We’re entering an interesting time for issues revolving around gender. First we had the flap (so to speak, har) around Lady Gaga’s possible hermaphroditism, and now, South African teen Caster Semenya has won the gold medal in the 800-meter event at the Berlin Track and Field World Championships. Why is this related? Because officials aren’t sure that she is actually a “she”.
I can hear the collective scratching of heads resulting from that statement. Essentially, Caster (which is a great name, regardless of sex) has been entered in the event as a woman, but there is enough about her to suggest maleness — muscular build, deep voice, dramatic and clear superiority over every other female contestant — that officials are now undertaking a gender verification test to ascertain what her true sex is … or at least, what they will accept as “true”.
Here’s the thing: there are by now enough “intersex” humans alive today to make this a tricky consideration. Intersex humans are those — typically — born with physical features that either combine historically standard male and female genitalia, or make the determination thereof very unclear.
It might very well be that Caster, although she may consider herself female, doesn’t strictly conform to the textbook definition. But it’s likely that this situation hasn’t come up before, so there may need to be some new rulemaking for the International Association of Athletics Federations to undertake. Would this be fair to Caster? Would it be unfair to the other runners not to administer the test? If Caster’s body contains elements of both sexes, maybe her muscles are more akin to those of a male’s, giving her a clear advantage over her competition.
But even more: if she is an intersex person, should there be a new category for her to compete in? You can see a video of Caster here; without knowing this controversy ahead of time, would you be able to say for sure what her sex is?
Comments
Chuck Jones
August 20th, 2009 - 9:50:31 AM
Looks like a guy to me. I wonder how Caster has passed as a woman, unless it's obvious in the locker room that Caster's female.
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