Semenya temporarily free to compete in 800m

[OrchidInTheSun]

As the last thread was deleted, I shall be very clearly staying within the talk guidelines.

Here's a report on the ruling: https://www.standard.co.uk/sport/athletics/caster-semenya-olympic-champion-temporarily-cleared-to-compete-without-medication-by-swiss-court-a4158461.html

It's very unclear about what it actually means though. And why this court can overrule the sports body. Anyone shed any light?

I think a major part of the terrible, terrible reporting on CS and the appalling misinformation lies very firmly with the South African athletics authority and government in whose commercial interests it is to obscure the fact that CS is biologically male (XY, male puberty, plus testes). Also the BBC's new 'gender and identity correspondent', Megha Mohan, is a major factor in the inaccurate, misleading and biased coverage. Mohan's reporting has been dreadful on this and other sex/'gender' issues. Mohan's coverage of CS has been consistently inaccurate, using completely loaded and biased language. As the BBC are respected (still) around the world, the BBC's inaccurate reporting on the CS case gets repeated elsewhere, and the myths ("CS is a women with naturally high testosterone" etc) are perpetuated. CS is a male with a DSD. CS was raised and socialised as male (as interviews show, links above).

I have great sympathy for Semenya. To have grown up as a woman and to discover you are a biological male must be traumatic. To potentially lose the thing that has to large extent “defined” you - ie athletic ability (I’m assuming her speeds may not compare well with other males), especially given her background (ie few opportunities) must be devastating.
However, what is now known is that she is biologically male, with all the male advantages that are the reason for sex segregation in sport in the first place. To let her compete, for no other reason than it is the “kind” thing to do is unacceptable.
The tragedy here is NOT that horrible people are refusing to allow her to compete. It is that the FACT is, she is male and CANNOT therefore compete in women’s events. A situation that has arisen because checks were not made much earlier (a girl in puberty never has periods or develops breasts, but no other investigations made?),
Our sympathy for her cannot alter the facts. There can be no question of her competing with women. She has every right to compete in sports, as does anyone else. Men compete with men, women with women.

Surely, as well as socialisation she is also LEGALLY female - you can’t just strip that away from someone! She therefore LEGALLY needs to be considered and treated as a woman.

I think it is such a shame that Caster doesn’t just admit they have a huge advantage over other female runners.....I am finding it hard respect them as an individual

It's difficult to blame Caster. It is those around her; her management team and the SA sporting associations.

Why are people calling her "they"? She's a woman, right? She's got crazy high testosterone which gives her a huge advantage but I don't understand why her being a woman is in doubt?

Caster is XY ( male), and went through male puberty. And judging from interviews with her self, family and others, always lived and dressed as a boy. School photos show this. apparently she was prevented from playing with the girls in football because she was " too rough" with them. Caster does not seem to identify as a woman at all - apart from the fact that her birth certificate says " girl'. This is what gives her legal female status.

Caster is married to a woman who says she is heterosexual, and Caster assumes a 'masculine' role. It is not just as if Caster is a 'masculine' woman - but within normal female hormone levels: she is essentially male - except for the undescended testes.

Surely, as well as socialisation

See above......

Even Caster's father says she sounds like a man. Caster played amongst and was brought up with boys ( according to her grandmother). A difficult and confusing situation for Caster and all around her.

FeministCat

The organisers decided that there would be no winner of the TdF's which Armstrong claimed as victories, which is quite bizarre, because in 2009 when Armstrong was stripped of his 3rd place, Bradley Wiggins was promoted to the podium.
As you correctly point out, it doesn't make the people who originally lost out, feel any better.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Tour_de_France

To have grown up as a woman and to discover you are a biological male must be traumatic

I'm imagining that on some level she was relieved to find out the truth; because that would have explained her total discomfort, growing up, with being a girl, and not relating to girls at all ( in her own words).

"Surely, as well as socialisation she is also LEGALLY female - you can’t just strip that away from someone! She therefore LEGALLY needs to be considered and treated as a woman."

Legally, legally, legally ----
Caster is biologically male and therefore has no place in women's sport.

Surely, as well as socialisation she is also LEGALLY female - you can’t just strip that away from someone! She therefore LEGALLY needs to be considered and treated as a woman.

That is the same thing IAAF seems to do: put a legal fiction above biological reality.

A legal fiction here is meaningless. It is why we are against all this self ID, because it means anyone can be a “woman” as they say so. The infamous JY is apparently legally a “woman”. I don’t want JY anywhere near me or anyone else in a women’s washroom.

IIRC, Caster did not even get a birth certificate until late in their teens for the purposes of international competition I imagine. By that time there was a great motivation for Caster and the South African authorities to perpetuate Caster was “female”.

Caster can be legally treated as a human being. But a legal fiction does not make their biological sex female.

It's a fairly unique ( even though there are other inter-sex athletes around) case, and deeply unfortunate on an individual level. However, the greater good and the demands of fairness in sport suggest that Caster should not be allowed to compete in women's races.

andyoldlabour

Yes, true. I think I was only thinking of Wiggins at time. Cycling though is rife with people stripped of winnings after fact, and yes, ultimately there is little gain in it (or even recognition) for the people who came behind them.

It must be awful to grow up thinking you have this outstanding talent too, which your whole life is based around. Your ego is built up on it and you have sacrificed everything else to compete at an international level. To have that taken away; well it’s no wonder Caster is fighting it

It appears that as a child Caster actually liked football. I'm not she she would be that outstanding in men's competitions. My feeling is that the SA sporting authorities took advantage of her condition ( even though not fully known at that time) knowing they would have a winner on their hands.

I suspect I was largely responsible for yesterday's thread being deleted as I was very angry (after reading about Bethany Hill's murderer being put in a woman's prison and Kate Weatherly taking Shania Rawson's place in competing internationally for NZ I had had enough).

I do think the SA authorities have a vested interest in muddying the waters. I posted a really horrid little article from a SA mag being really snide about Lynsey Sharp (Sharp is the athlete who said it was unfair that the 800m is dominated by DSD athletes at the last Olympics and got absolutely slated for it).

I note that Sharp is now keeping her mouth shut

It's difficult to blame Caster. It is those around her; her management team and the SA sporting associations.

Really? Caster is 28. They have known for 10 years - at least - that they are XY. What other cases do we still say an adult - a 28 year old adult - had no blame for manipulating and cheating?

Really? Caster is 28. They have known for 10 years - at least - that they are XY. What other cases do we still say an adult - a 28 year old adult - had no blame for manipulating and cheating?

The 'machine' around her is very big. Professional or famous athletes are like brands. Plus, legally she is female.......Obviously she could retire, though.

I don't think blaming her personally is the right way to go.

When, in fact, we are a group of humans belonging to the same reproductive sex class. We exist, as a discrete group, whether men contrive to blur the parameters of our existence or not.

This ^ yet again Barracker, you have summed up really concisely how utterly wrong this is.

I don’t think Caster should be ‘blamed’, but the responsibility for the impact on female athletes is in part their responsibility. I lack sympathy because Caster has said misogynistic things and has further fuelled the racism card the South African bodies are using. Doing this knowing full well they have an advantage, is not something I can respect in any way on a human level.

Never mind a vested interest, the South African authorities have a giant gaping blatant interest! I mean, there's nothing remotely vested about it.

I can well believe that CS herself wasn't fully appraised of the situation pre 2009 worlds, but the idea that none of the adults in positions of power in the federation didn't have the slightest inkling, people with education and influence, beggars belief. They made a decision to go with this and to use her head as the battering ram.

The South Africans aren't the only ones with political and economic interests here either, after all sport is huge business and is innately political in itself. Caster also has the Nike money behind her. They made a very clever advert last year exploiting the situation. No different to the SA federation really.

I don’t think Caster is the sole one to blame, but I don’t agree Caster has no personal responsibility in this. Caster is an adult. Caster also has significant personal gain here to keep being able to compete against women because they would be uncompetitive at this level against men. There goes the fame, money, sponsorships.

The machine around Lance Armstrong was also very, very big, and I also think he has personal responsibility for the manipulation and lies he told the public.

If people can escape personal responsibility, this will keep happening because everyone focuses on how sorry they feel for the “victim” (it’s clear in articles on Caster how many people put “feeling sorry for” above biological realities) instead of the realities, they don’t want to deny the poor “victim” further.

I'd say she has some responsibility now. In 2009, not really, but she's now a wealthy woman of almost 30 with other options. She has been and I think continues to be somewhat exploited now, but the two things aren't mutually exclusive.

Caster also has significant personal gain here to keep being able to compete against women because they would be uncompetitive at this level against men. There goes the fame, money, sponsorships.

The machine around Lance Armstrong was also very, very big, and I also think he has personal responsibility for the manipulation and lies he told the public.

There is a huge business around people who are at the top in sports, but these are adults who are fully aware of what's going on and they could stop the machine if they wanted to. It's not like the young people in Eastern Europe and the USSR who were given 'vitamins' and didn't realise they were steroids.

It would be very difficult for Semenya to change stance now, though, after spending so long insisting on being allowed to compete against women.

If people can escape personal responsibility, this will keep happening because everyone focuses on how sorry they feel for the “victim”

It's funny how they don't see the female competitors as victims of unfair competition, though.

It's funny how they don't see the female competitors as victims of unfair competition, though.

“They should just run harder!”

loads of excellent points already covered here, but one I’ve not seen mentioned yet is the utter disingenuousness of the claims made around how burdensome and risky it would be for Caster to lower her testosterone. As I understand it, she’d have to take the pill, or possibly depo injection. Two aspects to this. Firstly, it is pretty much mandatory for all female athletes to manipulate their menstrual cycle to a greater or lesser extent, by doing exactly this, so that they don’t have their period for big events, or to fit better with a periodised training regime (mixing lower and higher training loads over the month and over the year). It is is no way any more onerous than anything another female athlete as least must consider doing. You’d think from the reporting she was being asked to amputate something.

Secondly, there are many other medical conditions that will require am athlete to assess if they can use a preferred medical treatment, without violating doping rules. For example, were I to compete again in my sport, I’d have to stop taking a steroid treatment that I use because it wouldn’t clear doping control. My condition would worsen. Asthmatics, people with inflammatory conditions and many others have to make the decision: would I rather compete, or would I rather medicate my condition in the most optimal way? Again, this is a decision that athletes face every single day. Caster has the choice. She doesn’t want to make it, because she knows she isn’t as competitive without her ability to utilise the excess testosterone in her system. But it’s not some outrageous, human rights violation. It’s very, very commonplace.

I know in my second example it’s the other way around, in being obliged to take a medication rather than not take one, but it’s of the same order of magnitude, IMO.