http://m.www.yahoo.com/_ylt=AsPR7B5...92463%26lang=en

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Maybe I'm old fashioned, but to me a gender test was ether drop the pants, or raise the skirt. If said person had or lacked a certain organ, they were one or the other sex. In Semenya's case, she lacks the organ, but looks like she will lose her medal because she has some cross parts, but not full, and a boost in hormone.

To me, come on, if she lacks it, she should keep it.

The problem with a) is, there is no way to keep it out of the media. The Olympic board sneezes, its front page in many reports. If they are testing for "Gender" out of complaints, its going to be front page no matter what.

b) shouldn't matter, even if she lacks ovaries, she still lacks a penis. When she goes to a public restroom, which should she use? Of course the womans because she is one.

What's done is done, let her keep it. That's all I have to say.

if shes not really a she, nobody would be calling her a she. or her. or whatever.
theyd be calling her " it " or " he ".

so, IMO, shes a woman.

She has a 3 times higher testosterone level than a normal woman. That gives her an unfair advantage in races. Having a more male body makes her win. Testoserone affects muscle strength lung capacity, metabolism etc. Steroids give a similar effect. She should have been tested before the race, or mentioned it if she knew.

Gender is more than a penis or a vagina. Its much more complex than that. Problem is that if hemaphrodites are allowed in races, and countries want to win, they will take a hermaphrodite like her over a normal woman any case. 3 times more testosterone level naturally is better than inject many illegal steroids to reach that effect. Her muscles, strength etc are half male. Penis or not, her body is half masculinised thats what gives her such an advantage.

Socially she is a female, physically strength built she is half a male.

the way i understand it, hermaphrodites are pretty rare to begin with... hence this sort of thing.

but i totally agree that they shouldve tested beforehand. its a bit...ehhh...irresponsible to do it later then find out theres a problem with how the entire thing went down.

Hemas are very rare, but you can count on women with hormonal differences which masculinize their bodies to be more common in olympics. More male hormones = more strength. They should test it indeed beforehand. Saves a lotta drama. If this woman did not know beforehand she cannot be blamed for it.

Interesting question though. Where do you put hermaphrodites in the Olympics? Does it depend on how "severe" the case is?

The problem is they are too masculine for the female category but have no change in the male category. Own category? There is also a thing like paralympics. Lets start the hermalympics.

Finally, Vanito, we have something we can agree on!

I fully agree, that even with the lack of male genitalia, her testosterone levels give her a totally unfair advantage over other "women". I think I would take the next step though...genitalia missing is a complete physical oops. Things happen, people are born without feet, arms, etc, sometimes the body just messes up. However, biologically, she is male, not female. As far as no penis/no ovaries, I think that is a wash, those that think she is a female will point to the lack of penis as proof, those that think she is male will point to the lack of ovaries as proof...both missing traits cancel each other's arguments out, I think...so, we have to look at what is left...chemistry. And this is where I think you nailed it on the head by pointing to the testosterone levels.

Well, seeing this, shouldn't the categories not be segregated by sex but instead testosterone levels, muscle mass, etc? Some women may have high testosterone and some men may be low.

The only reason we have to go by testosterone levels is because she, is a very rare human, in that she does not fit into either category totally. Generally speaking, it is quite obvious that males are males, females are females, etc. Her situation is unique, in that she cannot be accurately categorized. Is it somewhat unfair to Semenya? Probably. But letting her compete as a woman, against women would be unfair to all of them. She has a clear cut competitive advantage competing against women, because of her unique body attributes. Unfortunately for her, because I doubt that any organized athletic contest is going to allow her to compete against women from now on, nor will she want to be forced to compete against men. She is caught between a rock and a hard place, but, we cannot be fair to both her and to every other woman she competes against at the same time. It sucks for her, but to let her compete as a woman would suck for everyone she races against.

I guess, it could be similar to whether or not you allow a post-op transexual to race. Physically, they may not have a penis, but, that does not mean they are physiologically a woman, just physically. Should a man that gets a sex change operation to become female be allowed to race as a woman? You might say they take estrogen etc to change their body's chemistry, but that would be just as artificial as a man injecting more testosterone into himself...that would clearly be cheating. So, you would physically have a woman, but biologically still have a man.

Basically, and this may not seem fair, I think sports organizations have the right to ban athletes because of things like that. Sports are supposed to be fair, and any race Semenya races as a woman against other women cannot be fair.

(PS, I will consistently refer to her using female pronouns, because I have to call her something, and "it" just doesn't seem appropriate)

I think that it is a safe bet, that even if she is allowed to continue to race against women, there will be formal protests made by other runners/coaches every single race she runs, and I don't think anyone can make a convincing argument that those protests wouldn't have at least some merit. Whether you agree she should be allowed to compete or not, you would have to concede why it might make other competitors extremely uncomfortable racing against her.

At first when I watched the video I thought that it was extremely medal to take her medal away from her just because of a birth deformity. But thinking about it she does have an extremely unfair advantage. However I'm still not sure that they should take away the medal that she already won.




Not really. A post-op transexual woman wouldn't take oestrogen in order to win a race, she would take it for other reasons. And it wouldn't put her at an advantage to the other racers so it shouldn't be considered cheating.

You can take all kinds of substances for completely legitimate reasons, and get banned from competition. That it wouldn't be for the race doesn't matter. Athletes get suspended all the time for taking non-approved cold medication...Athletic doping councils etc don't care why the susbtances are in your bloodstream, merely that they are there. Either way, it involves injecting chemicals in your body that would not naturally be there. That wasn't really the point I was going after anyway, I was mainly showing that you can "physically" be a female, and yet, internally, physiologically, remain a man, and therefore would be an unfair opponent for women to race against.

Firstly, Davious, a post-operative transsexual would have neither a penis nor testicles, and thus would not be producing any natural hormones, meaning that they'd be dependant on the pills to have a sexual hormone make up at all- not, as you say, hormonally still male. There IS no testosterone post-op. There are no testicles to produce it.

And secondly, post-operative transsexuals have completed in internationally recognised sporting competitions before. For the most famous off the top of my head, Renee Richards, who competed professionally in tennis both pre and post operatively.

Let's get our terminology straight here.

A hermaphrodite has both male and female tissues, and calling something a "hermaphrodite" carries the implicit suggestion that it is capable of serving both the male and female roles in sexual reproduction.

Semenya is NOT a hermaphrodite. She does not have a uterus, and her ovaries became testicles sometime during her development. She does not have both, and she's most certainly not capable of playing both the male & female role in reproduction.


The correct term for Semenya is intersex, and this covers a wide range of disorders that result in a blended sex phenotype.


The only circumstances in which I think the medal should be taken away is if she has a Y chromosome. There are a host of factors that give people an unfair advantage at the olympics--being well fed and coming from a wealthy country being the most important. It doesn't sit well with me to single out intersex people, who I consider to be part of natural spectrum of what qualifies as "male" and "female."



Based on what I've read on intersex people, it's likely that she felt different from all the other girls all her life, but she didn't actually know anything was biologically different about her until all of this exploded on the national scene. Poor girl. Sucks even more that she has "semen" in her name.

So, no uterus.
No ovaries.
Has testicles.
Has 3x the normal amount of testosterone for a woman.
Has some facial hair.

Ummm...lack of penis not withstanding, if you don't have a uterus or ovaries, (naturally, not because they were surgically removed) and do have a pair of testicles (again, naturally, not because they were surgically added), you are not a woman, and should not compete against women. I was opposed to her continuing to compete against women without even knowing that she had testicles. I was basing it just on no ovaries and the testosterone level info. If she truly has no uterus either, and does have testicles, there is absolutely no way in hell she should be allowed to compete against women as a woman.

I feel bad for her, but there is simply no way with her competing against women that it could ever be a level playing field. How fair is it to all the female runners out there that she would be competing against?

OK then davious, I have PCOS which gives me increased testotrone levels and I have facial hair. (which I LOATHE) I do have ovaries. Should that disqualify me from competing as a woman?

It all depends on your definition of "woman." She identifies as a woman. She was raised as a woman. She doesn't have a penis. And even if she has undescended testicles, they don't function like normal testes. Normal men have 12x the testosterone as women. She has 3x. I don't know whether she's XX or XY--could be either--but if she's XX then she's also genetically female.


Like I said, there are many things that are unfair. It's not fair that short people have to compete against tall people in basketball. How will the shorties ever have a chance? We should make separate categories for short people teams and tall people teams. It's not fair that wealthy countries take the majority of the medals. How can poor countries ever compete with a population that's better fed and therefore stronger? Heck, one could probably argue that in order for many olympians to be able to compete at the level of performance that they do, they probably have some kind of unknown genetic mutation that confers some sort of advantage.

It's not fair, but that's life for you, and that's genetic determination for you.

Lauren, considering that you have female reproductive organs (semenya does not) and no male reproductive organs (semenya does, even if they are undeveloped) I would say that you would be able to still compete as a woman. Trying to equate what you have with what heer condition is completely laughable.

robokitty, there are short basketball players. They learn to be good outside shooters, because they can't play the insides...further, Spud Webb, all 5'6" of him, once won the slam dunk contest during all-star week. But, are seriously trying to equate a height difference with competing against a "woman" that has the speed and strength of a man? I don't believe you are serious with that, I suspect you are just trying to disagree with me for the sake of disagreeing.

I don't believe for a second that if you were a sprinter that you would feel comfortable running against someone like her, knowing you couldn't win, knowing you could never compete with her on a level playing field.

davious: Please don't assume I'm so petty as to disagree simply for the sake of disagreeing.

As for the idea that her speed and strength is equivalent to a male's:
her testosterone level = 3x an avg. woman's
an avg. man's testosterone level = 12x an avg. woman's.

You didn't answer the question, robokitty...if you were a sprinter, would you want to race against her in the Olympics, with a gold medal on the line perhaps, knowing how badly the odds stacked in her favor? Or would you, like most people, go "hey, that isn't fair!"?

Saying in the news, she has dropped out of the competition and will give up the medal. Too bad, she should keep it.