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.

Why is it so hard. All athletes at a national level can have a simple blood test. Anyone with a Y chromosome competes as male, anyone without a Y chromosome competes as female.

Drug tests still for banned performance enhancing drugs.

The only relevance of what’s Semenya sense of self-identity is, and what clothes Semenya may or may not have worn and continue to wear is to determine how complicit Semenya has been in the whole process ie does Semenya believe Semenya to be male and knows it’s cheating or not?

It has no relevance in eligibility to compete in women’s competition.

How can you claim to be critical of gender roles, yet use the fact that someone is wearing trousers and shirt to ‘prove’ that they grew up a boy?

Its very important to recognise the context.

I’m so annoyed that the IAC have encouraged this to continue. It undermines the legitimacy of women’s sports from the very top. Men’s is the real competition and women’s is the Xfactor spin off where we’re looking at feelings and popularity

I agree. Men athletes won’t ever be faced with this problem in their sporting competitions. Obviously female biology doesn’t threaten their male advantage in the attributes measured by those sporting competitions.
Only a sexist view of women as being ‘lesser than’ men would tolerate forcing women to budge up and be inclusive of males playing in women’s amateur sport or professional sporting competitions. It’s the same principle as with those people who want to force women to include men in women’s spaces, facilities, opportunities, awards, etc in all the other settings outside of sports. Entrenching male advantage and entitlement with male as the default reference point. That’s what sexism is. Very disturbing how sexism is widely accepted and promoted and as others have said, what a total failure by the governing bodies responsible.

And that lack of spotting is why scouting for them for athletics has proven effective - they will be there with their female birth certificates qualifying them for athletics. A UK 5-ARD individual is unlikely to have been assigned female at birth like Semenya was.

(And this is finally a correct usage of "assigned" - Semenya is male, but was assigned female at birth. "Assigned" is not synonymous with actual sex).

Recognising the context is important:

2009 Daily Mail
'She wouldn't wear dresses and sounds like a man on the phone': Caster Semenya's father on his sex-riddle daughter
(extract)
"Like countless South African men, Jacob Semenya works and lives away from home, returning to his family only once a month to give them his wages. Caster and the rest of his children grew up in the village of Fairlie, deep in South Africa's northern Limpopo province.

Built on a remote African plain and accessed by a single dirt road, most people work as farmers and labourers. The Zion Christian Church dominated life for Caster, her mother Dorcus Semenya, her three sisters and brother.

When Semenya was born in 1991, her father was so determined to earn enough to look after her that he worked away from home for weeks. With three daughters, Jacob had desperately wanted a son.

He got a girl - albeit one with many of the characteristics of a boy. 'When I was told it was a girl, I did not mind. I was just very proud to have another child. I was not allowed to check the baby's gender for myself. That's the job of the elderly women, who then make a pronouncement.

'In our culture, the father is not allowed to even touch his baby until the umbilical cord has fallen off. Then the old women of the village take it away and the man is handed his child. This week, I thought of how tiny she once was. I still feel very protective of her.' (continues)
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1208227/She-wouldnt-wear-dresses-sounds-like-man-phone-Caster-Semenyas-father-sex-riddle-daughter.html

Only a sexist view of women as being ‘lesser than’ men would tolerate forcing women to budge up and be inclusive of males playing in women’s amateur sport or professional sporting competitions. It’s the same principle as with those people who want to force women to include men in women’s spaces, facilities, opportunities, awards, etc in all the other settings outside of sports. Entrenching male advantage and entitlement with male as the default reference point. That’s what sexism is. Very disturbing how sexism is widely accepted and promoted and as others have said, what a total failure by the governing bodies responsible.

There are similar dynamics with those which enabled Eastern Bloc countries' state sponsored doping of female athletes in the past. Whereby IOC and sporting bodies are disinterested in protecting the integrity women's sport and collude/fail to challenge those who seek to gain the advantage at top level.

Sharron Davies nterview by Nicola Williams:
A Woman's Place is on the Podium: Sharron Davies MBE (10 July 2019)

I am wracking my brains for the name of the female Olympic swimmer who tried to blow the whistle but her career basically ended there because she was branded a sore loser, a whinging Mary etc. I think she was finally listened to when medals wear taken away from the cheats. I read an article about her recently (I have a terrible memory).

@R0wantrees

How can you claim to be critical of gender roles, yet use the fact that someone is wearing trousers and shirt to ‘prove’ that they grew up a boy?

Its very important to recognise the context.

Surely it’s either fair or unfair for her to compete, based on her biology and not how she dresses. I don’t think she should be allowed to compete FWIW but I don’t think analysing her clothing and appearance sits very well with a gender-critical stance. Nor does a refusal to use female pronouns. Reminds me of Jean Hatchet’s tweet asking if any biological women had ever used a circular saw in the context of another case. Hard to argue that you’re against gender norms and then to say wearing a shirt = must be a boy.

@Kotatsu

Quite. How can you claim to be critical of gender roles, yet use the fact that someone is wearing trousers and shirt to ‘prove’ that they grew up a boy?

Because being critical of it, doesn't change reality. I was forced to wear a skirt for all of primary school, and strongly socially pressured to wear a skirt in my second secondary school (I would have been the only girl in trousers if I hadn't given in). Look at pictures now of schools anywhere, including South Africa - uniforms are distinct for boys and girls.

And I wore trousers to school. So what? Are you saying that Caster’s whole family, community and school are all in on a big scam where she was evidently male from birth, brought up as a boy, but then claimed to be female when she started competing?

I can understand why she shouldn’t be allowed to compete, due to her biology. What she wore at school and what this says about her doesn’t seem terribly relevant.

And if I was born with female-looking genitals and then grew tall and muscular as a teen, I wouldn’t automatically assume I was a man. She doesn’t appear to have facial hair growth patterns for instance. I can well imagine that she didn’t know about her disorder until older.

The speculation about whether sperm was extracted to father her child seems in really poor taste too.

I disagree. If that has happened, and they announced “Semenya provided the sperm for the baby” how would that fit the carefully constructed narrative of “a woman with naturally high testosterone”? It wouldn’t at all. People would automatically stop and go “eh?” It’s quite incredible how news agencies have been allowed to get away with not telling the truth on this issue.

I think it’s in poor taste to deliberately perpetuate the idea that Semenya is female.

Surely it’s either fair or unfair for her to compete, based on her biology and not how she dresses.

Noone has said that Semenya should not compete in female competition because of clothes worn.
What is being disputed is the insistance that Semenya was raised 'as a girl'.

extract from Mail article linked previously:

"Instead, months after being drummed out of the football team, she discovered a new passion for running and began training after school under the tutelage of her headmaster, Eric Modiba, who says he initially thought Caster was a boy. 'She was always rough and played with the boys,' he said last night.

'She liked soccer and she wore trousers to school. She never wore a dress. It was only in Grade 11 that I realised she was a girl.'

Her few female friends also noticed that Caster was not like them. 'She never had a boyfriend,' says Deborah Morolong, Caster's best childhood friend. 'She doesn't like boys. But that doesn't mean she is not a girl.' (continues)

Are you saying that Caster’s whole family, community and school are all in on a big scam where she was evidently male from birth, brought up as a boy, but then claimed to be female when she started competing?

They don't need to be in on the scam, and indeed they apparently aren't. Whenever we've seen any primary-source information from Semenya's family, community and school it suggests Semenya was being brought up as a boy.

It's the media who are blocking that information from being obtained and distributed, just as they've been reliably blocking the information that Semenya has a male DSD.

If they can write whole articles about the court case while just referring to Semenya as a "female with high testosterone", contrary to court documents and discussion, they can certainly avoid mentioning or finding any evidence of being raised as male.

I think it’s in poor taste to deliberately perpetuate the idea that Semenya is female.

Yes. With the truth now known, it will serve no one ultimately to perpetuate this in the end.

Whenever we've seen any primary-source information from Semenya's family, community and school it suggests Semenya was being brought up as a boy.

To be more precise, it appears the timeline is Semenya was initially thought to be female, at some point during childhood the error would have been spotted, and Semenya went on "live as a boy", but was still legally a girl, then later this legal status of being a girl was used to secure female athletics spots. My speculation is that a scout told the family what a gold-mine they were sitting on, and that prompted a reversion to claiming to be female.

Semenya only claims to be female as much as is necessary to hold those female athletics spots.

Wow, I had never seen Caster Semanya interviewed before. I used to have am a sympathy but seeing that I can really understand the controversy. Looks & sounds like a man, clearly has a male frame. Lacks respect for fellow competitors. Shocking.

@NotBadConsidering

I disagree. If that has happened, and they announced “Semenya provided the sperm for the baby” how would that fit the carefully constructed narrative of “a woman with naturally high testosterone”? It wouldn’t at all. People would automatically stop and go “eh?” It’s quite incredible how news agencies have been allowed to get away with not telling the truth on this issue.

I think it’s in poor taste to deliberately perpetuate the idea that Semenya is female.

If it happened. Where is your evidence?

I don’t have any evidence either way and I’m not even the one who brought it up. But to discuss it is to discuss the elements contributing to the ongoing perpetuation of the “Semenya is female” narrative. It’s perfectly reasonable in my view, to wonder if there is further evidence of Semenya’s male sex being kept hidden from widespread media coverage. Fathering a child is a pretty compelling demonstration of that.

They’re entitled to privacy of course. But the women who lost out to Semenya are entitled to answers as to who knew what, when, because of all the opportunities lost to them, plus vindication of their concerns for which they were vilified, like Lynsey Sharp.

Yes, if it happened. That's what NotBad said. There's no evidence Semenya is the father, but we know that Semenya's DSD is one which would not normally prevent them from being fertile.

You're basically looking at a heterosexual couple with a child, we're saying "the male is probably the father", and you're saying "where's the evidence?".

It's generally a safe bet that a male is the biological father.

As you're the one suggesting Semenya is exceptional, where's your evidence that Semenya isn't the father?

@NecessaryScene1

Whenever we've seen any primary-source information from Semenya's family, community and school it suggests Semenya was being brought up as a boy.

To be more precise, it appears the timeline is Semenya was initially thought to be female, at some point during childhood the error would have been spotted, and Semenya went on "live as a boy", but was still legally a girl, then later this legal status of being a girl was used to secure female athletics spots. My speculation is that a scout told the family what a gold-mine they were sitting on, and that prompted a reversion to claiming to be female.

Semenya only claims to be female as much as is necessary to hold those female athletics spots.

Before puberty caster would not have looked masculine.

When puberty hit then as an outsider you may notice the masculing effects of testosterone and raise an eyebrow but her family? Have you seen the number of posts on here where parents are outraged because a medical professional has told them their child is obese and they are insistent they aren’t?

Add into that that caster has not grown up in first world country i think it’s much more believable that her family thought she was a masculine woman than even knowing DSD existed. Concerns were raised just before the olympics and that’s when her coaches etc should have stepped in but they didn’t want her to miss the Olympics.

If there was a revision of history etc the family , friends and school would invent tales to demonstrate she had a feminine side not comment on how much of a Tom boy she was.

She was challenged during school competitions, sometimes teachers would inspect her in the loos before competitions. I just don’t think a rare condition would have been on anyone’s radar during her school years.

Sorry to hijack but

This is the problem with the second Keira Bell ruling - it's potentially putting parents into that gatekeeper position again. TBH, I reckon a lot of doctors would really rather have such a near-total ban that they're not put into that position of saying "no" either.*

Has something else happened? Has the appeal come back?

@NecessaryScene1

Yes, if it happened. That's what NotBad said. There's no evidence Semenya is the father, but we know that Semenya's DSD is one which would not normally prevent them from being fertile.

You're basically looking at a heterosexual couple with a child, we're saying "the male is probably the father", and you're saying "where's the evidence?".

It's generally a safe bet that a male is the biological father.

As you're the one suggesting Semenya is exceptional, where's your evidence that Semenya isn't the father?

I’m looking at two people with vaginas- one who is heavily invested in presenting herself as a woman with a testosterone disorder not as a man with sperm. If she was the father she would be taking a huge risk of people finding out which just isn’t logical whilst this argument is ongoing. That’s even if her sperm is viable.

So I don’t see why you think she would father a child rather than take the much easier option of sperm donation

When puberty hit then as an outsider you may notice the masculing effects of testosterone and raise an eyebrow but her family? Have you seen the number of posts on here where parents are outraged because a medical professional has told them their child is obese and they are insistent they aren’t?

I don’t think you can compare children being overweight and their families being in denial to not really noticing that your child is going through the puberty of the “opposite” sex. Male pelvis, broadening of chest, deepening of voice coupled with no breast development and no menstrual periods.

I’m looking at two people with vaginas

Males with 5 alpha reductase deficiencies don’t have vaginas

If she was the father she would be taking a huge risk of people finding out which just isn’t logical whilst this argument is ongoing.

Exactly. It would blow the whole story open. So discussing this possibility is valid.