Is SA Runner Semanya indeed a male?

[whore]

A simple solution to all this would be to allow the use of performance enhancing drugs in athletics.

I dont know about any of you's, but I would love to see someone on a cocktail of drugs run the 100 metres in 1.2 seconds and I'd love to see them try to slow down at the bendy bit at the end of the track.

They could call it the drug olympics and athletes would represent drug companies instead of countries. I can see the headlines already. Team Phizer/viagra embarrassed with baton mix up in relay. Team Prozac finishs last but still very happy with result. Pole vault athlete found dead in carpark outside stadium.

I still cant believe the South African government accused the IAAF of being racist. Its not as if they said to melt down Semanya and make a few pairs of wellies out of her.

[Guest]

The thing is though... she has breasts and a vagina... she's a girl! She hasn't cheated in any way... she knows she's a girl.

That said, she was born with testes inside her, making her stronger than most women.

There's a tranny who was born as a male and got a sex change, and she's allowed to compete on the golf tour. Now... this lady was born with a vagina! It's definitely a grey area when a girl with a synthetic vagina can compete in one sport, but a girl born with one naturally can't in another.

Word is she's going to keep her gold medal, but be banned from future competitions.

It's sorta sad in my view, because she's been born with a confusing gender identity issue, and running appears to have allowed her to use it as her advantage. Remember, she still has a LOT less testosterone than your average man, so would be at a disadvantage if she competed as a man.

She now has nowhere to compete because she's disadvantaged if she competes against men, and banned from competing as a woman. I guess at least this whole thing has given her a world championships medal, and money for her education which she might not have had otherwise.

[Guest]

(Torurot @ Sep. 13 2009,04:07) The testes are undescended so nothing to see and she obviously has female genitalia externally.  She should be able to continue racing.

Agreed... she didn't even get a world record...
There's girls out there far more powerful than her. On the same day as her gender issue was brought up I saw a girl from my country win the discus... now... she had HUGE muscles!!!

3x the testosterone of your average female isn't actually THAT much compared with how much a male has.

She was born this way... I say let her use it to her advantage.

[rxpharm]

Maybe whore had the right idea - a special competition for the enhanced athletes. It isn't that she has less testosterone than a male - she has more than a genetic female and that gives her an advantage over her other competitors. If you allowed the other genetic female runners to use steroids - then it becomes even. Doubtful that would happen.

[Guest]

(rxpharm @ Sep. 13 2009,11:07) Maybe whore had the right idea - a special competition for the enhanced athletes. It isn't that she has less testosterone than a male - she has more than a genetic female and that gives her an advantage over her other competitors. If you allowed the other genetic female runners to use steroids - then it becomes even. Doubtful that would happen.

But most champion female athletes have more testosterone than your average female... that's not cheating because it's natural. Using drugs is cheating because you're unnaturally enhancing your physique.

This lady has not modified her body in any way, it's all natural. She just happens to be born a lot stronger than your average female. I doubt she'd have any interest in competing in a competition designed for drug cheats...

Think of it this way... if a man is born with 3 times more testosterone than your average man then he's called a champion. If it's a lady though... they're disqualified.

Unfortunately there's not enough hermaphrodites out there to justify a competition for the fastest hermaphrodite, otherwise I'd suggest introducing a 3rd gender into the world championships.

[jprc2]

This "3rd gender" issue is not new...
I don't know if you recall Maria Lurdes de Mutola, a 800m and 1000m gold medals (from Mozambique).
I met her a couple of years ago.
Trust me, you can NOT feel that your are in front of a woman. She is a very very nice human being, but it makes you realizing that a 3rd gender is not an utopia...

One may wonder if she has not the same "AIS" (androgen-insensitivity syndrome) issue than Semanya.

I think there are only 0.00001% of men on this planet who can claim more muscles than Mutola...







However I am still convinced that this "Semanya case" went out of proportions, and should not have gone public.
Besides, the titles of this thread is wrong: " S.A. Runner Semanya is indeed a  male "
Not at all. Not a woman. And not even a man.

I am soooooo happy to be me, and not be in her shoes...

[imported_admin]

(jprc2 @ Sep. 13 2009,16:43) Besides, the titles of this thread is wrong: " S.A. Runner Semanya is indeed a  male "

I agree. The thread has been renamed and moved to 'Academia.'

[alan1chef]

Personally, I think all the rules are ridiculous, and that bending them to apply to an athlete who has not used performance enhancers is absurd. Isn't it true that athletes themselves have natural abilities that enable them to perform better than the average person? She has a natural advantage...let her use it and we should applaud her. It's those damn whiners.....screwing things up again...isn't that right Torurot?

[Road Runner]

(jprc2 @ Sep. 13 2009,10:43) I think there are only 0.00001% of men on this planet who can claim more muscles than Mutola...

All humans have exactly the same numbers of muscles and though there are slight differences in location between sexes they are probably less than you might think.

(jprc2 @ Sep. 13 2009,10:43) I don't know if you recall Maria Lurdes de Mutola, a 800m and 1000m gold medals (from Mozambique).
I met her a couple of years ago. Trust me, you can NOT feel that your are in front of a woman.

That is what I find strange about this whole issue.  The South African athletics authorities must have either been blind, stupid, corrupt or very, very, niave to not realise that there was something amiss with Semanya's sexuality.

(jprc2 @ Sep. 13 2009,10:43) However I am still convinced that this "Semanya case" went out of proportions, and should not have gone public.

Yes I agree entirely  -  but I blame the South African athletics authorities far more than anyone else in this whole sorry mess.
On the other hand I feel deeply sorry that this poor girl's mixed sexuality has been blazed across the world and what will probably be her greatest moment of triumph has been converted into a world wide mud slinging match.

Athletics is €œmerely the continuation of politics by other means.€  (with apoligies to Carl Von Clausewitz)

RR.

[jprc2]

Yes, Road Runner, you are right. English is not my language and it is easy to misunderstand me...
I was not talking about the number of muscles in a body, but about how visually evident and developed they are with some female athletes... and for the last 40 years, I can not recall having crossed the path of any one with so much efficient muscle mass (not sure if it is good English€¦), even when I was -long ago- playing tennis at fairly good level€¦

Mozambique has some excuses concerning the selection process: there is almost none, as the structures in this country were/are not (by far) as well organized and funded as in South Africa.
Lurdes had also a €œnormal€ racing evolution: she did not appear from nowhere winning races with ease. Her rise came step by step, and was difficult for her.
She received some help for her sport/study from various Donors (especially USaid) as the local sport federation and Ministry of Sport was not rich enough for fully funding her training and stay in foreign school/training camps.

I recall an anecdote back to 1993 when the country was under U.N. supervision after the civil war.
She was briefly back in her country, and warming up herself along €œMarginal€, a long road running parallel to the sea shore. I was riding one of the very very few bicycle available (perhaps the only mountain bike existing in Mozambique at this time!), struggling against the wind. Along with 3 or 4 of her local teammates, she overtook me. I decided to follow her pace. The road was slightly going up, the wind was against us.
I gave up after what I think was 2 kilometers. Ok, I am no Armstrong and have some bad knees (result of some sport injuries€¦), but I simply felt the energy I deployed for just sustaining her pace was way too disproportionate, and I was simply in awe of her raw power. Whilst her team mate took some meters with the wind and the rising road, she kept exactly the same pace as when she was on flat and wind protected area.
It is at this time you realize that you are not on the same planet of those guys, the Mutola, Graff/Navratilova/Federer, Shumacher, Zidane, Jordan, and the likes€¦

Now, in South Africa, the ambience is a bit different. Not sure also the leader(s) there are all reliable. An anecdote I posted some months ago:
In South Africa, a man, during his 3 months trial for rape, said in court he had left his bedroom after having sex with the woman and taken a shower because this "would minimise the risk of contracting the disease". He did not use a condom during the encounter, despite knowing the woman was HIV-positive.
The problem is: at the time of the trial, this man headed the National South African AIDS Council !!
The second problem: this man has been elected president of South Africa this year. His name is Zuma.
Now, would you trust anything that comes from a country that can elect such an unreliable person?

[rxpharm]

Now the truth comes out regarding Athletics South Africa boss and his actions in this case as reported in The Nation Sept. 21/09:

South Africa's athletics boss faces the chop over Semenya lies


Johannesburg - South Africa's sports ministry late Saturday called for the country's athletics boss Leonard Chuene to be fired after Chuene admitted he had lied about gender tests performed on world champion runner Caster Semenya.

Athletics South Africa (ASA) boss Chuene admitted to a press conference on Saturday that Semenya had undergone gender tests in South Africa before the world championships in Berlin, where she won gold in the 800 metres last month.

The ASA organised the tests at the request of world athletics body IAAF because of questions over Semenya's masculine build and rapidly-improved times over the past year.

"Mr Chuene has not only lied to us as the ministry but to the whole country and this is not acceptable," deputy sports minister Gert Oosthuizen said in a statement.

While Chuene insisted he lied to protect Semenya, Oosthuizen found that his lies "fuelled the continuous violation of Ms Semenya's rights and dignity, by foreign and some local media" and called on ASA to fire him.

Before Saturday Chuene had persistently denied all knowledge of the tests, even as details of the intimate gynaecological tests performed on Semenya, and claims that she was duped into taking the tests, were splashed across local media.

Chuene acknowledged he had made "an error of judgement."

  Chuene also revealed that South Africa's team doctor recommended that Semenya be withdrawn from the championships on the basis of the tests but that Chuene had refused, saying he did not want to deny her a shot at a medal on the basis of "rumours".

So Mr. Chuene knew she was of ambiguous gender and allowed her to compete anyway. He went against the recommendations of the South African team's doctor, and lied both to the Sport Ministry and the IAAF.

[jprc2]

"saying he did not want to deny her a shot at a medal on the basis of "rumours"."
A medical test done by his own services, and advises from his own team doctor are then rumours...
How interresting...

Well, in a country where a former Minister of Health wanted to treat AIDS with garlic, I guess this Mr Chuene is perfectly on line with the rest of his peers...
I can't forget though that South Africa produced Dr Barnard (the world's first successful human-to-human heart transplant, back in 1967).