Semenya -- Is Gender Even a Consideration?

What is a female? Good old Merriam-Webster defines female as "of, relating to, or being the sex that bears young or produces eggs." But, believe me and excuse me for the comment, but a simple drop of the pants is not necessarily going to reveal the true gender of a world-class athlete. Oh, how complicated is this new medical world of today? I am very confused about gender as it relates to competition and standards. Maybe gender should be disregarded as a qualification rule. Guys and gals alike are currently in a frenzy over a recent event. Caster Semenya started to run almost as soon as she could walk. She played soccer with the boys in her rural village. At school races, she'd lap the other girls -- sometimes twice or more. Even then, according to friends who have been quoted by South African news reports, girls teased her about looking like a boy. Semenya shrugged it off and kept on running. Her determination has paid huge dividends. Just recently, 18-year-old Caster Semenya returned to her native South Africa after claiming the Women's 800-m Gold Medal at the World Athletic Championships in Berlin and beating her nearest rival in the race by a whopping 2.45 seconds. Semenya has a well-muscled physique and, reportedly, a dusting of facial hair. Mix those things together and ugly rumors spread like wildfire. An Italian rival, Elisa Cusma Piccione, called her a man. Russian runner Mariya Savinova agreed. "Just look at her," she told journalists in Berlin. Still, Semenya smiled broadly as she accepted her gold medal to strong applause in Berlin. Now, sports officials have called for "gender verification" tests when it was revealed that pre-race blood tests found testosterone levels three times typical female rates. If found to be male, Semenya could be disqualified from competing and stripped of her medals. The results of the tests will take several weeks to complete. Ideally, any dispute surrounding an athlete is dealt with BEFORE a major competition. But Semenya's stunning rise from unknown teenage runner to the favorite in the 800 happened almost overnight, according to Google News and the Associated Press. Semenya had burst onto the scene by posting a world-leading time of 1:56.72 at the African Junior Championships in Mauritius. That meant the gender test -- which, again, takes several weeks-- could not be completed in time for the World Championships. The BBC reported (August 19 2009),"The South African athletics federation insists it is "completely sure" that the 18-year-old Semenya is a female. 'We would not have entered her in the female competition if we had any doubts,' said a recent statement. To add to the controversy, Semenya's head coach is doubtable Dr. Ekkart Arbeit. He has been accused by a former East German female athlete of giving her so many anabolic steroids that she was forced to undergo a sex-change operation. Arbeit has said he no longer uses any performance enhancing drugs in his training regimen. Here's another of Semenya's coaches, Michael Seme, who somewhat jokingly stated to reporters, "I can give you the telephone numbers of her room-mates in Berlin. They have already seen her naked in the showers and she has nothing to hide." How sensitive does this sound? The guardian.co.uk recently reported, "Semenya's coach, Michael Seme, says he is well used to the commotion. He recalls stopping to use the facilities at a petrol station in Cape Town recently and as Semenya tried to enter the women's toilets, she was stopped by the petrol attendants. Caster just laughed and asked if they would like her to take off her pants to show them she was a woman."

Today's gender disputes in athletics can be very complicated. Time magazine reports just how complicated according to one surgeon. "In his paper 'Intersex and the Olympic Games,' Rob Ritchie, a urological surgeon at Oxford University, notes that in the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta — the last Games in which all female athletes were subjected to gender testing — eight female athletes were found to be genetically male. Seven of them had androgen-insensitivity syndrome (AIS), a condition in which a genetic male is resistant to androgens, the male sex hormones that include testosterone. In such cases, the testes never descend from the abdomen and the genitalia may resemble female genitalia." The seven genetically male athletes with AIS at the Atlanta Olympics were allowed to compete as women. Still, the incidence of AIS in Atlanta — seven cases among 3,000 athletes — compared with the rate in the general population, which is 1 in 20,000, suggests that partial AIS can boost athletic ability," Ritchie says. 1. People with AIS often have high levels of testosterone as the body produces more in an effort to exert its actions. For this reason, Semenya's high testosterone levels could be in keeping with an AIS diagnosis. 2. People with complete AIS, although genetically male, display fewer signs of the presence of testosterone than the average female, who does produce and absorb a small amount of the hormone. 3. People with partial AIS, however, have some sensitivity to testosterone and develop masculine features — such as larger muscles — alongside feminine features. 4. People with AIS, according to Olympic officials, do not consider AIS to necessarily confer an advantage. In other words, it's never been proven that women found to be genetically male may have any physical advantage than what may be seen in extremes of genetically female women. 5. People who compete in International Olympic events as a woman are subject to a comprehensive evaluation by the International Association of Athletics Federations requiring examination by a panel of specialists (including an endocrinologist, a gynecologist and a psychologist) to determine whether an athlete can compete as a woman. 6. People who compete in International Olympic events as a woman will also likely to be required by the IAAF to complete a psychological profile to see whether she feels herself to be a woman. 7. People with AIS do not necessarily know they are cheating as it is quite common for neither her or her parents to realize that she is genetically a male. Indeed, AIS is sometimes diagnosed at fertility clinics only when women seek help because of their inability to become pregnant. So, the parents may have rightfully yet unknowingly brought such an athlete up as a female. 8. People with AIS have a right to privacy. South Africa's parliament is preparing to file a complaint with the UN over Semenya's treatment. A World Championship official has admitted questions concerning the runner's gender should have remained confidential. 9. The controversy over gender, itself, has been characterized as racist and sexist by some commentators, politicians and activists. The Los Angeles Times reports, "Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, the ex-wife of former President Nelson Mandela, said no one had the right to perform tests on 'our little girl' and warned South Africa's news media to be more patriotic 'without insulting one of our own. Use the freedom of press we gave you properly, because we can take it from you.'" Noluthando Mayende-Sibiya, the minister for women, children and people with disabilities said, "Is it because she's a woman? Is it because she's African? We want to know why this was done." A Los Angeles Times (Robyn Dixon, August 21 2009) report stated, "The newspaper Beeld quoted high school principal Eric Modiba as saying that Semenya always wore pants instead of skirts, played rough-and-tumble with the boys and that he didn't realize she was a girl until she was in the 11th grade." Athletics South Africa President Leonard Chuene, speaking by phone from Berlin, said Semenya was an inspiration to rural girls, some of the most powerless and disadvantaged people in the country, yet she was being raked over the coals with questions on her gender. "I'm angry. I'm fuming. This girl has been castigated from day one, based on what?" Chuene said. "There's no scientific evidence. You can't say somebody's child is not a girl. You denounce my child as a boy when she's a girl? If you did that to my child, I'd shoot you." Semenya has said little in public so far, but her mother, Dorcas, 50, is fierce in her defense. "She's a girl. I'm the mother of that girl. I'm the one that knows about Caster. If they want to know about Caster, tell them to come to me." (Robyn Dixon, Los Angeles Times, August 21 2009)

So What's Your Take On This Sport?