Gender and Sex, isnt that the same thing, anyway, when I watch the 800m race and I see who win, everyone around the TV starting look wondering if she was a woman or man or if we were watching the right race. We couldn’t decide and we just say she is a woman because everyone else was a woman, the next day it all over the internet if she is a woman or not.

She need to take a gender test, I cant see any female in her…

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Thanks for the comment Anthony.

I do have a slight problem with the IAAF insisting she takes one, but she is going to so be it. Her family insist she is a girl, so lets hope they are right.

What really galles me is the way they went about it. Very very disappointing.

Keep the comments coming…

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Her family’s insistance that she is a woman is not really that relevent. What we are talking about is a chromosonal condition that is entirely internal. If she is intersex and therefore in breach of IAAF rules there is every possibility that neither she nor her family were aware of it. Imagine at the age of 18 having your medal stipped and discovering you are a hemaphrodite in one day. Poor kid…

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It’s been poorly handled, but your implication of racism is a bit of a stretch. I seem to remember numerous East Germans and other Soviet block females having their gender questioned. The fact is that she comes out of nowhere, destroys the best female runners in the world and looks and runs like a man. I feel sorry for her if she is indeed a woman, but it’s common sense to question her gender. If the Olympic gold for ice dancing is won by two Europeans and they both have beards and bulging biceps, I don’t think you’d object to a bit of testing would you?

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A little more reasearch and less emotion would have been appropriate. Press release from yesterday: The IAAF has asked the South African athletics federation toconduct a gender verification test on 800-meter runner Caster
Semenya amid concerns she does not meet the requirements to compete as a woman.

The 18-year-old Semenya is a favorite in Wednesday’s 800m final at the world championships.

The IAAF requested the gender test about three weeks ago after Semenya burst onto the scene by slicing her personal bests in the 800 and 1,500 by huge margins.

IAAF spokesman Nick Davies said the “extremely complex, difficult” test has been started but that the results were not expected for several weeks.

Her progression from the Junior world championships 2008 (2:11,98) to this years world championship (1:55,45) is quite mind boggling.

I hope she’s a woman, but also agree with verifaction.

What galls me is you playing the racecard, which spoils your whole article.

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Thanks for the comments.

I say to Gregg you are welcome to your point in relation to race, and maybe I did overstate the point, but sometimes I wonder. A dialogue on the issue I don’t think is a bad thing, but in the right context, so point taken.

Your other point about East Germans and Soviet athletes is well made, and I would agree with your assertion that if I saw two bearded people competing in a women’s race, I would ask for a test.

That leads onto Karen’s point: she might have a condition that we simply don’t know about, and getting emotional around the issue would be the wrong way to approach this discussion. I would admit that I’m slightly guilty of that in this case.

It is just really disappointing to have some good news about a South African doing well soured by this sort of business, especially its unconventional nature.

Keep the comments coming…

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A heads up to Joost as well, who also called me on the race card…

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Despite pointing out that there is a difference between sex and gender, the article sadly gets it wrong by saying that the questions asked are “about her gender”, when in fact the tests are for sex.

The following article throws more light on the complexities:

http://www.sportsscientists.com/2009/08/caster-semenya-male-or-female.html

Blaming the IAAF for this debacle seems unfair. ASA should have settled the matter by comprehensive testing ahead of time - this was not a new controversy.
It could have prevented a lot of grief for Caster - now we can just wish it turns out the best for her.

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The issue of race. It is the public manner in which this was done. Perhaps it is an indictment of SA Athletics failure to prepare for that probability which even to me a casual observer was very high. To take an emotional view rather against a scientific view in a sport dominated by black people is too much.

Somebody blogging on the Yahoo sports page yesterday actually saw the whole thing as demeaning and belittling female sport in that such issues are not raised against anyone competing in the male sports arena. Imagine if say Bolt had a mixed gender and being disqualified from the man’s race.

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Michael: Well, go figure. I was always of the opinion that sex was biological and gender was sociological, and the word they keep using in the media (a lot of the online stuff anyway) is gender test. Food for thought…

I would agree with you that this shouldn’t have been an issue if ASA had stepped up to the plate and done their job properly. Fingers crossed…though I still don’t appreciate the IAAF’s approach on this.

Bravo: As said earlier, I was probably guilty of being swept up in the consternation of the matter instead of taking a moment and considering the different elements at play.

Keep posting comments. I am more then happy to be proved wrong if we can debate the topic and decide for ourselves what we think based on the different points of view presented.

Note: Usain Bolt = incredible

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I find the whole thing very sad. To me it is a bunch of self-important people, who are so worried about their “importance” that they cannot take the time to do their job properly. It would be so easy for the to have done it in a decent manner. What a pity.

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[…] feels that the whole controversy exposes the IAAF hypocrisy and bungling of the situation, he writes: Being only 18, Semenya has a bright future ahead of her if the IAAF’s bungling of the situation […]

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[…] feels that the whole controversy exposes the IAAF hypocrisy and bungling of the situation, he writes: Being only 18, Semenya has a bright future ahead of her if the IAAF’s bungling of the situation […]

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Apparently determining someone’s sex is more complicated than one would think.

But the local media appear to be only capable of reporting on the politics of the issue: never the science.

Why is that? Do the journalists think their readers are too simple-minded to understand, or does the simple-mindedness rest with the journalists? I hope some third possibility is the correct answer, but I’m cynical about my hopes being realised.

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Borked the link. I’ll try again: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/22/sports/22runner.html?em

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Does no one remember the case of ‘Jan Morris’ the tennis champion? Jan was a transexual (male to female) competing in all the international title matches, first as a man and then as a woman. Her case was the catalyst for the sex/gender debate in sport.

Then there was Billie Jean King a 12 time Grand Slam Winner who was challenged to a match against a male Wimbledon champion, Bobby Riggs. Ms. King won the match amid boos and catcalls of “Dyke’ and other epithets.

Similarly, Martina Navrotilova suffered years of discrimination because of her lesbianism. Her career and her personal life were subjected to minute investigation before the world seemed to ‘get over’ the fixation on her sexuality.

When women develop world-class prowess in any sport which builds muscle, they encounter accusations about their sexual identities. Look at the female body builders whose extreme athleticism often results in the loss of breast tissue and other changes to the shape of the body that make them look more like men than women. Love of sport or body building can lead to significant physiological changes, including a re-balancing of sex hormones affecting ’secondary’ sexual characteristics like facial hair, under arm hair, and loss of fatty breast tissue. That is price some women are willing to pay to be the best at what they do. Their bodies are their business but when their body assumes more masculine than ‘feminine’ proportions there are legitimate questions that need to be answered. such as whether the person in question is using steroids.

The question no one seemed to be asking last week was why Ms. Semenya had not been requested to submit to a physical sex determination examination long before she reached the finals. The question is not about Ms. Semenya’s ’self-image’; it is about her physical characteristics. Separating ‘gender’ from ’sex’ is an exercise in political correctness, not a measure of reality.

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Knowing that this girl is young and unlikely to drag this organisation before an international tribunal, they decided to publish it in the media.

Mr Wakefield, you are perfectly justified in raising the issue of race. These people would not have DARED do this to an American, Brit or European. Some women - yes, women - look more male than others. This does not make them mutants or freaks of nature.
And they wonder why its hard being black.

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So, the Daily Telegraph, a respected and serious English broadsheet, reports that the dodgy East German doctor Ekkart Arbeit, who pumped up those mannish white girls with testosterone and anabolics in the Eighties and admitted as such, is the SA team doctor. And Semenya had three times the normal female levels of testosterone in her system.

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With no further comment really except you pathetic South Africans continually bring out the RACE CARD. Poorly researched - poorly written for a selective audience, who feed on the pap you have presented - but then again far better people than you have been found wanting in the end - perhaps if you had done a better research and found the link Michael provided - perhaps your article would have had a different ending.

I really feel for her - she has been hung out to exposure by the incompetents in SA sport, whose credibility - not that of the IAAF has been shattered because this is not a racial issue - it is a gender issue!

QUOTE
“Leonard Chuene, president of Athletics South Africa, has blamed a mysterious figure in the South African media, saying the story had emanated from South Africa. He would not be drawn on the exact source, saying he was bound by “protocol” and did not want to be “sued”……

Attacks were launched on the media by ANCYL leader Malema and ANC stalwart Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, who suggested the media be more “patriotic” and support Semenya.

“The story emanated from this country. I have evidence on this. Australia is a scapegoat,” said Chuene at the press conference on Semenya’s return. “I think the story got to the IAAF from this country. I stand firm on this: “She’s a girl.”

ASA have come under fire for not foreseeing Semenya’s gender might be questioned, but Chuene, who resigned from IAAF council in protest at
the furore around Semenya, denied this………”
END OF QUOTE

http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=6&click_id=79&art_id=iol1251196858395S550

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The IAAF led by an African man tried to force the SA authorities to drop Caster from the team going to the world champs.

They did that for good reason.

The SA authorities chose to ignore them. That is why the IAAF insisted on a gender test which was announced before the final.

If the ASA had not acted so stupidly , this would not have happened.

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