Caster Semenya during the World Championships Athletics 2009 in Berlin. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

We have become accustomed to the public and the media questioning such outstanding victories. The peerless Usain Bolt, and the Jamaican sprinters in general have had accusations of cheating whispered against them, accusations that persist even after negative tests.

And not without reason. The great number with nothing but middling talent and expecting that the spectacle of athletic contest is pure, bears the embarrassment of being taken in by such successful cheats as Marion Jones  But the case of Semenya is different. The accusations raised against her have borne a particular virulence, and popularity. The fervour with which her victory is discussed, the searing denunciations and the ability of this story to recruit even those not normally concerned with matters of athletics is particularly surprising.

"She looks and sounds like a man", whatever that means, seems the general sentiment from the public and press alike. There is no doubt that this young woman has been humiliated on the world stage. Leonard Chuene, South Africa's athletics coach says in an interview with Reuters:

And now people are not happy, and on that basis she is isolated like a leper, like she has got a disease that will affect other people, and I don't think it's proper.

South Africa has stood behind its star athelete as have her parents . 

Let us assume even that Semanya has male traits. Anyone who knows anything about biology and the human body knows that there are thousands of children born everyday with gender ambiguities. And that determining one's gender is not as simple as looking at phyisical traits .

In 1932 an American woman of polish descent Stella Walsh was at the height of her career the fastest woman on the track. Amid rumors that she was a "man" the IOC decided against stripping her of her medal. However, following her death an autopsy revealed that:

Walsh had had a mixture of male and female chromosomes. She had no internal female reproductive organs, and possessed an underdeveloped and non-functioning penis, "masculine" breasts and an abnormal urinary opening. Gerber said that Walsh's sex was likely ambiguous at birth, and that she could have been raised a boy or a girl. But perhaps mindful of the charged environment, he added that Walsh "lived and died a female. . . . Socially, culturally and legally, Stella Walsh was accepted as a female for 69 years.

The best way to determine such children's sexual identity, says Reiner, who directs the University of Oklahoma's psychosexual development clinic, is simply to ask them.

In Reiner's view, Walsh shouldn't be penalized. "To say she cheated, that's not quite accurate or fair," he says. "She was never diagnosed." Walsh might not even have been aware of the degree of her difference, he says. Although she would have known that she didn't menstruate, she would have had no idea about her genes or her internal organs without surgery or modern imaging techniques. "I suspect she saw herself as a woman," he says.

Walsh had had a mixture of male and female chromosomes. She had no internal female reproductive organs, and possessed an underdeveloped and non-functioning penis, "masculine" breasts and an abnormal urinary opening. Gerber said that Walsh's sex was likely ambiguous at birth, and that she could have been raised a boy or a girl. But perhaps mindful of the charged environment, he added that Walsh "lived and died a female. . . . Socially, culturally and legally, Stella Walsh was accepted as a female for 69 years.

Back to Semanya. And pray why, did the IAAF reveal its investigations without findings when it has protected those of doped athletes in the past? What happened to sensitivity? IAAF policy is that any ongoing investigations on athletes are confidential, but in serving their own interest the IAAF chose to humiliate Semanya as the New York Times reports:

According to I.A.A.F. policy, an investigation is supposed to be confidential. In this case, Davies said, the I.A.A.F. decided to confirm the existence of the investigation only when reporters asked about it.

“The choice is that you lie, which we don’t like to do,” he said, adding that it was unfortunate that Semenya’s privacy had been violated. 

Certainly one cannot fail to notice the gender and even African bias that the tone of media reports have taken. One can only hope that Semanya will one day have an opportunity to bask in the success of her stellar performance.

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