Critics of Caster Semenya’s womanhood can screw themselves. She’s coming back, bitches.
Though she hasn’t been officially banned from racing, she’s stayed on the sidelines since August as the controversy around her gender, and testing for it, began; it was expected she’d remain offline until the results of her gender test were released. But now she’s insisting on returning to the track, and it’s not a quiet arrival.
In a statement released yesterday, she lashes out at the International Association of Athletics Federation, which has so far withheld its findings about Semenya’s biology, and thus her eligibility to compete in women’s races. (Preliminary results have leaked.)
Except it’s not just that IAAF is being a d-bag about her privacy, but about her livelihood. The hold up means her “athletic capabilities and earning potential are being severely compromised.” Her attorneys, she says, have tried three times to get IAAF to release a timeline, but their efforts have been ignored.
How about we take this to the next level?
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But just because she wants back in the sport doesn’t mean she’ll get it. Yesterday she was denied entry to a race outside Cape Town, ostensibly because IAAF hasn’t cleared her.
UDPATE: Athletics South Africa is telling Semenya she cannot compete until IAAF’s gender test results are back, which ASA is demanding by June.
Jason
TRANNY!
Rikard
Damn right, kick ass! If she has acceptable natural hormones and a naturally occuring vagina there is no reason she should not compete with women.
Cam
I thought that the leaked preliminary results said that she had two testicles that hadn’t decended? Her body type definitly looks male with the narrow hips and stomach. Poor thing, if those prelims are true it must be a huge shock to find something like that out in a test in front of the entire world!
cboy
Maybe she should consider changing her last name.
james_cambridge
Spelling Nazi here; it’s f-u-r-i-o-u-s. You’re welcome, Queerty editors.
DR
@Cam:
The results of the preliminary test were leaked months ago, with no confirmation from Semenya’s camp. The results indicate that physically, there is no womb, testicles which never descended, and around 3-4x the testosterone levels of a biological female.
SugNight
Who’s he?
Kate
@Jason:
Gay man is gay.
j
If she has a vagina and testis that makes her intersexed and not nessicarily male or female, correct? And where exactly does an intersexed athlete compete? This could be interesting, but let’s not forget there’s also a human being at the centre of all this. I can certainly understand her (as, until the results come through, we should still refer to her by her chosen gender and the one she was raised with) anger with the situation and fair play to her for insisting on competeing.
@Jason: You’re kinda immature.
Jadis
@Jason:
FAGGOT!
SouLKid
SMH @ all the insensitive a**holes here. This is an 18 year old finding out something so private about her on a world stage. The IAAF were douches for having the results leak before they could confirm them and what the hell is taking them so long?
DR
@j:
My own personal opinion on the topic is that Caster ought to choose her sex and have the appropriate surgeries and go back to competition. Olympic rules allow for athletes to go through sex changes as long as they have the full gonadectomies, so I don’t see why the same rules cannot be extended to Caster in this case. If she wants to compete as a female athlete, then have the surgery to remove the testes, wait the two years as required under governing regs, and come back and compete. It’s not like she’ll be washed up at the tender old age of 21.
Cumstain Jane
“My own personal opinion on the topic is that Caster ought to choose her sex and have the appropriate surgeries and go back to competition.”
Why? because her potential body variance (which you have no idea about because it’s pure speculation) makes you uncomfortable?
Please present the study that has produced the results of intersex who identify as female have a demonstrartible advantage over their cisgender female counterparts.
DR
Well, let’s see…
3-4 times the normal level of testosterone would give an unfair advantage in competition. That’s basic sports biology 101, Jane. To all those crying about how unfair this is for Semenya, I suggest you do a bit of homework on the topic. Many comments from the pro-Semenya camp don’t seem to understand that concept.
Should we allow ALL women to take testosterone supplements to even the playing field? That’s the only way it’ll be fair. There’s already a means of dealing with it in place, so why not use it?
DR
Here’s a quick run-down of what testosterone does for the body:
Anabolic effects include growth of muscle mass and strength, increased bone density and strength, and stimulation of linear growth and bone maturation.
So if she has 3-4 times testosterone in her body compared to an average woman, she has an advantage. There’s a reason even over-the-counter testosterone supps are banned by most major governing bodies.
Spare me the “she makes me uncomfortable because she’s too butch” nonsense and learn a bit about sports medicine and physiology before posting comments.
Anja Flower
@DR – The problem with that is that is excludes highly capable intersex people from competition simply because they’re intersex, and I’m sorry, but I’m more interested in being fair to IS folks than in fine-tuning sporting rules. I understand that sports privilege people with certain body types and life’s a bitch, etc., but that cuts both ways. Drugs are one thing, but if Caster Semenya indeed has 3-4 times the normal T levels, that’s not something she chose.
The bottom line for me is this: the desire to make the playing field as level and fair as possible is totally and completely understandable, and I sympathize with it. However, that means being fair for -all- athletes, including those who are intersex. It is a tough question, but throwing intersex people under the bus IS NOT and never will be the appropriate solution.
DAVE
CASTOR,GIVE THEM HELL
Beck Robertson
So basically these b**tards are compromising this talented young athletes athletic career purely because in their bigoted patriarchal heterosexist opinion she doesn’t look “womanly” enough for them. If I were Caster I’d tell them to suck my S**T.
Cumstain Jane
“Spare me the “she makes me uncomfortable because she’s too butch” nonsense and learn a bit about sports medicine and physiology before posting comments.”
I do know a little about sports medicine and physiology, not as much as a doctor but enough to know that some intersex people actually produce no testosterone, some produce way over the range of a cisgender woman, and some just a bit more than a cisgender women. And cisgender women also produce a variable range of testosterone.
Is the IOC or anybody else now testing for POCS or functional ovarian hyperandrogenism? Doubt it. If everyone is going to panic over a couple of nano-liters then we just mind as well start testing everyone.
The authorities are making an automatic assumption that any intersex woman is making amount of testosterone out of the normal range to make a difference, that’s one of the problems here.
Again, I’m awaiting those comparative studies of intersex women vs. cisgender women. It would be nice to know if the authorities are actually deciding based on you know, data sets.