Caster Semenya

[LilaJude]

Is anyone else outraged that sports bodies are suggesting forcing Caster Semenyer to take medication to reduce her testosterone levels?

Caster has a naturally occurring phenomenon which gives her more testosterone than the average woman, and this has been deemed a competitive advantage that needs to be medically regulated.

How is this fair? We don’t handicap other athletes for having longer legs or more muscle mass. The nature of sport is that people with exceptional bodies triumph.

It’s like these sports governing bodies are saying ‘testosterone is a man thing, women aren’t allowed it.’ But Caster does have it, naturally, and it’s just part of who she is.

I just think it’s outrageous to force a woman to medicate just because a naturally occurring condition means her body doesn’t fit with what is conventionally seen as feminine / female.

Great post Barracker.

And for the people asking what the satisfaction is in winning by deception, there are enough elite athletes that have been exposed as drugs cheats (Lance Armstrong, Marion Jones, Dwayne Chambers off the top of my head).

Not to mention those boys in Connecticut

Mumsnet hypocrisy. Surprise

Barracker great post.

Orchid - As for incentive for carrying on the facade I'd say the fact they came from a small village to international fame and considerable fortune is a pretty huge incentive. The fact they haven't had surgery on their testes even tho by not doing so puts them at considerable risk shows how far they are prepared to go to "win".

I am absolutely having no truck, lorry or minivan with this 'assigned' bollocks on a unicycle.

Caster Semenya was assumed to be female at birth by people who did not observe them to be male.

Thanks Barracker that’s the best idiots guide to XY DSDs I’ve read

This thread is horrible. And why are people reluctant to call her ‘she’? Also lots of suggestions that being married to a woman suggests she is actually male.

You think you’re gaining ground and making progress? You’re not. Most people vehemently disagree with you. Shame on you.

Also lots of suggestions that being married to a woman suggests she is actually male.

Caster Semenya IS male tho. Dear god, why is this so difficult to grasp.

Datun she was born with an intersex condition that means she has a male chromosome. She was raised as a woman (lots of comments about how she is not like a ‘normal’ woman because she played with boys and is not feminine too). What the fuck. If you were discovered to have a male chromosome then okay you may claim that you would bow out of women’s sport but how the hell would you feel if people now refused to acknowledge that you were a woman at all? She was raised female and presumably has female genitalia.

Please could someone link to the IAAF eligibility criteria for male and female? I have read the summary, and I know the new regulations are just for XY individuals with certain intersex conditions, but who want to compete as females. They also have to be legally female, or legally intersex.

But I have looked for, and can’t find, the ‘default’ male/female eligibility criteria.

I presume the starting point is your legal sex.

Have they addressed GRC considerations yet? I understand Ireland has self-Id. Could an Irish XY male, with a male birth certificate and then a GRC, compete as a woman? Would they need to lower their testosterone? And even if they did, what about pelvic etc differences?

Most people vehemently disagree with you

Most people are not in possession of the full facts, which are fully explained in Barracka’s post above.

You have to be a woman to compete with women Herewegoagain.

There's a link to download the complete eligibility criteria in this article but you have to sign up: www.iaaf.org/news/press-release/eligibility-regulations-for-female-classifica

You claim to be gender critical yet use stereotypes of gender to determine that this person is not a real woman- she prefers male company, she played with boys, she is a lesbian, she is butcher than a butch lesbian etc. I am guessing that even if she had the condition she does but looked or acted more like a woman there would be more sympathy from here.
And even if the information about the condition is correct, that only goes to whether she can compete in women’s sport. It doesn’t change her as a person. She was brought up believing herself to be female and her family did too. I see her as a woman with a medical condition. Insisting on calling her ‘he’ is quite horrendous actually.

I don't call her 'he' and I don't care if she's the butchest woman on the planet, but reading the report there is no doubt that she is far more male in her biology than female

I see her as a woman with a medical condition.

Then you are wrong. She is male with a intersex condition. She was incorrectly identified as female at birth. She has known for at least 10 years that she is XY, but it’s likely something was known before then. However she acts or lives is not relevant to what category she competes in for sport, however it was her camp that have been pushing the ‘lives a a woman’ message for years. Nobody here has used words like ‘butch lesbian’ so those comments are irrelevant.

Shame on you

What a well thought out and convincing argument. Do better.

You don't know any of that Pota. Her coach when she was young referred to her as he. As Barracker said, if Semenya had been brought up in the U.K., they never would have been competing against women

porta

This is the problem.

She was brought up believing herself to be female and her family did too.

And

You claim to be gender critical yet use stereotypes of gender to determine that this person is not a real woman-

They can't both be true.

There is little evidence to say caster sees themself as female. And lots of remarks by birth then and their coach that they don't.

*both them

And for the people asking what the satisfaction is in winning by deception, there are enough elite athletes that have been exposed as drugs cheats (Lance Armstrong, Marion Jones, Dwayne Chambers off the top of my head)

People who ask this question often seem to ignore there is a lot of financial rewards for being at the top of the game. As in huge game and financial wealth and other opportunities. It’s not the same as winning the 50 yard dash at your school sports day.

She was brought up believing herself to be female and her family did too.

How can you go from saying 'shame on you' for people pointing out that Cs doesn't necessarily see herself as female based on her upbringing and behaviour now, and in the same post use 'she was raised as a girl' to defend your belief that she is female?!

Either her upbringing and behaviour is relevant or it's not.

Sorry Datun, bit of a X-post.

Nothing about CSs looks, behaviour and lifestyle are relevant. The only thing that is relevant is the Y chromosome and the testes.

The only people who seem to insist she was “raised female” ads those adopting the claims by Caster’s legal team without looking at other materials.

There are many older articles and interviews (like the one by Ariel Levy) that seem to suggest people knew quite early on that Caster was not a girl. Even the way Caster themselves talked about women as an “other”.

The absence of a penis is not =/female genitalia and it might have been in that Levy article but there seems to be a knowledge of that as Caster was not the first male intersex child they had seen, that they could not and did not seek out further information does not mean they didn’t know.

Nothing about CSs looks, behaviour and lifestyle are relevant. The only thing that is relevant is the Y chromosome and the testes.

I agree.