Caster Semenya Biography

[CaveMum]

Wonder how much misinformation will be in this book? The press release is already thick with hyperbole.

https://www.thebookseller.com/rights/merkybooks-strikes-gold-for-olympic-champion-semenyas-memoir

“Publisher Helen Conford and senior commissioning editor Lemara Lindsay-Prince acquired UK and commonwealth rights, excluding South Africa and Canada, for The Race To Be Myself, from Caspian Dennis and Rachel Clements at Abner Stein on behalf Peter McGuigan at Ultra Literary. It will publish 31st October 2023.

North American rights were won by Nneoma Amadi-obi at Norton and Simon Boughton at Norton Young Readers from Peter McGuigan at Ultra Literary. Southern African rights have been sold to Jeremy Boraine at Jonathan Ball Publishers. A young reader’s edition will be published by Puffin.

The publisher said: “Banned from competing in the sport she loved and trained her whole life for, Olympic and World Champion Caster Semenya is finally ready to share the vivid and heart-breaking story of how the world came to know her name.

Thrust into the spotlight at just 18 years old after winning the Berlin World Championships in 2009, Caster’s win was quickly overshadowed by criticism and speculation about her body, and she quickly became the centre of a debate which continues today about gender in sports, and the right to compete as you are.

“Told with captivating speed, immediate candour and the spirit of defiance, The Race to Be Myself is the journey of Caster’s years as an athlete in the public eye, and her private life behind closed doors. From her rural beginnings running free in the dust, to crushing her opponents in record time on the track; to the falsehoods spread about her by the press and sporting bodies, the legal trial she went through in order to compete, and the humiliation she has been forced to endure publicly and privately.”

Semenya said: “My life has had its struggles, but it has mostly been a joy. Through my example, I want to educate, enlighten and inform about how the world can welcome those born different. You may have heard some of my story over the years, and you might have seen me running or standing proudly on the podium at the Olympics. But there is still so much I need to relate about strength, courage, love, resilience and being true to who you are. I want this book to show people around the world how to do just that.”

Lindsay-Prince added: “I’ve always admired Caster Semenya’s journey as an extraordinary athlete and iconic activist, incredible pioneer and unfortunate pariah. Her fight to run as she is a race for respect, justice and ultimately everyone who has ever been told no and prevented from doing the thing they love.

"This book is her setting the record straight and owning her entire story. It’s unflinching in its honesty and empowering in its tone, and captures the full scope of her life – from a little girl running in the dust, to a record breaking athlete running to be free.”

Caster was selected as a runner by the same corrupt coaches who gave female East European athletes testosterone and told them it was vitamin injections.

I have some small sympathy for all the male children who were selected as athletes precisely because the coaches knew that this DSD was a loophole that could be exploited. Caster is not unique - in the Rio 800m Olympics 2016 all the medals went to male runners with this condition.

However, these athletes have knowingly taken places from women. Caster definitely knew that Caster was male after tests aged 18. However, when your voice breaks at puberty that's a pretty clear sign you're not female. All this 'raised as a woman' nonsense is very easy to disprove.

What I have found quite interesting about the CS case is that it just doesn't matter what the facts are. It does not matter that Cs is a man and there is a perfectly valid explanation for why Cs was mistaken for a baby girl. Easy to understand when put on layman's terms and easy to understand within a cultural context.

But everyone just feels sorry for them. So because they feel sorry, they will give CS everything CS wants, including their own medals and sponsorship and records.

No wonder everyone wants to be painted as a victim this days, it opens so many doors - unless you are a vulnerable woman or child, I guess

Balls

You see it right in the book description, “everyone who has ever been told no,” like being told no is the greatest injustice on earth.

I do not in the slightest think that women are men without balls. (Because they're not.)

But I am alert to the "othering" of any woman who steps out of the bounds of traditional femininity. My first knowledge of Caster was as a young, talented black woman, under scrutiny by white, European authorities by not looking womanly enough while winning. I felt for her.

Having watched the interview video posted above, the voice, the look and the posture would tell you that is a man, if you weren't told beforehand. I'm not surprised she isn't interviewed much - I think many people might start to think differently.

If CS wasn’t finally told no, the brilliant Athing Mu, a dark skinned South Sudanese descended woman (putting a lie to the idea this is about race) would not be Olympic and World champion at only 19. We wouldn’t have the thrilling battles between Hodgkinson and Mu. Ajee Wilson, a black American woman, would never have won her first world championship after years of coming close. We would be missing the exciting rise of another African, Mary Moraa. The new US crop of brilliant teens coming through running sub 2 in high school would have no shot at medalling in their early careers. The 800 went from a horrible unwatchable event to one of the most competitive and exciting in women’s track and many black and African women are medalling.

And in seeing that video, and knowing that this information was known at the time that they were pushing that ‘female with naturally high testosterone’ falsity, do you feel angry at being manipulated ? This was not a CAIS case. This was a male with full male puberty. And understood that they were male.

Because I fucking feel angry at being manipulated.

I think, @ZeldaFighter ,you have just proven my point.

I suppose you have read the explanation for her lack of penis? And a discourse of how Cs was exploited by SA talent agents. Do you not believe it, or not agree, or have you not really thought about it because you feel sorry for CS?

I have seen videos of female athletes crying in frustration after racing CS, why doesn't that inspire sympathy in you as much?

I think we should leave children out of it. Nothing to do with them and people speculating about them is unpleasant.

So I don't have to Google, what is the info about the penis?

I think a lot of us were manipulated to be sympathetic. I fully bought the narrative that CS was being oppressed and it was “European” competitors who didn’t want African athletes with “natural” differences to succeed. I believed CS was raised as a girl and had no idea until challenged by bullies while innocently running. I fully supported CS at first and believed it was a justice issue for non-conforming women and this was “genital testing” and all the rest that we are sold.

but then we saw the pics of CS in male school uniform, and learned that the Federation always knew, and CS own father saying CS was a boy, and school principal saying CS was a boy, and CS blatantly flaunting CS’ maleness and we learned more about DSDs and I learned the stupid dishonest media narrative about “natural” testosterone levels was a lie. And that my sympathy properly lies with the generations of 800m runners screwed out of medals, glory and money while silenced or being called racist for protesting.

“And that my sympathy properly lies with the generations of 800m runners screwed out of medals, glory and money while silenced or being called racist for protesting.”

Indeed.

The question that also comes about whether any of these runners go through the fitness tests and coaching processes others do. Such as, did the coaches know these runners are either not quite as fit as the women competing or are as fit and are underperforming so as not to cause even more scandal?

Were these male people competing to their very highest potential? Or just like the USAF study, aiming to perform to the female standard?

I wonder if we will ever know. What matters is, these athletes know and they choose to cheat women out of their places on teams, podiums and records. I hope that the records that may still stand are removed too and replaced by records by actual female athletes.

I don't think it's accurate or fair to say CS does not have or was born without a penis. Males with 5 Alpha Reductase can be, and are not always, born with ambiguous genitalia, which can be anything from slightly smaller to externally looking more typically female. And often any visual difference is mitigated at puberty when the testes take over production of testosterone and any missed growth or development can happen then.

Before anyone says that it's not nice to publicly discuss CS possible genitalia, CS put this in the public domain.

It would seem odd if CS had a penis that she was identified female at birth. There must have been some reason for that.

The eastern european female athletes who were dosed with testosterone from early ages always looked very masculine. As did Fatima Whitbread - but in her case quite naturally.

In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if Fatima Whitbread had some kind of female DSD. She really did look like a man - though she certainly isn't. She went on to have a child.

It was me that made the glib remark, mostly out of frustration that somehow women's sports, groups etc. are seen as a dumping ground for males who for whatever reason want to opt out of the male competitions.

And actually I do have a certain sympathy for Castor, having grown up in a presumably very difficult situation. However he, and the coaches and organisation that have exploited his situation to gain medals and wins that he doesn't deserve should be ashamed. He is not a woman, and shouldn't compete as one.

What I said was DHT is responsible for full development of the male external genitalia. Semenya could not have had full development at birth because we know Semenya was thought to be a newborn baby girl. I make no speculation as to the current situation following the effects of testosterone at puberty.

What we do know is Semenya is on record as offering to show the authorities “her vagina”. I can state with 100% confidence that Semenya does not have a vagina.

https://amp.theguardian.com/sport/2022/may/24/caster-semenya-800m-world-athletics-hbo-interview

Indeed. It's crazy how many people still believe the original narrative.

External presentation of genitalia varies enormously on a spectrum between looking very female to looking very male with any kind of variation in between. CS presumably wouldn't have looked visually standard male at birth, but that doesn't automatically mean that they a) didn't have a penis or micropenis and b) that that wasn't resolved, to some extent, at puberty. They certainly would not have had a vaginal opening or uterus. It would have been obvious that something non standard was going on and males with this DSD undergo a normal male puberty (becasue they have testes).

I used to believe that caster was a woman because caster was raised as female but it's now very clear that caster was understood to be male from a young age and it's highly likely that caster was trained to compete as a female BECAUSE they are ambiguous but male which is cheating.

there is a YouTuber called roshaante Anderson who has the same DSD. Whilst he doesn't talk in detail about his medical condition he described knowing from puberty that he wasn't a normal girl and describes his clitoris as being naturally like a small penis. I don't know if he had testosterone therapy but he looks and sounds like any other man, not like a transman in any way. Males with this DSD are aware they are not girls at puberty if not before.

He got his birth certificate issued as a teenager, there's no evidence that he was considered female at birth.

This is why I would write the book I suggested if I had any time and didn’t have any DC and a full time job that isn’t a journalist, and the ways and means of international travel to interview all those affected.

Or maybe an actual journalist could do their fucking job for a change on this.

Even just one accurate article on the BBC…Sean Ingle at the Guardian tries, but of course he works for the Guardian so the truth gets edited to fuck out of articles there too.

As well as being racist for helping promote the othering of black females with all the 'naturally high testosterone' nonsense narrative, I also think that CS and their team have done a huge discervice to people with DSDs as well (formerly, and inaccurately, known as intersex), particularly people with the more profoundly affected conditions like partial or complete androgen insensitivity. With CAIS there really is a case for those people being treated as women and it should be looked at on a case by case basis, but they will all just get lumped in with the male chancers like CS now I think