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.”

That’s very unlikely. The standard practice now, in cases of genuine intersex, is to assign a suggested gender “for the moment” but to advise parents that the child may end up identifying “the other way,” especially when puberty hits. I am very much not into genderwoo but if someone is actually medically intersex, I think it’s ultimately up to them to decide what they feel most like, and I’d be happy to treat them accordingly in most situations. In sport, however, I think we do need to stick to a strict rule of “anyone who has been through male puberty does not belong in the women’s category, regardless of how they identify.”

This!
Caster S is a male. It's nothing to do with a brave, inspiring journey. C is a male, always was, it's sad that the whole emotional, cultural and family history background has enabled plain cheating to happen. Caster S can live married to a woman in their society because Caster is male. Fucking charlatan.

He also comes across as a bit of an oik in that Guardian article.

@NotBadConsidering I'll buy your book too.

It's my understanding that there are at least six different types of disorders of sexual development. Can you point to which one has the policy of not recording the sex of the person who has it.

'Some people are born with testes' - Jesus, it's farcical isn't it.

An essay extracted from Semenya’s book was in the NY Times this week. In essence:

I’m a woman.

I’m a woman with naturally high testosterone.

I have atypical chromosomes for a female.

It’s racist because this affects women of colour.

I’m just trying to lift my family out of poverty.

I’m obviously not a man because I can’t run as fast as a man.

I’m not even as fast as the fastest women.

But … Phelps / Bolt / Ledecky all have physical traits that give them advantages and they don’t get special rules.

Russian drug taking athletes are seen as victims and I’m seen as a cheat

It’s not fair it’s my natural body.

IAAF / World Athletics are just trying to stop certain types of women from competing. Especially me.

The last para is a cracker - screenshot attached.

What a load of bollocks. Caster Semenya has a disorder of sexual development, that only males can get. And it's certainly my understanding that caster has been through male puberty.

The reason caster doesn't always win is because they're not very good.

No woman has testes, internal or external.

The precise medical name for Caster Semenya’s difference in sexual development, or DSD, is 5-alpha reductase deficiency. It is a condition that influences only male sexual characteristics before birth and during puberty. Those with it have one X and one Y chromosome in each cell, plus testes that may be internal due to the shortage of a hormone, dihydrotestosterone, which can disrupt the formation of external sex organs. In other words, Semenya is 46XY: genetically male. And this should be where the athlete’s case to be considered eligible for the female category should begin and end.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/athletics/2023/07/11/world-athletics-right-caster-semenya/

I should imagine the days of Caster and their managers gaslighting the authorities is over, but, certainly, a book about it will bring in some more cash.

CS has the DSD 5ARD and therefore has the katyotype 46 XY which is THE EXACT SAME AS THE STANDARD MALE KARYOTYPE. So if he has 'atypical chromosomes for a woman' then so does Rishi Sunak, my sons, your dads, my granddad, Albert Einstein and 99.8% of every male ever born. What a load of utter BS.

Honestly. It's getting worse.

They might as well say I've got atypical chromosomes for a bloke.

Or a banana.

Question to the medical vipers on here. I don't understand why the article keeps talking about hyperandrogenism? Google trawl shows that beyond the main group (women with PCOS) there are some male conditions also linked to it but I don't see anything to connect with 5ARD.

Wow, that commentator knows exactly what is going on there, and doesn't approve.

I completely and utterly disagree with @ZeldaFighter. Admire, feminine, support? For a cheat? Nope. Won't be buying the book. Money making only. Yuk.

Yeah, if others are watching, you have to see to the end of the clip. Because it's after the race is won that the commentary changes tack.

I'm not sure this is a fair assessment. Even someone who was "really" a woman could acknowledge that another person could make an honest mistake. That doesn't make someone a bigot, and I don't think most adults would take that approach.

As far as enjoying "forcing" his wife to pretend he is female for some kind of manly thrills,, that's pure speculation, what makes you think VS has any illusions about any of it?

Yes, although he mentions the gait right at the beginning, and the gap. It seems innocent initially but I think he's pointing at what is going on.

I am always curious about people who say they were taken in by the claim that it was some kind of racist thing.

I just don't see how that seems credible? If it was just a matter of rude comments about appearance, maybe. But there are lots of black female athletes in many sports who are at the top of their fields and winners, and no one is accusing them of being male and trying to have them disqualified?

I'm not sure the identity of earning an average wage fits my soul. Unfortunately for me I can't just identify as a zillionaire and expect other people to take it on trust.

It's a bit of a universal trope used by TRAs as well, as in the disingenuous arguments about "you don't mind lesbian women/black women in your toilets or changing rooms, do you?"

In the case of these runners though, it does seem to be a claim actually coming out of African countries themselves, possibly in the press, certainly on Twitter. Maybe because most cases genuinely seem to be connected geographically. That could be because of a lack of medical infrastructure leading to a higher incidence of wrongly affirmed at birth cases (and allegedly national running bodies actively scouting and recruiting the individuals involved.) I've also seen mentions though that in the case of 5ARD specifically, for whatever reasons there are specific clusters of high incidence in parts of southern Africa.

Because he says he is a woman with hyperandrogenism.

Yes he and his people always claimed that he was a woman with hyperanderogenism ime a woman with naturally higher than normal testosterone. In order to explain why he tested with such high testosterone as hormone testing came in and be same more universal. Eventually or course, the lie came to light becasue a) his testosteroneevels were so high - in the normal range for men, not in the normal range for women with hyperanderogenism - which are still orders of magnitude lower than normal men and b) genetic testing also started to come in and then of course eventually the fact that he had normal male chromosomes would have eventually come to light. It was still surpressed and lied about and gaslit in the media though while he was actively competing and, indeed, still is by the Guardian and by CS themeselves in this book

There is no link or commonality between 5ARD, a fairly minor (in terms of impact compared to some) DSD that can only, and does only, affect standard 46 XY males (due to a mutation in a gene that codes for a protein that is a receptor for a chemical that is a precursor to testoterone) and hyperanderogenism, which means higher than normal levels of circulating testosterone, in men or women, and can have a variety of different causes (eg PCOS in women).

As usual, activists and charlatans and people with queering agendas use the fact that most people lack basic scientific understanding to obscure and confuse and lie to suit said agendas.

I read, somewhere on these boards, that Caster's testosterone levels are completely normal for a man.

Semenya stated in the CAS case that he had taken medication to suppress testosterone levels to below 10 nmol/L.

Para 77: https://www.tas-cas.org/fileadmin/user_upload/CAS_Award_-redacted-_Semenya_ASA_IAAF.pdf

This paper suggests that normal male levels of testosterone peak at around age 19 at 15.4 (range 7.2–31.1) nmol/L and falls in the average case to 13.0 (range 6.6–25.3) nmol/L by age 40 years.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4190174/

So yeah, Semenya very much has normal male T levels, mainly because Semenya is male.

So yeah, Semenya very much has normal male T levels, mainly because Semenya is male.

@SabrinaThwaite thank you. That's it exactly.

I don't understand why the article keeps talking about hyperandrogenism?

Because it helps obfuscate the truth that he’s male from the general public and helps maintain the lie. It’s deliberate.