susan francia
claire bevilacqua, biba golic, natasha kai, sarah reinertsen, lolo jones
Beyond the crude “lady looks like a dude’’ jokes about runner Caster Semenya is a murky and delicate conundrum for the international track and field federation and a personal nightmare for the South African teenager who found herself at the center of a global debate after she won the women’s 800-meter title by more than two seconds at last month’s World Championships in Berlin.
Gender can be so difficult to determine that the Olympics stopped testing for it before the 2000 Games, and Semenya probably will keep her medal. According to a Sydney newspaper, the report prepared for the IAAF concluded that the 18-year-old Semenya, who has a masculine build and voice, has both female genitalia and internal testes, which likely accounts for her elevated testosterone level.
The question for the federation is whether Semenya’s unusual makeup gives her an advantage in a women’s event, and the answer appears to be decidedly less clear than it was in last year’s case of her countryman Oscar Pistorius, the double amputee whose springy carbon fiber legs enabled him to be competitive against elite able-bodied rivals. Scientific tests concluded that the prostheses gave Pistorius no overall net advantage and he was granted Olympic eligibility but didn’t achieve a qualifying time.
Semenya’s situation is not only more medically complex, involving everything from gynecology to endocrinology to psychology, but also more sensitive.This is something that touches the very soul of the individual,’’ says International Olympic Committee president Jacque Rogge, a surgeon who believes the case should have been handled with more anonymity and discretion.
Semenya withdrew from a meet last week and is undergoing trauma counseling.I just feel sorry for Caster,’’ said Great Britain’s Jenny Meadows, who won the bronze medal in Berlin. “It’s not a nice position to be in.Though some of Semenya’s rivals are convinced she is a man, Meadows said she didn’t bring up the issue with her.
Gender can be so difficult to determine that the Olympics stopped testing for it before the 2000 Games, and Semenya probably will keep her medal. According to a Sydney newspaper, the report prepared for the IAAF concluded that the 18-year-old Semenya, who has a masculine build and voice, has both female genitalia and internal testes, which likely accounts for her elevated testosterone level.
The question for the federation is whether Semenya’s unusual makeup gives her an advantage in a women’s event, and the answer appears to be decidedly less clear than it was in last year’s case of her countryman Oscar Pistorius, the double amputee whose springy carbon fiber legs enabled him to be competitive against elite able-bodied rivals. Scientific tests concluded that the prostheses gave Pistorius no overall net advantage and he was granted Olympic eligibility but didn’t achieve a qualifying time.
Semenya’s situation is not only more medically complex, involving everything from gynecology to endocrinology to psychology, but also more sensitive.This is something that touches the very soul of the individual,’’ says International Olympic Committee president Jacque Rogge, a surgeon who believes the case should have been handled with more anonymity and discretion.
Semenya withdrew from a meet last week and is undergoing trauma counseling.I just feel sorry for Caster,’’ said Great Britain’s Jenny Meadows, who won the bronze medal in Berlin. “It’s not a nice position to be in.Though some of Semenya’s rivals are convinced she is a man, Meadows said she didn’t bring up the issue with her.
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