Caster Semanya Guardian Interview

[GrimDamnFanjo]

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/apr/23/caster-semenya-theyre-killing-sport-people-want-extraordinary-performances

Interesting article but still maintains DSD is just a matter of testosterone differences.

Well it’s the guardian and someone who wants to continue to run in women’s races, where they will be able to do so with success for longer than the average runner in those classes.

I had a skim yesterday and... not unexpected.

What's DSD please Fanjo ?

As a committed feminist, I find the antagonism towards Caster Semenya hard to understand. This a human being, born a certain way. Not someone who has undergone extensive hormone therapy and surgery to alter their natural body. As she says, we don't ban athletes with other natural physical advantages. Why should we ban her ? It seems wrong to demand that someone take drugs in order to compete.

It’s a terrible article written by one of their US staff, so naturally the facts are missing about Semenya .

I had missed that Semenya had entered and won the South African Championship 5000m. I just looked it up. Congratulations to Glenrose Xaba, the actual winner.

@DolphinDreams

What's DSD please Fanjo ?

As a committed feminist, I find the antagonism towards Caster Semenya hard to understand. This a human being, born a certain way. Not someone who has undergone extensive hormone therapy and surgery to alter their natural body. As she says, we don't ban athletes with other natural physical advantages. Why should we ban her ? It seems wrong to demand that someone take drugs in order to compete.

It’s about fairness, but it’s and buts and wants.

Dolphin, it’s because she has a sex disorder - she’s genetically male, with external genitals that appear female. So at birth she was assumed to be female, but she has male levels of testosterone, muscular advantages etc. I agree that it’s absolutely not her fault that she was born different, and I can also see exactly why she doesn’t think she ought to stop competing. At the same time, I personally believe that Seb Coe is right and that she has too many genetic advantages to compete against women. It’s a really tricky situation.

DSD = differences in sex development. Like intersex.

This is an excellent unbiased assessment of the situation assessing the science of the case. Worth a listen.

podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-real-science-of-sport-podcast/id1461719225?i=1000437150061

@DolphinDreams

What's DSD please Fanjo ?

As a committed feminist, I find the antagonism towards Caster Semenya hard to understand. This a human being, born a certain way. Not someone who has undergone extensive hormone therapy and surgery to alter their natural body. As she says, we don't ban athletes with other natural physical advantages. Why should we ban her ? It seems wrong to demand that someone take drugs in order to compete.

Caster Semenya is male. Caster Semenya was born male. Unfortunately this wasn’t recognised. Semenya has a condition called 5 alpha reductase deficiency which only affects males. This means that the external genitalia doesn’t form properly, hence the error at birth, but in every single other respect Semenya is male. Semenya has testes (internal) that produce normal male levels of testosterone. Semenya has been through normal male puberty. Semenya has male cardiac output, male lung capacity, male VO2max, male muscle mass, male bone density, male pelvic angles for running, and has no uterus. Semenya has never had to deal with a period, in training, in competition, ever.

This came to light in 2009, when Semenya was 18 or so. Despite this Semenya has been allowed to compete in two Olympics games, winning gold at both (one by default from a cheating Russian), Commonwealth games, Diamond League events etc. All of these bring medals, prize money, sponsorship deals that women have lost out on. Those in Semenya’s events lost out for 10 years.

So, as a committed feminist, which part of a male taking that which should have gone to women knowingly over 10 years, is fair to you?

Caster says that in elite women athletes the rate of DSD is something like 7 in 1000 . And that she can always recognise them . Well I can believe that.

In the general population the 46 XY which is the most common among people identified as female is actually reckoned to be more like 1 in 20,000.

That is not a coincidental blip in the statistics.

It’s not the IAAF that is killing women’s sport , it is the deliberate search for athletes with the condition who can win medals and bring home glory to countries who think a medal table is more important than a fair and level running track.

That is what is killing women’s sport, it is killing it at the elite level right now, the Olympics will be interesting to watch, and in a few years it will have killed it at the grass roots level as when funding is diverted towards finding and supporting DSD athletes there will be no point in encouraging and developing athletics for non DSD female athletes however talented and keen they are.

I remember there was a radio thing about this and it said that had they been born somewhere like the U.K. or US, chances are they would have been more closely examined as a baby and sexed differently.

Caster mentions male athletes that inspire her, but no female athletes

Wasn’t there a skier way back who handed back his medals when it was realised that they were biologically male (to had been assumed to be female up until adulthood).?

Ah here he is- www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6772989/Intersex-skiing-champion-say-transgender-women-NOT-compete-female-events.html

As a committed feminist, I find the antagonism towards Caster Semenya hard to understand.

I wouldn't say there was antagonism. It's nothing personal - although we do know that Caster has known her real sex for about ten years now. People object to the injustice of her competing against women.

This a human being, born a certain way.

This a human male, born with a DSD. CS should not be competing against human females.

What do committed feminists think of Caster's obvious disdain for women in this interview?

I get it, I used to have massive sympathy for Caster before I learned more about her.

And just to dispel the other myth, about Usain Bolt, who Semenya mentions in the article. He is often used as an example of “exceptional” human performance. But people forget that when he set his world record of 9.58s in the 100m, the person who came second, Tyson Gay, also ran an exceptional time of 9.71s. The difference between the two of them was just over 1%. The same can be applied to Phelps. If you look at his records, there is someone close behind with a similar difference. Bolt was 1% better than his nearest rival. He was exceptional, as was Phelps, but only by that margin. They just managed to be consistently 1% better than the rest.

In comparison, Florence Griffith Joyner’s world 100m record is 10.49s (with lingering suspicions). The difference between Bolt and Flo Jo is almost 10%. Tens of thousands of males have run faster than Flo Jo, including boys still at school.

I notice they say caster became a mother heavily implying caster gave birth when it was in fact their wife

Their wife had (gave birth to) the baby. She was able to have a baby. Caster would bit be able to birth a baby. Not sure about anything else though.

Caster would [not] be able to birth a baby.

But Caster could well be the biological father. Individuals with 5-ARD are often able to produce viable sperm, so can father children, as Erik Schinegger did.

‘Aye well...’ as my mum used to say...

In comparison, Florence Griffith Joyner’s world 100m record is 10.49s (with lingering suspicions). The difference between Bolt and Flo Jo is almost 10%. Tens of thousands of males have run faster than Flo Jo, including boys still at school.

Similarly, when Phelps won the 100m butterfly in the 2008 Olympics he did so with a time of 50.58, faster by 0.01 second than the second place getter. No doubt his “natural physical advantages” as referred by Dolphin helped with this narrow win.

However, the Australian woman who won this event in 2008 did so with a time of 57.05 - she wouldn’t have even qualified for the male events.

Viques.

"Caster says that in elite women athletes the rate of DSD is something like 7 in 1000 . And that she can always recognise them . Well I can believe that.
In the general population the 46 XY which is the most common among people identified as female is actually reckoned to be more like 1 in 20,000.
That is not a coincidental blip in the statistics."

I don't believe that it is a coincidence at all. I think coaches/organisations in some countries are deliberately looking for athletes with this particular condition.
At the Rio Olympics in 2016, all three medallists in the women's 800m had exactly the same 46XY DSD condition - Caster Semenya, Margaret Wambui and Francine Niyonsaba.
That is an incredible coincidence

Tbf, if trans women are allowed to complete with natal women, then so too should Caster.

I don't think trans women should be allowed to compete against women btw.

The article is misleading, indicative of bias and reissues propaganda as fact:

(extract)
"Instead, the 30-year-old, who has fought a wave of prejudice and stigma throughout her life, is forlornly waiting on news from the European court of human rights (ECHR), which, in turn, could convince World Athletics that being asked to take medication is perhaps not the most humane way of dealing with a woman who has a congenital condition some believe hands her an unfair advantage.

Semenya’s “crime” – apart from dominating on the track – is that she is an athlete with differences in sex development, a condition that leads to elevated levels of testosterone in the body. This led athletics’ governing body to create a ruling in 2018, following her rapid rise to fame, which forbids women with a similar condition to compete internationally between 400m and mile-long races, unless medication – one option is to take a daily oral contraceptive pill – is taken. Needless to say, Semenya will not stay in that lane.

“It’s taking the soul out of my body,” she tells the Guardian over the phone from South Africa. “They want me to take my own system down. I’m not sick. I don’t need drugs. I will never do that.” (continues)

Semenya is a male athlete whose body has had normal male pubertal development and atvantage.
IOC offered a compromise to male athletes with 5ARD (a rare DSD) to take the female contraceptive pill (as many women do) in order to compete in female competition.
IOC have consistently failed to act to defend female sports adequately.

Yeah but... the guardian, innit?