800m women's world champion, Caster Semenya
South African champion 800 meter runner Caster Semenya is not only competing for gold medals as she did on August 19, 2009 at the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) World Championships, she is also combating questions about her sex. In what is normally a confidential preceding but leaked to the press, the IAAF asked South Africa to conduct sex verification testing about 3 weeks prior to the IAAF World Championships. Unfortunately, the test results were not yet available by the time of the world championships leaving 18 year old Semenya’s record breaking win under a cloud of suspicion and doubt. The main concern is her testosterone level which is what would give her an unfair advantage against her other women competitors.
Before I continue, I want to share some excerpts from articles on this topic that went beyond the sensational headlines to reveal facts that make this matter even more complex.
While we use the word sex and gender synonymously, they are not synonymous. The Science of Sport wrote:
Gender refers to how an individual portrays and perceives him or herself---for example male or female. It is more of a social construct than a biological one. Sex, on the other hand, is biological, and that is the essence of the debate in this case, whether or not Semenya is of male or female sex, not gender. An individual can have male sex but female gender, and vice versa.
Secondly, gender is not binary (male or female). Shakesville wrote:
The good old X and Y chromosomes themselves don't always come in pairs, to start with. You can have XXX, XXY, XXXXY, XYY, and the like. This is possible for two reasons. One is that even in a typical XX situation, one of the X chromosomes is silenced early in development. With more than one X, the extras are also silenced, so it doesn't wreak the havoc of having, say, an extra chromosome 13 or 21. The second X is needed early on to develop functional ovaries, which is why XO (Turner's Syndrome) people are infertile. The Y chromosome has very little information on it, and an extra copy or so therefore doesn't do much damage.
So the X has its "ovary determining factor," and there's a sex-determining region on the Y (SRY). This is where things get even more interesting. All our chromosomes come in pairs, and despite their vast difference in size, the X and the Y are a pair. That means they can exchange bits of material in crossovers.
My point of sharing this with you, is that the IAAF have no specific standard for determining sex. They enlist a team of experts such as psychologists, gynecologists, and endocrinologists (source: Freep.com) who will make an “expert” determination. I italicize the word “expert” because without a standard, a study like this is prone to bias and difficult to come to a decisive conclusion should Semenya fall into one of the atypical chromosome combinations.
I agree with Jane Devin’s position in her Huffington Post article where she takes a more sympathetic stance with Semanya. Would it be fair to disqualify Semanya if she has some genetic make up of which she was completely unaware? What about other men and women who do not fall neatly under XX or XY? Should we begin testing all athletes to this extent and begin adding additional categories per genetic distinction?
I’ve read several articles where South African officials are angry because it appears that the IAAF is imposing a European standard of femininity. Would this all be different if Semenya had her same talent but a face that looked more stereotypically female?
Related post in this column
- Caster Semenya- Sexual identity results are in. Now what?
Resources used in this post
- International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF)- www.iaaf.org
- The Science of Sport- "Caster Semenya: Male or Female?"
- Shakesville- "Biology, Caster Semenya, Athletics, and Ignorance"
- Freep.com-"South African Caster Semenya wins 800 amid gender-test flap"
- Huffington Post- "Genetic Freaks: Semenya & Yao. One gets humiliation, the other gets NBA contract. Why?"
Comments
I think this is actually a tough one, while it's unfair to penalize the perosn in question as they don't appear to have knowingly done anything wrong it's also unfair to the other athletes if their competing against someone with an higher level of testosterone. Bias creeps into many things which is why I think the news was "leaked" and subjective test shouldn't be the solution either.
its not right to penalize someone for not falling neatly into a category. with closer examination, none of us would fall neatly into any category, any time.
rbennu- There are just to many loopholes here. This is not something that the IAFF has set a standard and I can only pray that they will after Caster Semenya's case so others will not have to go through such public scrutiny. She's a great athlete. My struggle is where will they let her compete? Does she have to give up her career now?
sunshinespirit- Agreed. Nobody does. I wrote a follow up post this article that I'll go back in and add the link. I want to see some sort of testing for all athletes because I'm sure Caster Semenya is not the only one. It became an based on her physical appearance first which is just wrong. I play sports and plenty of athletes look like athletic women.
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