Commonwealth Games website (re Caster Semanya)

Thankyou

Those do look like swim shorts he's wearing in the pic.

There are many inconsistent claims being made by posters who seem to think they have excuses as to why a male athlete should be supported to compete as a female athlete.

I think though, the issue lay fully as the responsibility of the OIC committee who approved the changes back in 1999 or whenever. They laid the ground for these inconsistent argument that effectively infantalised a group of male people who should have continued to be told that they were not female athletes despite what it said on any birth certificate that was issued in error.

What continues to be clear though is that few of these posters actually think through their pleas as to the impact on female athletes.

It is just a continuous cycle of excusing a male person’s choice. That is infantilisation in my mind.

he could apparently afford bottoms but not a top 🙄

I did find implying he could afford a suitable swimsuit to be somewhat patronising. Given he clearly has one as a 15 year old boy.

Oh sorry, hasn’t posted as it was from a Facebook page.

Semanya on the beach.

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=122238741164267252&set=a.122120431718267252

@flowersinmyheart

Caster has a lot to say.

I suggest you read the rest of the thread because some of what you say is untrue and definitely designed to tug on the hearts strings to an extent that is not justified.

Agreed

Any female swimmer I know who cannot afford swimming togs wears shorts and a bra and a shirt.

The shirt being very important.

There seems to be some disconnect here in the attempt to dismiss the deliberate decision of a male athlete who knew he was male and didn’t give one skerrick of consideration to any female athlete he displaced and disadvantaged.

The fact he was described as acting with grace is farcical considering his attitude to towards the Olympians he displaced.

But … we must centre the men…

He had a totally appropriate swimsuit.

If you are a 15-year-old girl and can't afford a swimsuit of any sort to go swimming with a mixed group of school pals, I think you'd wear shorts and a top of some kind, any kind, a t-shirt, a vest, anything, rather than swim naked from the waist up with them, wouldn't you, flowersinmyheart?

I'm also surprised that the teachers from Nthema Secondary School didn't notice that one of the senior girls was swimming topless with the boys, and intervene to say it was completely inappropriate, maybe even offer to lend her a top if she didn't have one.

Unless even the teachers knew that the pupil swimming naked from the waist up was not in fact a girl...

If I didn't laugh at this, I'd cry.

And no comment from this poster on the female athletes who grew up poor and were cheated out of their rightful places.

It is not normal for 15 year old girls to swim topless in South Africa.

https://www.citizen.co.za/lifestyle/topless-swimming-no-no-in-sa/

There are at least two more African athletes with the same DSD, Namibian runners, Beatrice Masilingi and Christine Mboma. They also share the same coach, Henk Botha, which makes me think that these athletes are being deliberately sourced.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatrice_Masilingi

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christine_Mboma

Actually that photo is so misleading and Judged by western standards . Taken on a school trip in
Durban . Durban is an ( South African ) city. People of all level swim in the sea there . A lot of people don’t have swim suits of any sort and swim like this so please don’t be so judgmental.

I think this poster may have read the Guardian review of the autobiography, rather than the autobiography itself - apologies if I am wrong.

You've read this autobiography? You've seen the pictures? You've read the rest of the thread? And you STILL think he's a woman? FFS.

This.

@flowersinmyheart why do you have no empathy or understanding for actual women who've had just a hard life as Semenya? Don't their lives count? Don't their experiences and talent matter?

Sporting success is a way out of poverty for many people and he has knowingly denied this to the women he cheated.

I agree, Helleofabore.

My post was to point out that 'I'm right you're wrong because look what the Cambridge Dictionary says!'
is not the 'gotcha' some posters think it is, because the Cambridge online lists not just definitions, but also how a word is currently used - which is sometimes the exact opposite of the actual definition of a word.

'Sick' is such a good example!

It only defines 'gotcha' as
'said to mean "I have got you" in order to surprise or frighten someone you have caught, or to show that you have an advantage over them'.

'gotcha' has acquired a specific meaning in public debate = an allegedly unanswerable question, hasn't it?
I wonder will the Cambridge online get around to listing that usage?

Not to mention the opportunities denied to promising young female athletes from South Africa and other countries, whose Athletic governing bodies decided it was more cost effective to seek out young men with DSD and train them to race against women, than to put in funding at grassroots and national level to develop the careers of young female athletes.

And sadly, there will always be suspicion, spoken or unspoken, in the back of peoples minds about young black African female athletes. They will be scrutinised even when their female gender identity is absolutely clear and documented. Semanya and other cheats have tainted athletic careers in the same way that East German drug cheats, and cycling drug cheats did in their sports.

To be fair, when I see a user with a female name and numbers post Cambridge dictionary definitions to support their supposed insults, I am not surprised. It does seem to be a pattern.

I grew up without running water and had a drop toilet even in the 80s until I left home!

Other parts of my family also had no connected electricity.

I find comments about that being a need to allow a male person to compete and gain sponsorship that should have been given to female people fucking offensive. I knew state representational athletes in the 80s who grew up in those conditions.

It is not bio-essentialist to recognise that females have a different biology and body to males, and that this fundamental differnce in physique has consequences, especially for females in certain types of situation.

Males tend to be bigger and more muscular for a start, and there is a myriad of other structural and mechanicall differences which mean that males can physically over-power females, and that they will tend, once past puberty, to be faster and stronger.

The male sex drive is also differently configured, which is why males tend to be far more motivated by opportunistic sexual pursuit; and why certain paraphilias and fetishes tend to be almost exclusively male ' territory'. It is also evidenced in the fact that is males that commit rape and the ovewhelming majority of sexual abuse.

The above is why why civilised and equitable societies have created certain protections for the female sex in certain types of public situation - in which females may be undressed or pre-occupied with their bodily or biological function. This recognises the dignity and integrity of the female sex and permits them to engage freely in public life in safety and with some security. Let's not forget that it is also females that become pregnant and who give birth - and that this represents a certain set of needs, as well as vulnerabilities.

Separate male and female sporting categories also permit for female excellence and achievment to be recognised and rewarded - as well as providing a safe and level playing field. If you pitched elite female athletes against elite male athletes in the same categories or events the females would never win, and never be celebrated.

The online Cambridge Dictionary isn't a good source to quote when correcting other posters' use of words, because after giving 'the dictionary definition' of a word, it then goes on to record current usage in popular speech.

So if you look up the word 'sick', you'll get the definition
physically or mentally ill; not well or healthy

but if you read on you'll find
Sick: very good, excellent
as in
'snowboarders doing sick tricks'.

There are 'dictionary definitions' of words like male, female, sex, gender, toxic, essentialism, biology, literal, annihilation, hate, etc etc, and then there is contemporary usage, which is not the same thing at all.

For example, the use of the words 'literal' and 'annihilation'
in a phrase like 'literal annihilation of transpeople in the UK' -
makes no sense at all according to the dictionary definition of 'literal' and 'annihilation'.

So the Cambridge online dictionary's second/third/fourth/fifth level isn't a good basis for telling people that they don't understand a word, like bio-essentialism, in this case.