What do you think?
- He’s a man.
- She’s a woman.
0
voters
edition.cnn.com/2009/SPORT/08/19 … index.html
Somehow this doesn’t seem right to me. Comments?
I don’t see the big deal.
This kind of thing happens at least once every weekend down at Hell’s Kitchen…
So, um . . . Will you . . . I mean, . . . Can you be my girlfriend?
It’s good that she’s getting it out of the way so early in her career, otherwise the whispers would have followed her everywhere. It looks like a very complicated and unpleasant testing procedure though.
I think the rumours are bollocks (no pun intended), but we’ll find out in a few weeks. Even if the gossip turns out to be true, it wasn’t her fault as she would have had no knowledge of it. Not like drug taking, which no doubt many of the other athletes who are bitching about her are happily indulging in.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/athletics/8210471.stm
I couldn’t find the “is this a she-male” forums so i’m posting this here…
[quote]
Semenya came into the World Championships in Berlin in prime form
New world 800m champion Caster Semenya has been asked to take a gender test, according to athletics’ governing body.[/quote]
personally i’m 100% sure this is a girl, he wears pink socks for fuck’sake!
[quote=“Anubis”]Somehow this doesn’t seem right to me.[/quote]Why’s that? Most people are one or the other but there are rare grey areas. The article you quoted misused the word “gender”. It’s her biological sex at question, not her gender.
If I didn’t know otherwise, I would say this is a picture of a man:
You would think that looking at her chromosones would clear it up, XY is male and XX is female. But in rare cases it’s not that simple:
[wikipedia]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XX_male_syndrome[/wikipedia]
[wikipedia]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XYY_syndrome[/wikipedia]
[quote=“Big Fluffy Matthew”][quote=“Anubis”]Somehow this doesn’t seem right to me.[/quote]Why’s that? Most people are one or the other but there are rare grey areas.
If I didn’t know otherwise, I would say this is a picture of a man:
You would think that looking at her chromosones would clear it up, XY is male and XX is female. But in rare cases it’s not that simple:
[wikipedia]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XX_male_syndrome[/wikipedia]
[wikipedia]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XYY_syndrome[/wikipedia][/quote]
I agree that she is not one of the most feminine looking athletes around, but wouldn’t she feel insulted in some way that people question her gender. Just my opinion, I’m certainly no expert on these issues.
BTW, are female body builders also requested to be gender tested? I mean, some of them, cover the face and you have a man. Once again, just an opinion. No offense intended.
Don’t Ask…Don’t Tell
Thats the universal way now.
(nice deltoids)
IMO sports, especially modern sports are all about either 1. genetic advantage (assuming equal training) or 2. overcoming not having such genetic advantage
since she was born a woman then it’s her genetic advantage to have more maleness to her,
you dont see people looking for Yao-Ming to be banned because he’s 7ft, or bolt to be banned because he’s too fast (and actually he opitomises a genetic advantage and overcoming a genetic disadvantage 1. having short powerful muscles and 2. being too tall for 100m sprint) Or thorpe being banned because his feet are too big
she couldnt be a beauty queen, but she’ll make a great runner.
The two complaintants were the 5th and 6th placed europeans - seems like this is more about racism than sex (I also saw one report here http://www.guardian.co.ukusing “sexuality”, which is a bloody awful grammatical mistake. Doesnt matter if she’s a lesbian or behaves as a mane if she was born a woman)
There is a syndrome related to the absence of some hormones during pregnancy, that inhibit the necessary changes in the unborn baby, so the not-yet male embryo develops into a girl.
By genetics, these “male” women usually are more stylised, with broader shoulders, bigger chests, smaller hips, taller, and no cellulites. So, many of these women find themselves being more attractive than her genetically female counterparts (though, obviosly, this one seems not just that case, at least from my point of view). Some of them even find jobs in modelling, and a few of them even made up to the top. I won’t give names because i don’t know any for sure and i don’t want to be sued, but this is a fact. Of course, those who had children are out of suspect. Those who can’t, on the other side…
Grandma knows damn well she’s a woman
I like the last bit, good to know communist rhetoric still survives somewhere
I would be willing to give the doubters a chance to legitimize their grievances IF they came in a close second or third place. But for fucks sake they came in FIFTH and SIXTH. So what? They are going to test everyone that beat their sorry behind until they get the medal. :loco: Sounds like sore losing to me and a bit of entitlement.
I would tell them get back on the field and work their arses off for the next race, if they want to be a champion. Otherwise, they come off as pampered little c*$ts.
–signed,
A Former Track Runner
[quote=“Namahottie”]I would be willing to give the doubters a chance to legitimize their grievances IF they came in a close second or third place. But for fucks sake they came in FIFTH and SIXTH. So what? They are going to test everyone that beat their sorry behind until they get the medal. :loco: Sounds like sore losing to me and a bit of entitlement.
I would tell them get back on the field and work their arses off for the next race, if they want to be a champion. Otherwise, they come off as pampered little c*$ts.
–signed,
A Former Track Runner[/quote]
I would back this with the fact that this entire procedure should have remained confidential under the IAAF rules. Whatever the result the woman is going to be humiliated. It’s been very badly handled.
[quote=“tomthorne”]
I would back this with the fact that this entire procedure should have remained confidential under the IAAF rules. Whatever the result the woman is going to be humiliated. It’s been very badly handled.[/quote]
Absolutely. Isn’t she just a teenager? To question her sex by saying she’s really hairy and ugly is just beyond mean. Unless someone is committing fraud by taping up their meat and two veg, which she hasn’t been doing, leave them alone. So what if it turns out she has genetic anomalies that she didn’t previously know about? That shouldn’t detract from her training and dedication. Excuse my scientific ignorance if I’m talking rubbish, but don’t we all have hereditary traits which make us better and worse at certain activities?
The other girls should apologise, very very publically. Ungracious, shameful behaviour, whether she’s part boy or not.
[quote=“Buttercup”][quote=“tomthorne”]
I would back this with the fact that this entire procedure should have remained confidential under the IAAF rules. Whatever the result the woman is going to be humiliated. It’s been very badly handled.[/quote]
Absolutely. Isn’t she just a teenager? To question her sex by saying she’s really hairy and ugly is just beyond mean. Unless someone is committing fraud by taping up their meat and two veg, which she hasn’t been doing, leave them alone. So what if it turns out she has genetic anomalies that she didn’t previously know about? That shouldn’t detract from her training and dedication. Excuse my scientific ignorance if I’m talking rubbish, but don’t we all have hereditary traits which make us better and worse at certain activities?
The other girls should apologise, very very publically. Ungracious, shameful behaviour, whether she’s part boy or not.[/quote]
The way the entire thing has been handled is nothing short of shameful. The more I think about it the more angry I get. Even if there is some kind of gender confusion (I’m sorry there probably is a better term but I don’t know how else to describe it), she didn’t know and now it is a public issue. If not it’s just a bunch of bitchy crap that sportswomen get all the time if they happen to be any good. She’s 18 years old.
And then there are the reactions from groups in her home country:
[quote]“This smacks of racism of the highest order. It represents a mentality of conforming feminine outlook within the white race,” the Young Communist League said in a statement.
“The [Venus and Serena] Williams sisters were never subjected to such public humiliation as is done by the international athletic body. Is it because they are of American descent?” [/quote]
God, I hate poor losers! :fume:
When I think of what that poor girl has gone through, it makes me sick!
To her credit, she has handled things very well.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/aug/20/caster-semenya-athletics-gender-sport
Further to what I said yesterday, this guy reflects most of our sentiments, I didnt iinclude the part on duty of care (by IAAF and media) or powerful women being portayed as men (cf maggie thatcher and angela merkel) But I have direcgtly quoted the part about the genetic advantage, since that to me seems like the important debatable point, we are saying that men have a genetic adv over women, so the women have theyr own competition. but then here we have a woman, who has male qualaties giving her the advantage over her peers
[quote]…The second of the benign possibilities – that the runner suffers from some natural form of hermaphrodism – would leave athletics with a very sensitive decision. The closest parallel is cricket, where one of the greatest Test match bowlers, Sri Lanka’s Muttiah Muralitharan, was permitted by a congenital defect in his arm to bowl deliveries that would be illegal from a man without that disadvantage.
It can also be argued that the 100m world record holder Usain Bolt’s greatness is due at least partly to an unusual arrangement of limbs, which traditionally proportioned sprinters will never be able to match. On this basis, if Semenya is a natural anomaly, her medals would have to stand.
Any other explanation apart from name-calling and DNA is too horrible to contemplate. After the fake cut scandal in rugby, that sport is clearly no longer a gentlemen’s game. Let’s hope it doesn’t turn out that women’s running is.
[/quote]
