Gender test for athlete Caster Semenya

[Habbibu]

Just saw this on the athletics coverage - it seems very odd, and worth discussing the rights and wrongs, esp. as it seems to have been sparked by rumours. I'm puzzled why the testing takes so long - I'd have thought a chromosome test would be ok - unless you had odd results like XXY, etc. Can anyone enlighten me?

What did Jenny Meadows say?

Get this, I am watching via a South African cable channel and the SA reporters have not even metioned her win or her name at all.

I think we also need to take into acount the fact that South Africa may well not be as advanced in gender identity disorders/intersexulaity as we are.

Oh, it was all "well, we may our own opinions, but professionally we just run the race and get out there and do it", but her tone to me seemed very off. I mean, what happened to innocent until proven guilty - and that's not even the right phrase in this case.

there was an article in gruniad today, in the past there have been a couple of gender issues
here

i do know chromosome testing does take about 8 weeks generally.

poor woman though, to make it all so public, shouldnt they have established this before?

DD saw her and siad she is a boy (DD is 3.5)

Two pretty major issues here, poor girl to be the poster child for both. Firstly, part of the problem with her seems to be that a lot of people simply don't like and won't accept the idea of a woman being physically strong and able to run very fast - and not only not being very 'pretty' (by western standards) but blatantly not giving a flying fuck about that.
The other one is the issue of intersexuality/hermaphroditism/the fact that sex is NOT a binary division and never has been, which lots of people run shrieking from because it threatens male privilege so much. If you can't divide people into 'men' and 'women' (the 'people' and the 'not quite people really';) then how can you uphold the hierarchy?

I am disgusted at the way this 18yo teenager has been treated by the media. She has been publicly ridiculed, humiliated and castigated because she does not look like media acceptable female. If she looked like a plastic barbie doll with fake boobs, fake hair and 10 inch finger talons no one would bat an eyelid.

Her gender testing should have been kept private.

Her mother says she is a girl, her schoolfriends says she is a girl and she says she is a girl.

Semanya had to be persuaded to accept her gold medal. She did not want to and I can't blame her. The media and the IAAF should be ashamed of themselves for the way they have treated an 18yo girl whose only crime is not to be born feminine enough!

Some more discussion here.

The whole dispute is a bit of a think-about-it for gender issues anyway. Given that most great athletes (like most really beautiful o really clever people) are really NOT NORMAL ie they are not like most people, they can run faster, jump higher, they are taller, stronger, have bigger feet or hands, can compute massive eqations in their heads, have perfect pitch...why the big deal about whether they have foofs or willies?

I agree the situation has been handles disgracefully. It has been portrayed that the poor girl has been dishonest in some way which is not true. feel very sad for her.