Caster Semenya - Man, Woman, or Neither?

[amadeus]

So the South African middle distance runner Caster Semenya is under suspicion of not being who she says she is. She underwent a sex verification test before the race, but the results remain unpublished. So, OT (this is a discussion about gender, not sport, so please keep it here), is Caster Semenya a man, a woman, or neither?

 

[warpus]

She's a lady man lady

 

[TheLastOne36]

Does she have a penis or a vagina? Or niether???

 

[amadeus]

Does she have a penis or a vagina? Or niether???

That's for you to find out.

 

[Masquerouge]

She might probably be a mosaic

 

[Nylan]

I was wondering when this thread would pop up. I don't know about the gender, but I found the quoted comments in some of the articles absolutely disgusting.

 

[Godwynn]

Looks like a dude, but I will reserve my vote until someone checks out the crotch area.

 

[Holycannoli]

Look at those hips and then tell me she's a woman

 

[Formaldehyde]

He's got fake DNA. How ingenious!

 

[Evie]

Impossible to tell at this point (for us). Manly girls and girly mans are facts of life, and it could be as simple as that... On the flip side, hermaphrodites and trans-gendered people are also facts of life, and I have no idea how to feel about that.

I suppose in the end one has to rely on the good old "Until proven otherwise". Caster claims to be a girl, so a girl she is until proven otherwise.

 

[Arwon]

There are a small number of people out there with wrong chromosomal numbers, and there's also things like Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome.

There's also just people who've got unusual body types.

Gender is far from binary of course, but even sex itself can't quite be shoehorned neatly. Incidentally, even if the IAAF rules that she can't compete as a woman, that doesn't change the fact that she self-identifies as such and should therefore still be considered a woman.

The whole thing is quite sad and degrading for all concerned, and this question and the urge to pigeon-hole has a long history of causing pain and suffering to people. There's a lot of stories of surgical remodelling, psychological trauma, etc, of intersex people.

 

[Leonel]

If only there was a way to visually verify whether a person was a man or a woman... something obvious that would stick out... perhaps if you looked in a particular direction like, oh let's say, down.

 

[Arwon]

One can have one set of genetalia and still be genetically of the opposite sex. Look up androgen insensitivity syndrome.

 

[LucyDuke]

 

[Godwynn]

Is that the long form of the birth certificate?

 

[kulade]

I wouldn't hit it; that's all that matters.

 

[Yared]

You tell me.

 

[Formaldehyde]

OK. That proves it. No man would sit on that...

 

[MobBoss]

Dude looks like a lady!

Well....not so much in this case....dude pretty much looks like a dude.

 

[Squonk]

she's my type of women