Gender and Athletics

It seems the whole Caster Semenya athlete sex/gender controversy is about to come to a head. It has been reported that the results of “gender tests” have been revealed by news reports, but the International Association of Athletics Federation will not release them officially (Hughes). Many people seemed to think that it was just stereotypes gone awry; one blogger even mentioned it had something to with euro- ethnocentric standards of beauty stating, “The issue seems to directly question race, beauty and who gets to set the standards. White and western is more female and more beautiful, black and African is less so” (Andrews). This is in contrast to quotes I read from some of Semenya’s competitors, that were to the affect “Just look, she is a man.”

In the end, it seems the truth lies somewhere in between… like Semenya’s biology.  According to the Times Online, she is actually a hermaphrodite with “internal testes and no womb or ovaries” (Broadbent). This is also injunction with another test that show she had three times the testosterone of a normal woman (Hughes).

Now, I’m not naive about the fact that the lines can be blurry, especially in a society that is obsessed with classifying people in specific fixed categories when it comes to the social creation of gender, the shallowly overemphasized sexual orientation, and biological sex. But it is clear to me that this particular woman, who I shall call a woman because it is her identity, should not be with other women in a competitive sporting event.

Sport serves many roles and purposes, one of which is to be an exercise in meritocracy and fairness that is more pure than the realities we often face in the world. In sport two people or two teams are meant to compete on an equal playing field where the only differences in success are preparation, effort, intelligence, and luck/nature which affects natural gifts of athletes but also the sometimes random and unpredictable elements of competition.

It could be, and has been argued, that because Ms. Semenya’s physical body is completely natural, which it is in the sense it is not artificial, her medals should not be taken away and she should be allowed to compete with women for the rest of her career.  This line of logic however leaves open the door to men competing against women in sporting events as long as their bodies are natural and not aided by any performance enhancing drugs. A counter to this would be that men already have the opportunity to compete in their own event. However, this logic means that a male softball player could get on the national team of his country because there is not a male softball team at that level, or perhaps he would compete in the Olympic heptathlon because he is not good enough at a decathlon.

The truth is that this not as complex as some people make it out to be. Rules and regulations in sports are meant to keep the playing field level from everything from weight classes, amateurism verses professionalism, and women’s and men’s sports. People born with mixed or extra genitalia that gives them an advantage over another person in a sports setting can and should be barred from competing in that setting. However, there should be a place for her to compete. Just as an amputee with a high tech flex spring leg can outrun most two legged competitors should not be in regular competitions but rather be in events such as the Paralympics, there should also be an event for people born between the realms of the two sexes.  Others may scoff and interject that this is impossible because it takes away people’s gender identities and most importantly will not get the support of many because it goes against what the majority think about gender and sex especially in countries that have very harsh and sometimes violent reactions in this area. Ms. Semenya’s country of South Africa is a perfect example of a place where women and men who break the norm can be harassed or, in the case of the nation’s women’s soccer captain who was an openly gay woman who “was gang-raped and beaten, before being stabbed 25 times in the face, chest and legs,” killed for breaking her gender role (Smith).

In conclusion, the International Association of Athletics Federation should re-implement sex testing,  which  it stopped doing in 1999 (Times Online), Semenya can keep her medals, for she has not broken a formal rule even if she MAY have broken a moral one through  omission, but a new set shall be given to the second, third, and fourth place finishers in the interest of fairness,  and the whole world should open up and educate itself about the differences between sex and gender.