss.

Weiss said the testing was ordered because of “ambiguity, not because we believe she is cheating.”

If the tests show that Semenya is not a woman, she would be stripped of her gold medal.

“But today there is no proof and the benefit of doubt must always be in favor of the athlete,” Weiss said.

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

Gideon Sam, the president of South Africa’s Olympic governing body, congratulated Semenya on a “truly remarkable achievement.”

“We condemn the way she was linked with such media speculation and allegation, especially on a day she ran in the final of her first major world event,” Sam said. “It’s the biggest day of her life.”

The medal ceremony for the 800 is later Thursday.

Morris Gilbert, a media consultant for TuksSport, the University of Pretoria’s sports department, said the issue of Semenya’s gender has not been raised since the freshman began attending the school, where she studies sports science.

“We are all very proud of her and of what she’s achieved,” Gilbert said. “The university stands behind her all the way.”

He attributed her recent success to hard work and rigorous training.

“She trains a lot,” Gilbert said. “If you go to the athletics track, you’re sure to find her there. I don’t think she had really good training before she came to the university. She’s from a very poor area.”

Semenya’s former school headmaster said he thought for years that the student was a boy.

“She was always rough and played with the boys. She liked soccer and she wore pants to school. She never wore a dress. It was only in Grade 11 that I realized she’s a girl,” Eric Modiba, head of the Nthema Secondary School, told the Beeld newspaper.

Semenya’s family in the village of Fairlie, about 300 miles north of Johannesburg, said she was often teased about her boyish looks.

“That’s how God made her,” said Semenya’s cousin, Evelyn Sekgala. “We brought her up in a way that when people start making fun of her, she shouldn’t get upset.”

Semenya moved to Fairlie at about age 13 to help care for her grandmother, Maphuthi Sekgala.

Her cousin, who also lives with the grandmother, remembers Semenya playing soccer with the village boys, before a teacher got her interested in running.

Evelyn Sekgala said the family was pleased Semenya took up an interest in sports, and not in drinking and partying like other teenagers.Her grandmother would give her money to enter races.

“She was mainly interested in running,” Evelyn Sekgala said. “She wanted to further her athletic dream.”

While Semenya’s case has attracted a flurry of attention, it’s not the first gender controversy in track and field history.

In 2006, the Asian Games 800 champion, Santhi Soundarajan of India, was stripped of her medal after failing a gender test. Perhaps the most famous case is that of Stella Walsh, also known as Stanislawa Walasiewicz, a Polish athlete who won gold in the 100 at the 1932 Olympics, who had ambiguous genitalia.

The IOC conducted the gender tests at the Olympics, but the controversial screenings were dropped before the 2000 Sydney Games.

Among reasons for dropping the test, not all women have standard female chromosomes. In addition, there are cases of people who have ambiguous genitalia or other congenital conditions.

South Africa had about 5.2 million people living with HIV last year – the highest number of any country in the world. The government is under pressure to show its commitment to combat AIDS after years of official denial, neglect and unscientific responses that fueled the world’s worst AIDS crisis.

The South Africa HIV/AIDS Research and Innovation Platform (SHARP) aims to back research including studies on new or improved treatments, drug design, gene research and vaccines.

The Department of Science and Technology has pledged 45 million rand ($5.8 million) over the next three years to fund nine research proposals.

South Africa launched an AIDS vaccine created by its own researchers last week but the proud moment was marred when it emerged that state funding for the trial had been halted.

Science and Technology Minister Naledi Pandor on Tuesday denied that the government had “dumped” funding AIDS vaccines but said it wanted to take a broader approach to the problem.

“The actual development of an effective vaccine will take many more years and the collaborative efforts of our country’s best scientists,” Pandor said. “In the meantime, South Africa is investigating every possible avenue to beat the virus.”

The health department, not the science department, said it will spend 12 million rand ($1.5 million) on the vaccine initiative.

Research into an AIDS vaccine has run into so many problems that some experts have questioned sinking scarce funds into developing a vaccine, saying the money might be better spent on prevention and education.