The issue of Caster Semenya's gender is back in the news. Previously I posted on her stunning performance in Berlin at the World Athletics championship which aroused suspicions that she may in fact be a male.
She did indeed have testosterone levels more in keeping with a male than a female and now it is being reported that she has testes and not ovaries.
A sad outcome.
How this will be handled remains to be seen but the precedent set at the Asian games when Santhi Soundarajan suggests that she will be stripped of her medal.
Of course had she been born a male and have completed gender reassignment surgery she could compete as a woman under current rules which has always struck me as odd, so if a genetic male can compete as a woman why can't Caster Semenya who has apparently always lived as one?
"Of course had she been born a male and have completed gender reassignment surgery she could compete as a woman under current rules"
ReplyDeleteIs that true Andrei ? To my mind, a man having undergone genitalia removal surgery, estrogen injections and breast implants doth not a woman make.
Angus
ReplyDeleteHere are the IOC rules which were put in place for Athens 2004
Surgical changes must have been completed, including external genitalia changes and removal of gonads.
Legal recognition of their assigned sex must have been conferred by appropriate official authorities.
Hormone therapy -- for the assigned sex -- must have been given for long enough to minimize any gender-related advantages in sport
competitions, a period that must be at least two years after gonadectomy.
Hormone therapy is particularly curious in light of doping rules that apply to other athletes - no?
As I have posted at my place, she has a delicious anagram of her name.
ReplyDeleteyes, a secret man!
I cant see what the authorities can do. She has technically not broken the rules so cant be stripped of her medals.
ReplyDelete