Leonard Chuene, the head of South African athletics who has stepped down from the IAAF until the matter is settled, said: "We are talking about a child here, whose name has been dragged through the dirt by an organisation which should know better.
"If gender tests have to take place, they should have been done quietly. It is a taboo subject. How can a girl live with this stigma? By going public on the tests, the IAAF has let down this young child, and I will fight tooth and nail to protect her."Describing the speculation about Semenya's gender as "racist", he added: "Who are white people to question the makeup of an African girl?"
"I say this is racism, pure and simple. In Africa, as in any other country, parents look at new babies and can see straight away whether to raise them as a boy or a girl. We are now being told that it is not so simple. But the people who question these things have no idea how much shame such a slur can bring on a family.
"They are doubting the parents of this child and questioning the way they brought her up. God has his say on what people are. He made us all. A young girl has no input as she enters the world on what she will look like."
23 comments:
Wrote about this at my spot and posted a pic of this chick and Marion Jones.
From the neck down, they look exactly the same.
Hey
I'd like to know who decides who should be tested and who shouldn't be tested? And why did the IAAF wait four hours before making a public announcement, yet in June they had written to the SA Sports Fed to "verify her gender". Wonder who these "experts" will be and where they come from.
Good point you made on your blog Big Man; is this a thing of beauty, for all investigaors concerned. Situations such as this def undo our sociological constructions of gender. At the same time we've got to also question our reliance on Western science as the determinant of truth.
Michael Johnson talked abt the IAAF's handling of the matter:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/athletics/8211819.stm
[quote]From the neck down, they look exactly the same.[/quote]
Big Man - Sorry - I can't agree.
Whereas I wouldn't "Kick Marian Jones out of the bed".......I wouldn't even wish that KCNulan woke up and found this "dude" in his bed after a wild night of drinking and smoking the herb that he grows in his "Basement Research".
No comparison what so ever.
Let's see if "Dude" ever takes a few years off to have a baby as Marion Jones did.
CF
It's insulting to talk about this young woman the way you just did.
She wasn't born beautiful. She was born fast.
Marion Jones, for all her enhanced muscle development, was a pretty chick. This young lady is not, in my opinion.
That doesn't make it ok to call her a man, or dude, and make jokes are her expense. This is an 18-year old girl who should be enjoying a major accomplishment, but instead she's listening to people talk about how she looks.
That has to be painful.
This ain't really a race issue, but for me I keep thinking about all the sisters who were told they weren't feminine enough, or they were too manly, and I feel bad for them. Women have enough body issues without adding "You a man" to the pile.
Like I said on my post, from the neck down, Jones and Semenya have the exact same body. Period. The same stomach muscles, the same biceps, the same flat chest. It's crazy. I wouldn't be mad if people assumed the chick was doping, but to accuse her of being a man goes too far.
It's an honest question.
There's male, female and a few possibilities in between with an extra chromosome or lack of one.
I mean, why should we just assume she is 100% female? Isn't that presumptious? Or just because her family said so?
Gee, I guess we don't need drug testing anymore. If Marion Jones & her supporters said she was drug-free, then she's drug-free!
"It's insulting to talk about this young woman the way you just did."
Or if she's not 100% female, then it would be insulting to talk about her as if she were..
Unlike you Ronald "hot comb" Barr (CS/CF) - CNu like his coffee, hot, tall, Black, and skrong.....,
What is "100% female"? Gender is a continuum not an absolute. We can't hold science to be the singular determinant; when gender is also a social construct.
This is a young girl whose life could be crushed by all this controversy. She had refused to attend the award ceremony because of this but had to be convinced to go up there and accept her medal. The way this has been handled is awful and some of the heartless comments about her physique show what bigots some people are.
As far as I'm concerned gender testing is a can of worms that brings up many other issues relating to physiology and other social factors that should be called into question if 'gender testing' is to be valid IMO.
For argumentsake I could say that Michael Phelps has what can be termed a 'biological advantage' over his other competitors, but there are no quibbles there. And what about the access to better training facilities for Western-based athletes have as an advantage over athletes from poorer countries; that is also grounds to question the fairness of sport.
Maybe its just me....
While this woman is not a beauty queen, I've seen worse. All the time in fact.
[quote]That doesn't make it ok to call her a man, or dude, and make jokes are her expense. This is an 18-year old girl who should be enjoying a major accomplishment, but instead she's listening to people talk about how she looks.[/quote]
BigMan:
Lighten up.
CLEARLY there is something going on with this one's hormones.
Ask the females who were running in the same competition with "dude gal" and see if THEY are not interested in far more scrutiny of this one than you are willing to offer up.
For a people who always demand "a level playing field" some of you sure aren't as inclined to throw upon some flags of suspicion.
Where is the level of skepticism that you put out when your favored party loses an election?
[International Olympic Committee regulations require all athletes to compete under their gender at birth.]—Alastair Jamieson
Caster Semenya’s father considers his child to be a female, but was this person in fact a hhermaphrodite at birth?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/6060027/Caster-Semenya-gender-row-what-is-a-hermaphrodite.html
And if Semenya is a hermaphrodite how can the IAAF verify gender?
[IAAF spokesman Nick Davies confirmed the tests were taking place, though he said the results would not be confirmed for several weeks.
It is understood that the tests are focusing on whether Semenya has a chromosomal disorder.
Mr. Davies said it had not been suggested that Semenya was a man who had cheated by concealing his true sex, but that she could suffer from a genetic disorder which means she has both male and female chromosomes.]
If it is determined that Semenya is intersexual then the IAAF will have to issue new competition rulings that cover this area.
It could be that like Lady GaGa, Sememya has no shame being what she is.
["It’s not something that I’m ashamed of, just isn’t something that I go around telling everyone.
Yes. I have both male and female genitalia, but I consider myself a female. It’s just a little bit of a penis and really doesn’t interfere much with my life. The reason I haven’t talked about it is that it’s not a big deal to me.
Like come on. It’s not like we all go around talking about our vags.
I think this is a great opportunity to make other multiple gendered people feel more comfortable with their bodies. I’m sexy, I’m hot. I have both a poon and a peener. Big f*cking deal."]
http://www.clevelandleader.com/node/10922
I just don't understand what made them decide to test her in the first place. Those athletes have never been beauty pageant material. She's not ugly, she's just not "feminine" because she's all muscle and that's not typical for most women. I feel bad for her. If they're going to test her, all the female winners should be tested as well.
Hey
The issue of testing her was first raised in Mauritius when she competed at the Africa Youth Games. According to the ASA she passed these tests, but the IAAF wrote to the South African Sports Fed to say they needed further testing to be done. In Berlin the Russian and Italian athletes started kicking up a fuss saying Caster wasn't a woman. Others also added their voices and the IAAF acting on these RUMOURS publicly announced (!) they would investigate.
The Times (UK) ran a story today saying that there's a dispute btwn the ASA and IAAF; they SA Fed claims the IAAF haven't even tested her contrary to Nick Davis claims they have begun. How the IAAF can publically call her gender into question before testing her is downright wrong, IMO. (The Times article also gives an interesting perspective on the circus the tabloid media and betting rings have turned this into.)
I don't think she is a hemaphrodite as the articles posted by Makheru suggest. If she were this would have been established already. What they are looking at is chromosomal imbalance:
The “gender verification” tests that Caster Semenya will have to take seek to determine her chromosomal sex, and whether she has a DSD that might confer a competitive advantage.
However, unless they show her to be unambiguously female, or they reveal a tumour causing excess androgen production, they are unlikely to be definitive and may well pose more questions than answers. Intersex disorders by their nature involve ambiguity, and individuals with the same condition sometimes fall on different sides of the gender divide.
One condition that could explain Semenya’s virilised appearance is congenital adrenal hyperplasia. People with this disorder are chromosomally female and usually identify as such, but have excessive testosterone levels because of a genetic mutation. They often have ambiguous genitalia and masculine musculature, but there is no reason not to class them as female.
People with a 5-alpha reductase deficiency, by contrast, are chromosomally male, but do not produce a powerful androgen. They are born with female genitalia and are usually raised as girls if the disorder is not identified, yet become virilised at puberty. While some raised as girls change gender identity to male, others do not.
Wiebke Arlt, professor of medicine at the University of Birmingham, an endocrinologist who specialises in DSDs, said it was “rather silly” to imagine that tests can verify gender.
“Gender is determined by social as well as biological factors, how you perceive yourself and how you were raised,” she said. “Whether her chromosomal sex is XX or XY, Caster Semenya appears always to have identified as female, and tests are not going to change that.”
...So CF, drop the mean comments.
peace
Thanks Konwomyn.
CF thinks his comments are funny and harmless, but was offended by Lil Wayne's song "Ms. Officer" because he believes it didn't show
the proper deference to law enforcement types.
That's hilarious to me.
Ronald Barr (CS/CF) pretends to be on a mission of awareness raising, yet the only awareness he manages to arouse - is widespread collective awareness that he's an asshole with social comprehension skills waaaaaay into the Asperger's range of severity.
Asante KonWomyn for the clarity.
that thing is nasty.
that he's an asshole with social comprehension skills waaaaaay into the Asperger's range of severity.
u r 1 to talk cunt.
write it with a repeated and durable avatar slitch...,
slitch cunt fucker
faggot Anonymous bitch coward
I am a zebra-skinned walrus with a candy-striped penis
Cu cu ca chu
Whats the problem does she have a penis or a vagina?
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