i have always been fascinated with this issue, ever since the controversies surrounding Santhi Soundarajan's failed gender testing during the 2006 Asian Games. i never told any of my friends about it though, because they already thought that my fascination with the Japanese pronunciation is weird enough. but come on! this is an interesting topic! read on if you haven't fallen asleep yet.
okay.
so i spent my weekend reading numerous articles on Caster Semenya. is she a he? or is she a half of each he/she? or is she really a she? that's what everyone wants to know.
i'm not going into details about the high testosterone level in a female athlete's body or about the possibility of having a Y chromosome in a female body or even about Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (AIS) because you can google those things yourself. i just want to touch on why the IAAF is insensitive enough in regards of this matter and announced Semenya's predicament to the world. yes, i know, IAAF is not the one who leaked about the gender testing in the first place, that Australian website did, but why didn't they prevent the matter from the beginning? why didn't they send Semenya home immediately when they first suspected that she is not 100% genetically female? why didn't someone question her masculinity before she took part in that race and won? why everything happened AFTER she won?
in my honest opinion, if her gender is to be determined by the testing of chromosomes alone, i think she's going to fail that test. don't get me wrong! she has a huge talent and i want her to keep on winning medals after medals and breaking records after records but i don't think that's going to happen. as everyone said (and which i personally think is very dehumanising), she is too masculine to be regarded as a female. and that brings me to another question, what about the other female athletes? they are more masculine than any man i know. i even read somewhere that it's normal for them to stop menstruating and to sport facial hair.
so, i have another question. if her medal is to be taken away because of the possibility of possessing that Y chromosome, why is Michael Phelps still allowed to participate in swimming competitions? he has insanely big feet and double-jointed ankles, which makes him genetically superior than his other competitors. why the double standard?
pardon me for saying this, but i think Caster Semenya's career has just ended.
read this if you want to know more ( which i don't think any of you will, but ah well....);
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