Girl Interrupted on the Track
At Olympic Stadium in Berlin this past week, the young South African runner, Caster Semenya, blew away the field in the women's 800 meters at the International Association of Athletics Federation's track and field world championship. Semenya is an 18-year ingénue from the village of Fairlie in the Limpopo province. The Pretoria University sports science student's brilliant performance caused critics -- we don't know who raised the challenge because complaints are kept anonymous -- to regurgitate decades-old slanders traditionally directed at women who appear too manly. They claimed that Caster is not a woman, and the IAAF has directed the South African governing body for track and field to determine her gender.
It is easy to understand why the IAAF and her competitors would have problems with Caster Semenya's participation if she had some unfair advantage that violated the rules. At the core of every athletic competition lies an established set of rules applied equally to all who would participate in the game. There must be a "level playing field." Unfair or fraudulent competition undermines the essential sports paradigm. We enjoy sports because the outcome is uncertain. Were one club or one player always to prevail over the others, the event transforms into little more than an exhibition. (Therefore, it was good that Tiger lost the PGA.)
The issue of gender identification sits at the edge of sports. Olympic medalist Mildred "Babe" Didrikson, one of the greatest women athletes of modern times, set world records in the 1930s in the women's 80-meter hurdles and javelin throw and competed in track, basketball, baseball, football, and even boxing. Sports reporters always wondered about her masculine appearance: how could a woman perform with such excellence? Didrikson ended the controversy when she married, started wearing dresses, and turned to golf, a more acceptable feminine role at the time.
From the 1960s until the 1980s, the world witnessed Eastern European women perform Olympic weight events with "man-like" proficiency and physiques. Many of those athletes were administered drugs that enhanced their performance and also their male secondary characteristics. There is no issue, however, regarding the use of performance-enhancing drugs in the case of the South African runner. Instead, it seems people object on the ground that she wears trousers and has not developed breasts.
While most persons are born with a typical chromosome combination of XY (male) or XX (female), medical research has revealed that chromosomes also combine in a variety of other "intersex" patterns. Some females are born with only one X chromosome; others have three or more X chromosomes. Body shapes and secondary sex characteristics vary widely. Does that justify a nasty accusation of "cheater" which would follow this athlete throughout her career and allow her to be scorned, abused and reviled?
In the early 1970s, a New York State court had to deal with gender identity issues in the much more difficult case of a transgender tennis player, Renee Richards. The U.S. Open refused to allow her to play in the women's draw and she filed suit claiming sex discrimination. The court ruled that gender was much more than genes -- Richards, who had had sex reassignment surgery, still had the XY pair she was born with. Dr. Leo Wollman, Richards' doctor and co-author of the Standards of Care, which remains the definitive guide for doctors treating transsexual patients, had testified that he considered his patient a female based on her external genital appearance, internal organ appearance, gonadal identity, endocrinological makeup and psychological and social development. He concluded that she would be considered a female by any reasonable test of sexuality. The court granted Richards' request for an injunction, a great victory for athletes from marginalized communities.
Caster Semenya did nothing wrong. As the president of the South African track and field association, Leonard Chuene, said: "Her crime is to be born like that. It is a God-given thing." The IAAF, however, does not recognize divine jurisdiction any more than it will allow a court to review its actions. Semenya will just have to wait until the Association rules she is a woman.
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Elisa Cusmo Piccione is the Italian competitor who filed the "complaint" regarding Caster Semenya. She regarded Ms Semenya's physical appearance as "masculine" listing as evidence her abdominal muscles, biceps, flat chest and deep voice. Aside from Ms Piccione's narrow view of female pulchritude, she is, I would suspect, suffering from bad sportsmanship, too. For Ms Semenya the gender investigation opens a Pandora's Box which threatens the very foundations of Self. To endure this will be The Biggest Challenge of her life. One hopes she will triumph and prosper.
These people are ridiculous. They only want women to participate if they aren't very good. Lame.
Caster is a young man. I hope he is able to compete against other young men.
The entire article tries to skirt around a very basic issue:
IAAF has an absolute right and indeed, responsibility to test any athlete..... ANY athlete for eligibility issues. For a wide range of issues.
Competing in these events is a privilege, not a right.
Everything else is just rhetoric.
A sports body has no business enforcing gender norms, the millions and millions of tax dollars my country uses to subsidize the Canadian Olympic program, let alone the Vancouver games, make the global patronage they receive from countries such as mine, which prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity, a privilege, not a right.
Everything else is just corporate welfare dressed up as capitalism.
Exactly. This sports body is trying to create a third gender when it says that young women who have excess of an obitrary amount of genes is not a normal woman but some kind of freak by nature at birth that is neither female or male and can't compete with normal young women.
There would be no issue if she was not a superior athete. Submitting every woman to testing would seem fair but it would be discriminatory to all.
IAAF has no business evaluating gender of their athlete's?!!
How much more misinformed can an opinion be.
Hey, let's have U.S. women soccer team compete against men's Brazil team in next Olympic.
That should be fair to the women
LOL.
Oh, and by the way, I have a friend who has been athletic her whole life, calls herself "No Boobs" and has two daughters who went to college on athletic scholarships (who physically take after their mother), one of whom is expecting her first child.
I'm pretty sure this woman was picked on as a young woman for her outward appearance and athletic ability (at a time when girls were not supposed to play sports). Luckily, she and her daughters only played college sports and never had to face the kind of humiliation and ridicule that young Caster has been facing. Luckily, too, they all have terrific husbands who recognize their beauty and their value.
I hope this young woman has the support she needs to get through this, no matter how it turns out.
WELL SAID!!
Did your alleged friend run world -class time as a teen without any serious preparation?
The answer is NO.
Did she wear boy school uniform through out high school. Probably no.
Did she have her school teachers think she was a boy until 11 th grade. Answer is NO.
Think about it.
I have accidentally called so many little boys girls and vice a versa that I am probably responsible as a serial childhood identity crisis maker.
My daughter has always brought young men's clothing throughout her years in high school with a cap covering her hair. Tomboy or whatever you want to call it I believe child should be put into gender or and mold that they have not chosen.
So, since all genetically different individuals are not easily identified just by looking at them, are all competitors going to be genetically tested? All female competitors? All winners? Or just all female winners who look masculine?
And will there be sports categories for every genetic combination? If not, isn't that discriminatory? Or will genetic males who are outwardly female be allowed to compete in the men's events?
Seems like the ruling made for Renee Richards should apply here. This young woman has all the right parts and should be allowed her victory.
I've seen a half dozen videos, and watched a person with the incidental gestures of a male -- the hand gestures, stance and physical movements of a man. The musculature is highly -- even possibly enhanced -- male. Adrogynous features and no breasts -- drug test and gender check. It isn't embarassing to give blood and pee in a cup, its absolutely standard operating procedure for an Olympic-weight athlete.
We are aware that athletes are used by their trainers and promoters as cash cows, and their health beyond the few years of 'worth' easily discarded. The eastern bloc athletes of the 70-80's are crippled and genetically damaged, those who have survived this long. This teenager is being tested for a good deal more than gender -- s/he is being tested in order to provide protection from vicious, greedy handlers.
That is the biggest fear of this teen's backers -- that they will lose control over hundreds of thousands of potential dollars -- which this athlete will never see.
"While most persons are born with a typical chromosome combination of XY (male) or XX (female), medical research has revealed that chromosomes also combine in a variety of other "intersex" patterns.
Some females are born with only one X chromosome; others have three or more X chromosomes. Body shapes and secondary sex characteristics vary widely. "
Oh, you mean the way that "higher source" intended for the process to proceed?
DUH
Hope the young lady gets past this silliness and has a long, healthy career
Wonderful article, and thoughtfully presented. Thank you so much for the sporting history and information you lay out here - it adds a lot to the dimensions of this fascinating, and rather heartbreaking case.
What's the true definition of "level playing field"? If Semenya is found to be intersexed, is that so vastly different from other genetic differences that allow some to shine in the world of athletics, like Ian Thorpe's enormous feet, or Usain Bolt's unusual height for a sprinter (and whatever else makes that dude so darn fast)? When do we say, 'lucky break' to one athlete for the gifts they're born with, and ban another for their so-called genetic mutation?
We're discussing this issue further on my blog, Everyday Ethics, if anyone cares to weigh in. http://blog.beliefnet.com/everydayethics/2009/08/caster-semenya-should-we-take-her-word-for-it.html#more
Would not the XY chromosome combination give any runner an unfair advantage in a field of XX competitors? If not, why do these competitions, or sports in general, separate the genders at all?
As long as competitions are divided into gender categories, only those with the XX combination should be allowed to compete in women's events.
Put the emotions of gender identification aside, and let an objective scientific DNA profile settle this dispute.
I'm sorry, but anyone born with a vagina gets to compete as a woman in my book.
What about people who have to get one later on? Should female to male transexuals be able to play in women's events? Birth assigned gender is a pretty poor metric.
Indeed.
"let an objective scientific DNA profile settle this dispute."
Do you mean XX=female, XY=male? That's too simplistic. There are people who are 46XX who have male genitalia and have fathered children. There are 46XY people who have given birth. There is 45X, 47XXX, XXY, and XYY. Counting and sorting the chromosomes doesn't 'objectively' settle the dispute.
The genes that code for male characteristics are littered amongst the other 22 pairs of chromosomes, the Y chromosome is only a marker -- an indicator that is not entirely reliable.
Science may be able to objectively 'settle this dispute', but the scientists will need to look beyond just counting chromosomes to do so.
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