Celebrity Friday: Caster Semenya

Caster Semenya is back in the news because the International Association of Athletics Federations has finally resolved her case and decided that the gender non-conforming (and rumored intersexed) athletic track star can compete in women's events in the future.

Caster Semenya Will Keep Gold Medal

Caster Semenya will keep her gold medal, according to several published reports, including in The New York Times:

In a statement posted on the Web, the South African Sports Ministry said that it had reached this deal with the International Association of Athletics Federations, or I.A.A.F.:

Because Caster has been found to be innocent of any wrong, she will then –
• Retain her gold medal
• Retain her title of 800m World Champions
• Retain her prize money.

We have also agreed with the I.A.A.F. that whatever scientific tests were conducted legally within the I.A.A.F. regulations will be treated as a confidential matter between patient and doctor. As such there will be no public announcement of what the panel of scientists has found. We urge all South Africans and other people to respect this professional ethical and moral way of doing things.

The implications of the scientific findings on Caster’s health and life going forward will be analyzed by Caster and she will make her own decision on her future.

Reuters reported that “The I.A.A.F. said it could not confirm the details in the statement but said it had accepted the resignation of Athletics South Africa (A.S.A.) President Leonard Chuene from the I.A.A.F. Council and had opened a formal investigation into the handling of the Semenya affair by Chuene and A.S.A.”

The Times goes on to discuss the more interesting question of sex/gender and genetic rarities in sports, publishing this insightful comment:

Last month, The Times published an article by Alice Dreger, a professor of clinical medical humanities and bioethics at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, in which she looked at some of the issues involved. Ms. Dreger wrote:

The current policies of the International Association of Athletics Federations are vague, incomplete and contradictory. For example, one states that some women with some male-typical aspects (including, in some cases, a Y chromosome and testes) can play as women, but it doesn’t specify which combinations disqualify an athlete. This means a woman like Semenya can’t really know for sure, in advance of competition, if she should show up.

The I.A.A.F. requires that transsexual women have their hormone levels kept female-typical through removal of the testes and ingestion of female-typical hormones.

Fair enough. But it allows born-females with adrenal tumors to compete as women, even though their bodies may have higher levels of testosterone than the average male. Not too consistent.

Update | 12:53 p.m. A reader named Kahla writes with this comment:

This “controversy” illuminates a double standard with respect to sex/gender as against other genetic rarities in sports. In one case, a female athlete, who may (or may not — as it remains unconfirmed) have male attributes due to a genetic rarity, could be denied the ability to compete in future matches because of the perceived unfair advantage that follows from it. Yet, where rare genetic traits do not implicate concerns over the proper gender assignment of the sports participant, such disqualifications are not contemplated, much less fathomable. A rare genetic trait (Marfan’s Syndrome) gives swimmer Michael Phelps a competitive edge and he is revered as the greatest swimmer of all time rather than investigated and subjected to genetic testing. Moreover, no discussion of disqualification from future matches ensues. Understandably, “gender testing” is unlikely to disappear from sports (and perhaps shouldn’t for numerous reasons not relevant here). But, these two cases illustrate that our fastidious adherence to rigid categorical distinctions between the sexes lends to disparities in the treatment of individuals whose genetics do not match with these predefined, and some would argue socially constructed, sex/gender categories.

Fascinating!

Caster Semenya Reported To Be Intersex

Rod 2.0 and Joe.My.God are both reporting that South African track & field phenom Caster Semenya who won the 800m gold medal in Berlin last month has been revealed to be intersex. There has been an ongoing controversy and public furor over the supposed "gender testing" of the South African athlete due to her curiously "gender inappropriate" physique and appearance. Now, the reasons have been discovered:

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.

Semenya, 18, has three times the amount of testosterone that a "normal'' female would have. According to a source closely involved with the Semenya examinations IAAF testing, which included various scans, has revealed she has internal testes - the male sexual organs which produce testosterone.

[...]

When quizzed by South African magazine You on the gender issue, Semenya said: "I see it all as a joke, it doesn't upset me. God made me the way I am and I accept myself. I am who I am and I'm proud of myself. I don't want to talk about the tests - I'm not even thinking about them.''

The use of the word "hermaphrodite" to describe people with both male and female biological characteristics is considered offensive, similar to the use of the word "homosexual" to describe people sexually attracted to people of the same sex. Joe.My.God has posted useful information on the topic from the Intersex Society of North America:

RELATED: The Intersex Society of North America notes that although the term "hermaphrodite" is commonly used to describe intersex people (and this is already happening with Semenya), hermaphrodite literally means "fully male and fully female," which is a physical impossibility. "Intersex" is the proper way to describe a person who may have one or several of a very broad range of atypical gender characteristics, ranging from ambiguous or mixed external genitalia, internal conditions (as in Semenya's case), or an atypical chromosonal makeup. Some intersex characteristics are extremely rare, others occur much more frequently, and studies indicate that some aspect of being intersex occurs in about 1 out of 100 people.

Intersection of Gender and Race: Caster Semenya

The gold medallist in the 800m at the World Track & Field Championships in Berlin is 18-year-old Caster Semenya of South Africa. Semenya demolished the field in the finals of the 800m by running 1:55.45, more than two seconds ahead of the defending world champion Janeth Jepkosgei of Kenya.

Afterwards, there were questions raised about the winner's gender:

Semenya, a muscular 5 feet 7 inches and 140 pounds, was an unknown before she ran a blistering time at the Africa Junior Championships three weeks ago. She did not speak to media after the race.

[...]

Weiss said it could take several weeks to get the results of the investigation, which he said included testing of Semenya in both South Africa and Berlin. Without that evidence, the IAAF could not keep Semenya from running here.

"We entered Caster as a woman and we want to keep it that way," South African team manager Phiwe Mlangeni-Tsholetsane told the Associated Press. "Our conscience is clear in terms of Semenya."

The issue of gender testing is so controversial that the International Olympic Committee suspended widespread gender testing in 1999, reserving the right to do psychological, gynecological and chromosome investigations "if there is a valid suspicion," IOC medical director Patrick Schamasch said in an e-mail.

Of course, what they are actually talking about is sex, not gender. Gender consists of the socially constructed meanings, characteristics and associations with the state of being male or female. Sex is the state of being either male or female. Neither are binaries, they exist on a spectrum.

Interestingly, the Los Angeles Times goes on to summarize the controversy over the determination of sex in track and field over time.

There have been controversies about gender in track and field for several decades.

An autopsy after her 1980 death found that Stella Walsh, who won the 1932 Olympic gold medal in the 100 meters for Poland, had male genitals and mixed male and female chromosomes. She retained her gold medal and a silver she won in 1936.

At least two women have been banned from track and field since 1967 because they failed chromosome tests, although one was reinstated. An Indian distance runner lost a 2006 Asian Games silver medal after failing a gender test.

As recently as the 1987 Mediterranean Games in Syria, only a visual inspection was used for gender verification. By that time, mouth swabs to reveal chromosomes were the accepted method, but questions about their accuracy led to the IOC ban on using them exclusively to determine gender

How do you think the line should be drawn between "male" and "female"?