Caster Semenya To World: I’m Not A Man
It must be tough being South African track star Caster Semenya.
Instead of carrying yourself like a sex goddess (like so many in the limelight), Caster is under the inverse predicament: Track and field officials apparently think she’s a man.
She even had to take a gender test to validate her gold medal, in the 800M sprint last month.
Just this week a South African publication — You Magazine — hired a stylist to make Caster over and published the photos for her critics to finally see what we already now.
Caster Semenya is a woman. A strong, proud young black woman. Now, she may have style issues, but at 18 years of age, who didn’t?
“I’d like to dress up more often and wear dresses but I never get the chance,” she told You. “I am who I am and I’m proud of myself.”
But why did she even have to be subjected to the Hatorade? While here in the USA she’s not as widely known, the controversy is huge in Europe, where many world track athletes are household names.
After Caster thoroughly demolished the competition at the World Athletics Championships, race officials, spurred on by Semenya’s opponents, incredulously alleged that she was of the male gender.
To make matters worse, her coach Wilfred Daniels resigned this week, saying that he felt bad that he had Caster take a gender exam that was misrepresented to her as a doping test. Daniels told the Associated Press “there’s only one way for me to deal with this, and that was to say sorry and walk away.”
Daniels said the whole ordeal was unfair to Caster and that he should have told her about the media spectacle that was about to hit. He said the right thing to have done was to pull her to the side and tell her “this is what’s going to happen, this is how gender verification tests are done, these are your rights,” he said. “Those are the kind of issues that we didn’t explain to her.”
What’s more telling is that the he IAAF, track and field’s international governing body, could publicly humiliate a black woman and there not be the slightest outrage among the populace.
To silence her critics, Caster did the photoshoot that shows off a new hairdo. Caster has displayed incredible humility and courage through the whole controversy.
“I see it all as a joke, it doesn’t upset me,” she said in the magazine. “God made me the way I am and I accept myself”.
It’s a shame a sister had to get a makeover to silence her critics. Many black athletes in the track world, including retired sprinter Michael Johnson, have criticized racing officials over the incident.
Her poor parents did all they could to convince people that their 18-year-old daughter was in fact a girl.
“She is my little girl. I raised her and I have never doubted her gender. She is a woman and I can repeat that a million times,” father Jacob Semenya was quoted as saying.
After winning the gold in the 800M race, it was reported that Semenya said privately that she considered boycotting the medal ceremony. She went through with it, but has become an example of quiet strength for many young women.
As for her detractors, they’ll have to eat dust.
[photo credit: www.mirror.co.uk]
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God bless her. Amen!!
“quiet strength” indeed! She’s an inspiration! GO Caster!
Caster’s like…half woman half AMAZING!
I think this is a shame. People look different. Since this is a muscle issue have all the girls tested.
I haven’t read very much in depth on this issue, but there is a known disorder that can cause humans with an X and a Y chromosome (making them genetically male) to have defective testosterone receptors which cause them to develop female bodies. I might be wrong, but from what I understand that is what they’re testing for. There have also been cases of parents having male children and then giving them sex changes in their early days of life for reasons such as a preference for the sex of the child or a couple of occasions where they wanted to spare the child humiliation from the results of a botched circumcision… yeah, it happens.
So, even though the public is mostly outraged, I do understand the actions of the IAAF. However, I think they should have tried harder to keep this whole situations quiet. This is a very private issue and should not be used as fodder for the media. I also hope that once the testing is over with they drop this issue completely.
I dont want to sound mean but folks need to be honest, if any of you walked past Caster on the street without even knowing her, you would have thought that was a man. While Caster may have some disorder, what normal person you know would take the time out to think about “maybe this woman has a genetic disorder that has made that her come out looking like a man when she really is a woman”. I mean, seriously.
But congrats to her. She is a sista who is achieving in the world and that is always wonderful in my eyes.
wow. it’s really a shame to defend something like that. she’s really taking all of this like a champion. i agree with a comment that was already posted. she is half woman half amazing.
The world owes the lady an apology.
Heads up people – this athlete has no breasts, no womb, no ovaries. But does
have undescended testes and 3 times the testosterone levels of a female.
Semen ya! IS a man.
JAZZ….I totally agree with you. I think that it is possible for this women to have a chromosonal disorder(XYX–I think). She may choose to identify as female but be genetically male (technically). The officials should check it out and keep it private b/c she certainly would not be the first.
Here’s an update: http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2009/sep/10/caster-semenya-hermaphrodite-iaaf-test
I think they should gender test all athletes. I couldn’t imagine going through what she has been through. Definitely humbles the soul. But I’d kill to have Semenya’s abs. Time for more crutches. :)
I don’t know too many women named Caster, do you? Why would her mother name her daughter that? This person has no breast, no womb, no ovaries…..chest, muscle, shoulder and arm structure of a male. The exact same jaw line as my 21 year old nephew! Triple the testosterone level of any female, internal testes. I mean even if this person was born with a genetic abnormality. Clearly they leans more toward being raised a male then female. In any event, this makes it an uneven playing field for the other women who do not possess that level of testosterone production without taking some type of drug that would disqualify them from competing and has in effect given Caster an unfair edge on the competition. It ain’t my business what she identity with or choses to be, but with that type of advantage she should not be competing against females who are 100% female. Her people knew what she was and they attempted to use her unsual genetic makeup to their advantage. Not fair.
At first I was about to scream Hottentot Venus all over again, but then I had to look at this from a different perspective.
In situations like this we like to call people hermaphroditic but in Semanya’s case (if the stories are true) she (respectfully) is not really a woman at all but a intersex man who has been socialized as a woman. She’s not half and half, etc. As Shantep stated (and I’ll add to), Semanya has no womb, no ovaries, undescended testes, higher levels of testosterone, no obvious curvature in the waistline, no protruding bosom, an Adam’s apple, and the physical stature of a man. Even here mannerisms are masculine in their appearance. This too me describes a man. And the way science is arbitrarily applied today, even if her chromosomes showed she was a man, her supporters would still cry woman. Considering this, I don’t think it fair to allow Semanya to continue to race against unambiguously sexed women.
I hate that the IAAF and the media had to drag this young person through the fire. Making a mockery of one’s gender is not a laughing matter. The testing could have been done with a lot more privacy and much more tact. No matter how you slice it I think apologies are still in order to her and her family.
@ shantep: Her people might not have known what she was for sure. I mean, they might have been tipped off at the fact that she never started her period or grew breasts, but if she was born with a vagina, they may have just assumed she was female and never questioned it since then.
It’s so unfortunate that all of Semenya’s business has been broadcasted so publicly.
It’s a shame what some people have to go throught to prove themselves. Caster is a remarkable and strong black woman, it makes me sad that she was so exposed. She diserves better than that.
It seems to me that this young woman was basically exploited by the people around her. They knew something was off but failed to go through all the tests to put the case to rest until she reached Berlin. All of a sudden her coach quits because he lied to her it was a doping test and not a gender test? That’s just horribly wrong because I don’t believe Caster actually had the intent to cheat, she was just running a race that she had trained hard for.
I keep reading on other sites that her parents should have known. Unfortunately, they most likely didn’t, they obviously saw her differences but instead socialized her as a girl, because its obvious she has a vagina if she didn’t this ordeal would have been over a long time ago. In small rural villages theres no looking deeper at a child’s genetics when they are born if they are healthy children.
I can imagine what this must be like for an 18yr old to go through what has happened to her in the past few months and even moreso on the world’s stage. Her coaches need to be the first ones apologizing.
If the tracker was white, would this have happened. Once again racism at his worst.
Everybody is assuming that Caster Semenya has a vagina and done of the reports have confirmed that. The reports did not confirm a penis nor mention one nor did they confirm a vagina nor mention one. What the reports state is that she has internal testes (her balls are tucked up inside her). This procedure is common for men who have had a sex change operation, where they create some sort of pseudo vagina after castration and move the testes inside that cavity. Sounds very familiar in this person’s case. The official report/finding will be out in November and I guess at that point they will determine if she will keep her metal.