No one would see Caster Semenya and swear by his or her eyes that the South African runner is female. One of the cardinal etiquettes of philosophical living is not to judge people by appearances – it should not matter whether someone is fat, thin, short, tall, beautiful or ill-favoured (not to say ugly, like Socrates). Well, most people don’t live philosophically, although a degree of etiquette might make some to hold in what they think about how someone looks. And such variants of physicality and physiognomy, discrete or common, do not apply when it comes to seeing someone through the lens of gender. Male and female. Man and woman. Boy and girl.

Transgender? That would be broadening the tunnel vision by which a lot of people, with a mind even far narrower than the tunnel, look at life, squint-eyed too. There is no blaming decadent modernity, as some are wont to do, for such neologies like transvestitism and transsexuality, the very spirit of the words might as well be as old as time itself. For some, gender crossover is more than a mere fancy or self-indulgence or playful genderfuck. There is even solid medical and psychological ground for diagnosing ‘Gender Identity Disorder’ or gender dysphoria, when someone might begin to believe - often starting from infancy - that he is trapped in another body, in another gender – a girl thinking he is a boy.

Now one can easily overhear religionists dismissing gender identity disorder as a moral sin, as an evil possession, as a matter of choice, of freewill, as yet another sinful way of pre-empting god-made order of things with the whim of lifestyle. One can easily overhear a born-again Christian blabbering about the human body being a divine temple of sorts. Fair enough, there is nothing wrong in keeping your body celibately inviolate if you can manage it, preserved for God, a scrubbed sinless little chapel in which angels sing, in which every cell joins in the celestial sing-along. It is instructive though that even Adam and Eve failed to keep their supposedly clay-made bodies hallowed for long.

Adam and Eve, those two! These mythic figures are still larger than life in the minds of Africans more than any other people. They are still the models of what humans should be: clear-cut man and woman, man and wife. I wonder what those who believe god makes everything perfect, so simple and direct, would make of hermaphrodites. Aren’t they god’s handiwork too? Or shall we say god’s intersexual antic? If you believe that the template God and his archangels set down in the beginning was Adam and Eve, whence someone who is neither Adam nor Eve, neither man nor woman?

We know that a lot of female athletes and extreme physical aesthetes like body-building, weight-lifting women, possess bodies that might confuse brain’s eye, that often indelicate blurring of boundary between cheesecake and beefcake. But from the first time I saw her on TV, I intuited that Caster Semenya is an androgyne. We can go on about XY chromosomes for eternity, about testosterone level, about progesterone flux, till everyone drops, Semenya’s appearance, carriage, comportment and mien all make it hard for anyone to even begin to think of her as a woman. The message your eyes send to your brain is simple and uncomplicated. Man. Sporty young man. Serena William is hardly the most feminine woman in the world but you would still not imagine you are looking at a man wherever she is playing on the tennis court, caterwauling like a she-cat on heat. Even the man-turned-woman, Renée Richards, is as convincing on the court as Serena, as Hingis, although you might, in your wittier moment, consider Martina Navratilova for a gender test. 

Semenya is lean, muscly, with a toned upper-body unencumbered with bosom. It was no surprise that she outran other girls during the 800 metres race in Germany by a long chalk. And I don’t think you need to be a white racialist to ponder over what you had just seen when she coasted to a far finish, way ahead of her fellow runners. Nor should you necessarily be a white fellow competitor to question Semenya’s gender, in your mind at least. And if I were a member of the Athletic Association I would second a test for Semenya, fully aware that South Africa’s ruling ANC would cry racism and discrimination – racism, the red-herring that black South Africans now bring up, often unreasonably, Mugabelike. 

I did not wait for the result of the test that was said to have been carried out on Semenya with bated breath. I watched her donkey-ride arrival in South Africa, characterised by a lot of flag-wagging and speechifying and I could see Winnie Madikizela-Mandela showing off with the frowning, sometimes glowering, Semenya. I noticed that the girl was particularly sombre and clumsy for someone who was expecting the result of the test that had been done on her to be nothing if not positive, positive in the way of being a woman. I allowed the young woman to slip from my mind as she retired to her village in South Africa (although I read a story in a magazine with the picture of Semenya striking a mirthful pose in front of her family hut).

I was not surprised by the result of the test. Semenya is a hermaphrodite, she has no ovaries and so on. I expected the ANC to go ballistic – and they have. The ‘race card’ is being played over and over again. It is all because Semenya is black, not because she might not be fully female. No South African official is willing to allow for the intergender argument as they promise what they consider the white-ruled world fire and sulphur, even suggesting the onset of the ‘third world war,’ a war that they promise to fight to the finish if ever Semenya is stripped of her title. ANC’s reaction is not all that out of character. After the equable interregnum of Nelson Mandela, Paranoia and Pointlessness have been the party’s watchword. If Thabo Mbeki could be so wrong-headed as to imagine that the incidence of AIDS in South Africa was an exaggeration and that the disease was easily curable with herbs, garlic and so forth, what should one expect of the party when it is headed by, well, the less long-headed Jacob Zuma?

One would expect any government to stand by its citizen, but there are other ways South African government could have helped and supported Semenya instead of the blustering and empty bragging. Understandably, Semenya’s family have been supportive. But one cannot but wonder whether it was not possible that someone had known about Semenya’s androgyny when she was growing up, when she was running around with boys, when she began to run as an amateur, when she went pro and was sent to an international event. Would a country like France, for instance, do such a thing? Or if it did would it be reacting like South Africa? Would it absolve itself of any responsibility for sending someone whose gender was not even fairly defined to an international meet where doubts might be raised about what she was?

The public outing of the young South African is not in the least pleasant. There is a debate as to whether there may have been a better way to handle the affair than this, a method more discreet, more sensitive to the girl’s feelings. An Indian athlete, now former athlete, who won silver at 800m race during 2006 Asian games has spoken of her humiliation when it was discovered that she was a hermaphrodite. Santhi Soundarajan was discovered to have undescended testes and XY chromosomes despite having external female organs. When the results came out she was stripped of her title and had felt deep an ignominy so deep that she tried to kill herself. It’s been stressed over and over again that whatever interdictions were placed on Semenya her medal would not be taken from her. I hope this would be some consolation for the young woman.

For their part, ANC hotheads should cool down and think about how to offer solace to Semenya instead of boasting about declaring the third world war. And I wonder who were the brains behind the photoshoot that seeks to show Semenya as a woman, sporting a jheri-curls-like head of hair, grinning from the cover of a glossy. I hope South Africa would not start to parody itself while using the Semenya as the stooge.

Or maybe there is more to South Africa’s anger than is obvious at first glance. Not long ago I wrote about a woman from Southern Africa (from the Cape area) who was taken to Europe some two hundred years ago to be made part of what was called Human Zoo. Saartje Baartman was a sexual curiosity because of her huge buttocks and big bosom. And because of the considerable size of her genitalia which she refused to show to slavering white men eye-candying her, but which were nevertheless cut from her used-up dead body and kept in a museum. It was only in 2002 that the ‘remains’ of Saartje Baartman were returned to South Africa. The lately refreshed memory of what Baartman went through in Europe two hundred years ago may have contributed to South Africa’s overreaction to the Semenya affair. In the collective unconscious of South Africans, Semenya might suggest Baartman. Possibly, South Africa is acting on the awareness that there is little to choose between a Hottentot Venus and a Hottentot Anti-Venus.  

Finally, in a world where there is so much emphasis on fairness, rights, and equality, I wonder why anything has not been done about giving a fitting niche, in sports, to people with intergender condition. Why were the Paralympics introduced if not to allow people with disabilities to compete with one another and fulfil themselves as members of the human family? If an intersex person should not compete as a woman or even as a man, then in what guise would they strut their stuff? If we said they might as well ‘be a man’ in so far as most have XY chromosomes anyway, it has been proved that they have just enough progestogens in them to put them slightly at a disadvantage if, as a rule, they compete with men. In spite of the odds, I believe there should be a way round it.  

Robot  # 1 | 14.09.2009 00:41

...Read the full article.

Enyi  # 2 | 14.09.2009 16:32

The story of Caster Semenya is sad, avoidable and epitomizes parental and society failures. She is not the first sports woman whose sexuality was suspect. Often, this is based on physique and therefore such suspicions are easily put to rest. One may recall the embarrassment the French tennis player- Mauresmo (hope I spelt the name right) - suffered when she initially appeared on the circuit. Sadly enough Caster may be the first whose case has been scientifically confirmed. I must say that I have no reason to doubt the results because there are many foolproof scientific methods available for gender determination. Definitely, it was wrong to leak the test results to the press. The leak was reckless, irresponsible and did not consider the psychological damage it may have on Caster, if she was ignorant of her true sexuality. It is probable that the unauthorized leak may be contributory to the hostile reaction in South Africa. One would have liked her privacy to be respected. However, considering Caster’s position in the hierarchy of female athletics, is she actually entitled to such privacy? Are other female competitors not entitled to know whether the ground was level for all competitors? Part of the blame should go to her immediate family. I find it hard to believe that they did not notice worrisome traits that required proper medical examination. Although I do not know Caster’s real age, I assume from the TV images that she is beyond puberty. If my assumption is right, has she been menstruating as expected? If not, what was done about this? It must be mentioned that Caster is not the only hermaphrodite in the world. Once this condition is detected, corrective surgery and relevant psychological support are given to bring up the individual as a male or female. In her own case the testes would have been removed to suppress the production of male hormone. On the assumption that she did not know her true sexuality I totally agree with the IAAF’s decision to let her keep her medal. However, what becomes of any records she might have set? Will they stand or be expunged from the books? Furthermore, I suggest that she must not be allowed to participate in further competition until the anomaly is corrected. I shall close with a comment on this: Finally, in a world where there is so much emphasis on fairness, rights, and equality, I wonder why anything has not been done about giving a fitting niche, in sports, to people with intergender condition. Why were the Paralympics introduced if not to allow people with disabilities to compete with one another and fulfil themselves as members of the human family? If an intersex person should not compete as a woman or even as a man, then in what guise would they strut their stuff? This will be difficult to organize because we do not know the real number of adults who are hermaphrodites for the following reasons: 1). Many cases are corrected early in life 2). Some cases, especially in third world countries may be kept under wraps social reasons. As a corollary to this, do not expect somebody especially in Africa to openly admit that he/she is a hermaphrodite. 3). Every competitor must be tested to confirm the sexuality- Is it worth the costs? 4). The competitors have to put into groups- one for those with testes, another for those with ovaries and a third for those with ovary and testis.

Godwin  # 3 | 15.09.2009 08:43

http://www.reuters.com/article/sportsNews/idUSTRE58E23V20090915 Lewis blames South Africa federation for Semenya row TEL AVIV (Reuters) - Retired American track and field star Carl Lewis has blamed South African athletics authorities for the predicament of the nation's world champion Caster Semenya, whom a report says is a hermaphrodite. The IAAF, athletics' world governing body, said last week medical experts were examining the results of gender tests on Semenya, who won the women's 800 meters at last month's world championships in Berlin. No decision is expected until late November but the IAAF has declined to confirm a report last week in Australia's Daily Telegraph newspaper which said the runner had both male and female sexual characteristics. Lewis said he was upset by the handling of the affair. "Here is an 18-year-old young woman, because that's what she feels she is, let down every step along the way... the South African federation should have dealt with it and I think the federation let her down," Lewis said on a visit to Tel Aviv on Monday. "It is your fault," he said accusingly to the South African athletics federation. "She is your athlete in your country and you didn't deal with this before. "To put it out in front of the world like that, I am very disappointed in them because I feel that it is unfair to her." "Now, for the rest of her life she'll be marked as 'the one'." South African President Jacob Zuma has decried the invasion of Semenya's privacy and what he called the violation of her rights. Some South Africans have accused the IAAF of racism for ordering the gender tests on Semenya, saying her broad shoulders and imposing musculature were common in women's athletics. Lewis said he thought Semenya, who destroyed the field in Berlin to win in one minute, 55.45 seconds, the year's fastest time, a personal best and a national record, should be allowed to keep her gold medal.

Tiger  # 4 | 16.09.2009 05:11

Girl-boy, Boy-girl, whichever way you want to twist your tongue, the case of Semenya highlights the insensitivity of a sport governing authority to the welfare of its athlete. That she can be used to gain undue advantage is very unfortunate. What later turned out to cause international furore must have raised few eyebrows in South Africa itself. People in position of responsibility should pay enough attention to the emotional needs of those under them. Turning Semenya into a laughing stock is not the best way to market the potentials of South Africa athletes. Nevertheless, a damned good article and a pleasant read!