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.”

I've always taken the claim from the sports bodies in the countries themselves to be a known lie, because they know they are essentially cheating.

What I wonder about more are those, like some on this thread or in other online discussions I've seen, where people seem to just accept that claim. I remember hearing it myself and thinking - well, if that were true, why is it just being said about this particular person, as opposed to all other other non-white athletes in the Olympics? It just didn't seem to add up in the most basic sense.

I feel for other people with DSDs, which must be psychologically brutal as well as causing many hellish health difficulties, because it's bad enough when the trans rights mob weaponise their suffering to further their agendas, without men like Semenya exploiting his own disorder for financial benefit, which seems to be what drives him. He's doing them no favours trying to 'feminise' himself with a slew of drugs. They are serious health conditions at the end of the day.

This is poppycock.

They don't "assign a gender" for the moment or otherwise. Someone like CS would quickly be recognized as having a DSD that is confined to male persons, and would be raised as a boy, because that's what he'd be.

You can’t say that those with CAIS should be banned because they don’t have periods or have to deal with childbirth. Plenty of women these days have either no periods or very light periods due to various forms of hormonal birth control and IUDs. It’s also not a given that every woman will have a child.

But most female athletes have to make an elective decision as to whether they’re going to actively alter their periods with medication to make them more manageable, controllable or even absent. An athlete with CAIS never has to consider it, never has to weigh up pros and cons, or side effects.

Plus it’s likely CAIS athletes have other advantages relating to XY chromosomes.

CAIS is for me the borderline case, their case for inclusion is far stronger than trans or Semenya-type DSD's, but on balance I still don't think female sporting categories are appropriate for them. They're 'built different' to women, their height and bone structure and so on is (as a population, on average) unmistakably male. I readily concede that the CAIS case is stronger than the other two, but still don't think it's strong enough.

Isn't CAIS the condition that means a male has complete androgen insensitivity? I remember listening to an interview with a CAIS sufferer who was raised as a girl and they spoke about how unlikely it was that anyone with the condition would achieve any kind of standard in sport as they suffer from low bone density etc. In that way it differs from 5ARD and PAIS? Are there are any CAIS athletes competing in female sports at elite level?

On CAIS athletes - twitter.com/FondOfBeetles/status/1070097483408248835

Ah. Good old Emma Hilton.

The interview I heard was with a person named Dalea Runblad (?) who might have turned out to be a bit economical with the truth in other areas, so he was probably lying about that too.

The foundations of this ideology seem to be lies, bad science, evasions and gibberish.

Maybe this graphic will help.

Plus, I wonder if these links are helpful. It is from my bank of links on sports.

This is from a PCOS advocate on twitter.

PCOS raises female testosterone to up to 5.5 nmol/L (and above 4 can cause or indicate serious issues - such as a tumour).
5-ARD raised Caster's testosterone to 21 nmol/L.

twitter.com/NathanielHart72/status/1550916276490477568?s=20&t=E8muLvV5kUEpbPeemz8zwQ

twitter.com/seaningle/status/1537480540068225031?s=20&t=E8muLvV5kUEpbPeemz8zwQ

Sean Ingle (Guardian sports journalist) mentioned this

The latest scientific publications clearly demonstrate that the return of markers of endurance capacity to "female level" occurs within six to eight months under low blood testosterone, while the awaited adaptations in muscle mass and muscle strength/power take much longer (two years minimum according to a recent study). Given the important role played by muscle strength and power in cycling performance, the UCI has decided to increase the transition period on low testosterone from 12 to 24 months. In addition, the UCI has decided to lower the maximum permitted plasma testosterone level (currently 5 mol/L) to 2.5 mol/L. This value corresponds to the maximum testosterone level found in
99.99% of the female population.

This is why every single authority, and activist repeating 'women with high testosterone' is lying and most of them know it. I am quite sure that Semenya has probably had this explained to them, probably had a doctor or a female athlete patiently explain this bit of very well known medical information to Semenya. I would expect that Semenya chooses to ignore it.

@bluetongue
In addition to what NotBadConsidering said, men do not have menstrual cycles which make them more prone to injury when they are producing high amounts of a hormone called relaxin, which loosens ligaments. Males can train the same every day. Women have to adjust their loading according to where they are in their cycle - whether they have light periods or heavy. This is another disadvantage. Where you place in a competition can be decided by the total number of days you train.
Boys are significantly stronger than girls on average. Even boys who never get to experience puberty (CAIS males) are stronger and taller than women on average.

@puffyisgood
I'm glad you have shifted your stance on CAIS athletes, but I still can't agree that CAIS males have a stronger claim to being eligible for women's competitions than males with other DSDs. The criterion for competing as a woman/girl is being female. Therefore no male has any case to be included. There are no edge cases when it comes to sex - everybody is male or female. The raft of advantages CAIS males have derive from their maleness, which is the advantage the category is designed to exclude. It's not just the size of the advantage which matters, it's the source of it. I know you are not advocating for the inclusion of CAIS males, but I thought it was worth making those points for the benefit of lurkers.

When researchers looked at one Olympics, it was found that CAIS athletes were over represented compared to the rate in the population, by a factor of at least 20. But the numbers are too small to know for sure and other Olympics haven’t been analysed (publicly anyway).

Athletes with CAIS might be a group that would be a good fit for a Paralympic category, given that they aren't going to fit into men's sports either. Team sports might be harder to find a good solution for though. At the recreational level, if they can't play as women, they likely won't have any team unless there is a mixed sex sport.

With CAIS we don’t know. The 3 athletes found at the Atlanta Olympics may have all been gold medalists in one sport and would indicate an advantage in that sport. They may have all come dead last across three different sports. Until we make sex verification standard and build numbers for data, we can’t draw any conclusions.

As a spectator it makes me angry. We were lied to. When I watch an international sports event I want to see the best women in the world competing against each other, striving to be the best they can.

I don't want to see who has the best subterfuge or who has the best pharmacist.

Iirc, the CAIS athletes were found to be over-represented on the podiums, not just in the sport. But even if that were not the case, every woman in the sport who finishes behind a CAIS male is unfairly pushed down one place. A racing lane is taken. Or a few thousand pounds of sponsorship is no longer available. Or your name stops appearing on the first page of finishers. Qualifying in last place for the County championships, or coming 150th in a local marathon may be the highest aim of a semi-serious woman's/girl's sporting ambition and the pinnacle of her achievement. It may seem like a small thing to people outside, but it will matter to her whether she just misses qualification or comes 151st, if she loses out - not to a better or more committed athlete, but to a male athlete.

Height and strength are advantages in most sports. Regarding CAIS and PAIS athletes we do know that as a class, they have superior strength and greater height. Muscles, ligaments, tendons, lungs, heart, blood vessels - all male.

So yes, sex verification testing and proper protection of the women/girls categories can't return soon enough!

I agree that a Paralympic men's category would be the logical solution for some male athletes with a DSD. (For athletes with 46XY, 5-ARD, who go through normal male puberty, the DSD does not make them less competitive.) The PAIS/CAIS athletes may have to choose between outing themselves and getting a chance to compete. This is a hard choice for each individual to make. Because even at non-elite level, this group should not compete in the women/girls category or as women/girls in an open category. Women's prizes are not a compensation for male athletes who cannot compete with other men. Not their problem, why should they pay the price?

We should remind ourselves why there is no controversy about women with DSDs which make them appear masculine competing in men's sport at a high level. It's because they are women and don't have male advantages.

If we were discussing drugs in men's sport, we wouldn't be saying, well, this PED is less effective than the others, or it's barely detectable, so let's just let it go.
Fair or unfair. A little bit of unfairness is not ok.

GnomedePlume
I feel exactly the same way.

If I was going to argue that 'a little fairness is OK' in sport I'd probably do it with reference to something like wind assistance in track and field, e.g. a run with a helpful 'tailwind' of 0.5 metres per second is perfectly valid for world record purposes, whereas a run with a tailwind of 5 metres per second is absolutely not. An individual with CAIS isn't a man in anything like the usual sense.

On balance I do find Ms Hilton's stats persuasive enough. CAIS individuals, very sadly for them, genuinely aren't either men or women. They're essentially boys/males who are unable to reach sexual maturity. So whist it's not clear what their place in adult sports really is, we can confidently say that the women's events aren't it.

sorry, a little unfairness.

Like others I do feel some degree of sympathy for Caster as a child. Caster was born in a system which does not have the NHS and Caster's parents were told they had a daughter. A daughter who was different, but a daughter. People trust medics and go with what they're told. Fine.

But this all changed at puberty and by the time Caster was competing with women and winning medals and was internationally famous, more extensive investigation and tests had been done and Caster knew the truth. Caster chose to continue competing against and beating women when Caster knew the biological truth. THAT's when the line was crossed.

Ultimately excluding people with male DSD from competing with women is better for everyone.

No one who watches sport can be under any Illusions that some regimes will not take advantage of any potential advantage they can. This leaves athletes open to abuse.

We have seen this with PED. Regimes happy to use PED with no thought to the long term health of athletes will not baulk at 'creating' DSD athletes if they can see medal table topping opportunity.

Now, now... there's no need for silly little things like genetic testing to prove that CAIS males are males.

All we need is look at the posters willing to disadvantage female athletes so that the poor males don't get a sad.

Am I mistaken or is it dangerous/bad for health to have non descended testes?
Ive been under the impression that if CS had been born here he would have been diagnosed at birth, I distinctly remember a doctor checking my sons balls were all the way out when he was a baby.
Small detail in the grand scheme just find it weird if he’s objecting to taking birth control pills to lower testosterone because of side effects that millions of women put up with every day compared to the health impacts that having testes inside where they are not supposed to be might be causing in terms of cancer risks and whatever else.
Obviously he is just a cheat but Is he risking his health at this point to keep cheating, or could they be gone now the medals are won and the kds are made?

Did CS father his own children via some kind of IVF procedure? I daresay he hasn't actually 'told all' in his book and we'll never be allowed to know. I know his medical history is his business, but it's insane if true. The scale of deceit is outrageous in this case, aided and abetted by a complicit/captured media.

I'd be willing to bet he has. Otherwise you'd be hearing all about why he couldn't.

There was another man with the same DSD who also fathered children. Involves a medical procedure to extract sperm iirc.