South African runner Caster Semenya, 18, made headlines worldwide last month when it came out that she would undergo gender testing to verify her first place finish in the women’s 800 metre race at the 2009 World Championships in Athletics. Semenya has always identified herself as female, but her visible masculine characteristics and deep voice brought her gender into question. The results are supposedly in, and Semenya has reportedly been identified as a hermaphrodite. The thing is, these reports have been leaked to the press and weren’t supposed to be officially released for a few months. Her family is understandably upset:
MOKGADI Caster Semenya’s family and South African athletics bosses are outraged at an alleged leak of a medical investigation that reportedly found the 800m world champion has “both male and female sexual characteristics”.
Yesterday, the Australian The Daily Telegraph quoted a “source closely involved with the Semenya examinations” at the International Association of Athletics Federations as saying that tests, including “various scans”, showed she had internal testes and no uterus or ovaries.
“Tests conducted during the World Athletics Championships in Berlin last month, where Semenya’s gender became the subject of heated debate following her victory in the 800m, revealed evidence she is a hermaphrodite, someone with both male and female sexual characteristics,” the Sydney tabloid reported.
The IAAF has said it will release the report only in November, after consulting Semenya.
Spokesman Nick Davies did not respond last night to queries on the alleged leak.
The Times informed Semenya’s family of the Australian newspaper’s report on the gender tests performed by IAAF doctors last month.
The 18-year-old’s mother, Dorcus, fumed and accused the media of “causing the family pain” by continuing to report on the controversy.
“Why must jealousy drive people to say such bad things? Why are you bringing all this?” she said, before hanging up.
Semenya’s grandmother, Maphuthi Sekgale, was shocked and angry on hearing the news: “They are crazy. It can only be jealousy that makes them say that she is a man.
“I raised her as a young girl and I have no doubt that she is a girl.
“As the family, we don’t care who is saying what and we also don’t care, even if she won’t be running internationally, but we will always support her athletic talent,” she said
The Daily Telegraph claimed “Semenya has three times the amount of testosterone a ‘normal’ female would have”.
It said the IAAF “is ready to disqualify Semenya from future events” and has not ruled out stripping her of her gold medal.
Athletics SA president Leonard Chuene told The Times last night that he was appalled at “how far people are willing to go to pull down Semenya’s victory”.
“What you are saying to me is like swearing at this little girl. We have no idea where these allegations are coming from because we were told by IAAF that the results would only be out in November,” said Chuene, who has repeatedly denied any gender tests were conducted on the athlete.
Chuene accused unnamed people in Europe of “making up their minds about Caster”.
“[They] will continue spreading these stories until they have ruined her name,” he said.
The Australian report quoted the unnamed IAAF source as saying: “There certainly is evidence Semenya is an hermaphrodite. But the trouble is the IAAF now has the whole ANC and the whole of South Africa on their backs.
“Everything is going to have to be done absolutely by the book, no question of a challenge to our findings,” it said.
ANC Youth League spokesman Floyd Shivambu — whose organisation gave Semenya R50000 after her win — said the report might be based on “malicious rumour”.
“I think we need to find the real truth before we can give these claims a platform,” he said.
“We need to know who is saying this. We should be careful that we are not giving them a platform to confirm a rumour that is not yet verified by the IAAF.”
[From TheTimes.co.za]
Last year I caught a special on NPR about transgendered athletes that aired during the controversy over gender testing for the Beijing Olympics. Transgender author Jennifer Finney Boylan was a guest, and she convinced me that transgender and ambiguous gender athletes have a right to compete. She wrote a very compelling op-ed in the NY Times about this issue if you’d like to read her arguments. I also agree with an editorial in The Nation that says that sex testing in athletics needs to stop and that “The idea that an 18-year-old who has just experienced the greatest athletic victory of her life is being subjected to this very public humiliation is shameful to say the least.”
Does Semenya have an inherent advantage over other female athletes if she was born with hidden male characteristics? It’s not her fault, and she seems to have been unaware of it up until now. It may look obvious to us, but her family sounds mortified and they swear that she’s a woman. Should we tell her she can’t compete because she’s not “100%” female? Supposedly she didn’t even suspect this. Should we bar everyone that’s not born strictly male or female from competing in athletic competitions? Should we relegate them to “other” status and make them compete in a separate but unequal category? What about athletes with excess testosterone or androgen? Semenya worked hard for her success, it wasn’t achieved because she had some latent testes. She beat records and she won the race. Surely that counts for something.
A hermaphodite has both male and female genitals. I’ve read that she has AIS.
A person with AIS – androgen insensitivity – is genitically male but her body doesn’t recognize this fact. She the pe*is is very small – basically a slightly large cli*oris. She has a “vag*na”, but no uterus (if you look at fetal development, all babies start as female until the Y chromosome kicks in and male characteristics form). Her testes never descend and end up taking the location where the ovaries go. So essentially, until the girl reaches puberty and never has period, she has no clue. She probably thought nothing of it because many female runners don’t have periods. Anyway, when discovered that’s when a decision is made about gender. The testes must be removed because undescended testicles can quickly become cancerous. Hormone are supplemented for either male or female characteristics.
Hermaphoditism is a totally different thing. Read the book “Middlesex.
The only question relevant to the issue of intrasex athletes is “Does their genetic anomaly give them an unfair competitive advantage over their fellow athletes?” Until the medical community answers this question definitively, I can’t offer an opinion.
Thanks Ria, I did read Middlesex, very good book, and it’s been reported that Semenya is a hermaphrodite. That’s what the source we’re quoting above says and other outlets are reporting the same thing. There’s no mention of AIS unless that is an earlier rumor. Please give a link that says she has AIS.
If she has testes and does not have AIS, then she has an unfair advantage over other women. I would say by her muscular development and broad shoulders, that she does NOT have AIS.
I am sorry beyond belief for her and her family if they were truly ignorant of her condition, which it sounds like they were.
I feel really bad for this poor girl…what a horrible thing to have to go through under the glare of the global media spotlight.
That said, “Semenya worked hard for her success, it wasn’t achieved because she had some latent testes” is a bit inaccurate. Physiologically, men and women are different. Men are stronger, faster, etc. If you take two champion 100M sprinters – one guy, one girl – in peak physical condition (without the use of performance-enhancers) and have them race each other, I guarantee you that the man will win the race every time. And that’s not because women aren’t as good as men or anything like that; it’s just that men are faster than women. That’s just the way it is.
So, if Caster is genetically a male, competing in female races, it stands to reason that she would have a distinct advantage, and would be more likely to win. If she does, in fact, have three times more testosterone in her system than a “normal” female, that’s essentially giving her the same performance-enhancing advantage as taking steroids.
I don’t know how all this will play out, and I don’t know if she’ll be able to continue racing in the women’s division. Is she fast enough to race in the men’s division, I wonder?
I think that what Ria means is that based on what these reports claim she has (internal testes & no uterus), she fits the description of AIS, not hermaphroditism. Pop-culture tends to over-use the term hermaphroditism, even when medicially inaccurate (as it seems to be in Semenya’s case, IF those reports are accurate).
In any case, I feel for this poor young girl and this humiliation she has had to endure. While it makes good “common” sense that a female with excess testosterone would be a better athlete than a female without it, there has never been a single scientific study that has been able to substantiate that belief.
Excess testosterone gives her an advantage, but it seems horribly unfair to disqualify someone from their beloved sport just because they were born intersexed. Perhaps she can get the internal testes removed, which will lower her testosterone levels and allow her to keep competing.
the IAAF should be ashamed of themselves! Whoever is leaking should be stuck down.
Rules are always ridiculous, and always changing to plss off the masses. They often make unenforceable rules last minute with no regard to the outcome. The whole system is flawed.
That being said while it’s certainly not fair to strip her medal it’s not fair to the other girls to be racing a girl w/ 3x the testosterone. I know I wouldn’t want to. Caster has an unfair advantage, it seems. So I’m glad I;m not making the rules.
The IAAF and leakers should be very very ashamed of themselves. Talk about outing someone.
I hate to speculate on whether Caster has AIS or is a hermaphrodite. But if she has AIS and her body doesn’t recognize testosterone, what would account for her deep voice, her mannish features, her well-developed musculature? That screams testosterone to me. From what I understand AIS females outwardly appear like females but are genetically XY. If Caster is an AIS female, I don’t think her medals should be stripped because her increased testsoterone levels do not give her an advantage over any female athlete and she won fair and square.
It’s a shame that the girl has to go through this public humilation. I hope that she and her family get counseling so they can understand her and accept her condition. It’s also sad that if she is a hermaphrodite, there’s a good chance she won’t be able to compete competively with either sex.
The whole story just makes me really depressed.
@MollyB – and I’m not sure, but I think in women with AIS, their bodies don’t use the testosterone? I know that they do have some male secondary sex characteristics (such as facial hair), but I’m not sure on that one. My husband is an Ob/Gyn, and he’s supposed to look it up for me to clarify (we’re following this because 1 – his profession 2 – he was a track star in college).
When I was on my peds rotation, we had a hermaphodite baby born. The doc knew on birth and sent her to the university hospital for genetic testing so they could decide if she was male of female. So I believe that is often caught at birth.
My main thing is I feel sorry for her. Isn’t she just 18? Could you imagine being that age and EVERYONE know what’s going on in your danger zone?
Also, I think Middlesex is about something else – here is the link ….
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middlesex_(novel)
Oh heaven help me…
September, Dear:
‘Penis’ ‘clitoris’ and ‘vagina’ are proper names for body parts, used in medical terminology, and it is perfectly a-okay to spell them out without a flurry of asterisks (th*t’s th*s* th*ngs).
Its AIS. People need to be more informed on it!!
The levels of testosterone were, I thought I read, 3 times what they should be, and that does give her an unfair advantage in athletics.
It is sad, but the fact of the matter is she does not fit into the world of women’s athletics, especially in her chosen sport, any longer.
I feel for her, but she has an advantage and that makes her medal null and void in my book.
I agree with Firestarter – if a normal female athlete won a medal and then later was discovered to have taken lots of testosterone to build more muscle, wouldn’t we be calling for her medal? I mean, I know Caster had no knowledge of her situation before now, but it is what it is.
Y’know, I can’t help but wonder if there’s a part of Caster thinking, “Wow, so THIS is why I’ve always felt different from other women.” Because I have to imagine she’s felt before like maybe there was something just a liiiiittle off. Like never having a period or developing breasts…
In my opinion, if she has “three times the amount of testosterone” that other women have, then she shouldn’t be allowed to compete against women. Testosterone is what makes men stronger and faster than us.
I think people are confusing her with the other female athlete Santhi Soundarajan who had AIS and she did not only loose her medal it destroyed her career and and her mental health.She has stopped running and contemplated suicide after finding out about it.
I hope that if Caster haves the same thing she realizes that she still a woman , it does not change the person who she is and does not have to trought the same things that Santhi went through and takes Santhi’s advice of not abondoning the fight.
Santhi’s gave an interview where she send advite to caster and talked about her expirience.
The interview with Caster’s makeover it breaks my heart , i have never wanted to hug someone so bad when she say that ” she had never try using make up or using dresses because she only used what her mom got for her but now that she try them she was going to keep using them’
I feel so horrible for this poor person. Whoever reported her is just a hater.
I really don’t want her to lose her medals. If she knew she had an advantage due to her biology then yeah, take them back, but this girl did train, did race and just happens to have this. She was honest with herself as far as doping goes so let her keep them.
I do believe that the advantage is unfair when it comes to racing with other women now. If she could remove the testes, go through whatever hormonal treatments, then she should be allowed to get back in and race with the gender she identifies with. I don’t know that its so cut and dry but if it is, she should be allowed that option for her future.
How sad, though, to be 18 and told you’re a boy not a girl, you’re not allowed to do what you’ve always done, you can’t have children, and your past success could be taken from you. This should have been as private as possible to allow her some room to recover.
Poor thing. I don’t know that there is a solution that is good and fair to everyone. The most important thing, though, is that she gets appropriate counseling to help her learn about her condition and what exactly it will mean to her throughout her life, and that she gets support and love from her family and friends. No matter what, she is going to have a tough road ahead, but with love and support she should be able to cope and have a good, happy and healthy life.
I have a cousin who was born a hermaphrodite; this was decades ago when all the genetic testing, etc. was still in it’s infancy. Basically, the Drs told his parents to pick which gender they wanted him to be and that’s what they would make him. So, he became a boy.
When he was in his 40’s, he decided to become female. He’s been female for about 20 years now and has done great. Not one single person in our family had a problem with it (although I admit I still have trouble remembering to call her by her female name…but come on, it’s a lifetime habit!!!). Her friends accepted the change easily and one of them even married her! They had many happy years together until her husband, sadly, died of cancer.
I’m just saying that even though someone is born different doesn’t mean they have to have a lifetime of angst and misery. My cousin is just one example of someone with a similar problem that is living a normal, happy life.
I’m assuming something such as AIS because it didn’t say she had penis – rather a vagina and undescended testes. Also, that’s what all the chatter on DListed was saying last night. The description fits that.
And @ Bill Hicks – I didn’t spell the words in full because I thought I’d get stuck in moderation or cause pop ups – same as when people spell pron for porn. I have no problem with the words.
The point is I feel sorry for this girl. All this drama is playing out in the public eye.
I feel bad for that athlete, poor thing must be devastated. wish they did these kind of tests before the competition, not making a publicity stunt out of it after she won….sad
I don’t understand why people are saying she should be embarrassed by the information that leaked. Biology is biology, and she will make whatever decisions she wishes to, based on the genetic testing. She’s still a great person and a fantastic athlete, no matter whether her body is male or female or a mix of the two.
I have a real problem with them threatening to strip her of her gold medal. If they do so, because of the higher testosterone in her system, then they need to test every single woman who competes; she may not be the only one with a higher level. Will they make a range that’s acceptable, and anyone higher have to compete in a different division? What would they do for people who are Chimera as well?
Thank you for educating me about AIS. There are a lot of things I haven’t learned about intersex individuals and the like, and I appreciate it.
I do have sympathy for this poor girl. It was a private matter. And she should keep her medals. She won them fair and square.
What really pisses me off about this who thing is her coach’s betrayal. Her coach asked her for blood samples from her and complied, believing it was for doping testing. And her coach just handed it over for DNA testing! Like WTF!?!?! Your coach is someone always in your corner. Poor girl.
Poor girl. I don’t think they should revoke medals. Learn from it and maybe change the rules in future, but don’t be ruining sports for everybody.
Team Caster. Done.
She won them, but against women who do not have 3 times the testosterone level of normal women.
Everyone knows that testosterone gives power and strength, so how is it fair that she won those medals against women who were inferior to her strength?
It is a sad and difficult situation. There is no really fair and simple solution to the matter, whatever route is taken.
I think everyone is getting “gender” and “sex” confused here. Your gender is the way you live your life, whether that’s male, female, or something in between. Caster was raised as a female, lives as a female, and identifies as a female. That makes her female. Gender is a social construct and cannot be determined by any amount of laboratory testing. To tell her she’s not a woman is horrible.
Her sex, on the other hand, is what her sex chromosomes say. She could be XX (female), XY (male), or even something else, like XXY or just X. There are all kinds of mutations of the sex chromosomes that can occur.
As for her “elevated amounts of testosterone”, I think we’re missing something here. MOST female athletes have more testosterone than the average woman. That’s what makes them so good at what they do. If we’re using average female testosterone levels as a standard, then we need to kick out a heck of a lot of genetically female athletes from their sports.
@Firestarter: If Caster has AIS then her body produces testorone that is on par with men, BUT her body does NOT respond to testosterone or DHT in any way — hence the term androgen insensitivity. So AIS women do not have an advantage over other women in competitive sports.
If she’s not an AIS woman, then I completely agree with you. Looking at her, I think her body does respond to testosterone, but I’m neither a doctor nor an expert on sex/gender disorders so I can’t say whether she’s a hermaphrodite, an AIS woman or has some other sex/gender disorder.
Whether or not she actually is a hermaphrodite or has AIS, I think it’s the biggest load of bull that she was ever tested in the first place. Simply because she looks like a boy? I see plenty of girls who look like boys, with boyish figure and masculine features, but no one questions their sex. Add well-defined musculature to the equation and they will look like a man. And besides that, I honestly think that if she had come in second or third, no one would have cared.
And what if she is a hermaphrodite or intersex or whatever? Will they kick her out? And the idea that it’s “unfair” for her to race is a bit silly. There is no way to completely level the playing field. There will always be someone with some sort or genetic advantage, and that’s the point, someone is always better.
All this is speculation anyways, the official results won’t be released until november. And shame on the person who told all this crap to the media for a quick buck. This is a person life, and they are screwing with it.
I feel sorry for her, she was never trying to hide herself or her sex,but because a few fellow competitors and coaches were jealous they do this garbage to her and then supposedly let it leak for all the world to read about. The IAAF needs to be sued big time for the leak.
As for the medals, let the girl keep what she’s won, but if it’s proven that this does give her an advantage,then ban her until she gets a sex change and let her or him compete again. Her competitors will just have to chalk it up to shit happens. She did not knowingly do this to help her win, was unaware of this. Hence she was competing in all fairness.
She’s intersex, not transgendered. And there is no such thing as a human hermaphrodite, technically. Sure, the word gets slung around, but in order to be a hermaphrodite a person must have external and fully functional genitalia of both sexes.
All that said, I feel terrible for this girl.
I’m totally team Caster, too. Definitely.
I’m not justifying the jealousy or suspicions of her competitors, but I do have to say that on some level I understand their concern that they are being forced to compete against an unfair advantage.
This is a thorny thicket and its going to force some deep discussion and the need to develop rules for these sorts of situations.
All I know is that I have acquaintances who have spent their lifetime training and preparing to compete athletically at a national and international level. They have followed all the rules and entered into the competition with the understanding that they are starting at an equal level. I suspect that many of Caster’s competitors are feeling somewhat duped or that they’ve wasted a lifetime training for something they might never win because someone else has what they consider to be an “unfair” advantage?
I have no answers for any of this, just trying to consider both sides of the issue. I feel badly for Caster and her family that they have been denied a proper grace period during which they could have sought out advice and counseling. I also feel badly for the other athletes who are being pushed by coaches and others to react with their emotions versus their hearts. Again, this is a thorny thicket.
It’s hardly complicated: Testicles = male. Pull the medal, end of story.
this has got to be a really embarrassing situation to go through in public 🙁
hopefully they will not disqualify her. People are born with all sorts of physical advantages or disadvantages… some are bigger, some are smaller, some have longer legs and are better runners, some have shorter legs etc etc… she was just born with a natural source of testosterone that makes her a better competitor. it’s not like she’s taking anything illegal to be better….
it’s only unfair if it came from a bottle… what is she supposed to do? come up with a new standard for competition? would they disqualify her if she had extraordinarily long legs?
I wish her well.
First of all, what a HORRIBLE thing to do to this person. She was born and raised in a country with poor medical service; there is no doubt in my mind that her family didn’t know what was really happening with her; they are probably the most shocked people on the planet right now, and should have been allowed to find this out in PRIVATE.
So, to the person who leaked this: I hope you die painfully, publicly and rot in hell for this.
Caster trained for this, won a medal, and this is how her teammates and her coach repay her? Jesus H. With friends like this, who needs enemies?
To Ms. Caster I say: I am SO sorry this is happening to you and your family; I wish you all only the best.
Jamie Lee Curtis has an extra chromosome. She had her testicles removed for health reasons and she is all woman.
@Jana – inform yourself about AIS. It stands for androgen insensitivity syndrome. It means that you have testes and produce testosterone, but your body does not have the ability to respond to it (hence the ‘insensitivity’). With no ability to respond to testosterone, these women do not develop a strong musculature, generally have large breasts, and very soft skin.
@Twinkletoes – you are speaking of a completely different genetic disorder than what Jamie Lee Curtis is rumored to have, which is AIS. In AIS you do not have an extra chromosome.
” How AIS Occurs
Every foetus, whether genetically male (XY) or female (XX), starts life with the capacity to develop either a male or female reproductive system. All foetuses have non-specific genitals for the first 8 weeks or so after conception. After a few weeks, in an XY foetus (without AIS), the non-specific genitals develop into male genitals under the influence of male hormones (androgens).
In AIS, the child is conceived with male (XY) sex chromosomes. Embryonic testes develop inside the body and start to produce androgens. In AIS, these androgens cannot complete the male genital development due to a rare inability to use the androgens that the testes produce so the development of the external genitals continues along female lines. However, another hormone produced by the foetal testes suppresses the development of female internal organs. Thus a person with AIS has external genitals that in Complete AIS (CAIS) are completely female or in Partial AIS (PAIS) are partially female. Internally, however, there are testes instead of a uterus and ovaries.
So in a genetically male (XY) foetus the active intervention of male hormones (androgens) is needed to produce a fully male system. A female body type with female external genitalia is the basic underlying human form.
In about two thirds of all cases, AIS is inherited from the mother. In the other third there is a spontaneous mutation in the egg. The mother of the foetus, who does not have AIS, but has the genetic error for AIS on one of her X chromosomes, is called a carrier. ”
http://www.medhelp.org/www/ais/21_OVERVIEW.HTM#How
I feel sorry for her, it must be awful to have the whole world discussing your intimate problems :/
Jen, you wrote”So, if Caster is genetically a male, competing in female races, it stands to reason that she would have a distinct advantage, and would be more likely to win. If she does, in fact, have three times more testosterone in her system than a “normal” female, that’s essentially giving her the same performance-enhancing advantage as taking steroids.
I don’t know how all this will play out, and I don’t know if she’ll be able to continue racing in the women’s division. Is she fast enough to race in the men’s division, I wonder? ”
TIME magazine published a story on this, and they said that no, she would not have qualified for the men’s division races, even the qualifying matches. Her times would not have put her there.
Personally, if she has lived her whole life as a woman, who are we to say she doesn’t qualify? Excellent points in this article, really, everything I have been thinking and feeling about how this outstanding, high-achieving woman has been humiliated makes me want to vomit. As Bill Maher says, I know conservatives go crazy when you say racism is involved, but to me, this has latent racist ideology attached to it. A large percentage of the world population is hermaphroditic, do you think the twentieth and twenty-first centuries never saw a hermaphrodite competing in the Olympics or other high-stakes athletic engagements? This girl just got called out, and it’s totally not fair.
She should keep her medal, and she should be given a public apology.
Seriously, the things we do to women.
on the funny side, thought she looks like Nick cannon at the 2nd picture.