{"id":143,"date":"2009-08-23T13:03:51","date_gmt":"2009-08-23T13:03:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/everydayethics\/2009\/08\/caster-semenya-should-we-take-her-word-for-it.html"},"modified":"2009-08-23T13:03:51","modified_gmt":"2009-08-23T13:03:51","slug":"caster-semenya-should-we-take-her-word-for-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/08\/caster-semenya-should-we-take-her-word-for-it.html","title":{"rendered":"Caster Semenya: Should We Take “Her” Word For It?"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n\"\"<\/span><\/p>\n

What is gender? Apparently, as the case of South African
\nrunner Caster Semenya<\/a> is proving, it’s less absolute than penis versus
\nvagina. <\/span>As controversy swirls over
\nwhether the gold-medal-winning 18-year-old is wholly female, I wondered, should
\nit even matter?<\/p>\n

Assuming this isn’t a cynical ploy on the part of the South
\nAfricans to win at all costs (and if you read this
\narticle<\/a>, you’ll see Caster’s childhood friends will defend her gender
\nidentity to the bitter end), the issues raised would seem to be legitimately,
\nand, er, organically developing through nobody’s fault. <\/span>The humiliation and scandal for Miss
\nSemenya, who never asked for this, must be brutal. <\/span>Her countrymen, certainly, are outraged and many consider
\nthe entire issue to be racially, not sexually, motivated. <\/span><\/p>\n

But there’s an ethical question here about which people seem
\nto be presuming there’s an obvious answer. <\/span>Namely, if Caster Semenya is found to be intersexed, should she be banned from competition as a
\nwoman?<\/i> <\/span>Everyone seems to think
\nthe answer is a given – naturally, yes, she must be banned. <\/span>I say, let’s give it a couple minutes
\nof examination before we rush to a conclusion.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Dilemma<\/b><\/span>: <\/p>\n

Banning Caster would be grossly unfair to her, but perhaps only fair to women’s teams. <\/span><\/p>\n

Argument:<\/span><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

For Semenya, it’s not as if she can be reassigned to an intersex team, so it would be, effectively, ending her career – a career that’s given an unknown South African athlete a chance to shine on the international stage, perhaps take her immense talent all the way to the Olympics.<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

On the other hand, if she’s got secondary male characteristics, her increased strength is an advantage with which the women on the track team cannot hope to compete (right?). <\/span>They’d be at a disadvantage against her.<\/p>\n

On the other, other<\/i> hand, one could argue that all<\/i> Olympic-caliber athletes are genetic prodigies. <\/span>Perhaps what we’re tending to look at as a mutation or malformation is just another gift, like Michael Phelps’ enormous arm span or Ian Thorpe’s colossal feet<\/a>. <\/span>We don’t know quite what makes Usain Bolt<\/a> so fast (though he is much taller than the average sprinter), but though we test and test him for performance enhancing drugs, all we can say is, man, that dude is fast. <\/span>No one is forcing these fellows out of competition for having a natural advantage.<\/p>\n

So what I’m asking is, when does leveling the playing field go too far? <\/span>What’s a natural advantage, a gift from the genetic lottery (or God, depending on what you believe), and what’s unacceptable to the mainstream?<\/p>\n

If Caster Semenya has, indeed, been given the ambiguous gift\/curse of ambiguous gender, life will be hard enough for her. <\/span>It seems a terrible shame to reduce yet further the opportunities available to her by denying her the right to compete. <\/span><\/p>\n

What do you<\/u> think?  <\/span>Are those the breaks, or should we give her a break?<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n


<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Subscribe to receive updates from Everyday Ethics or follow us on Twitter<\/a>!<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n


<\/b><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What is gender? Apparently, as the case of South African runner Caster Semenya is proving, it’s less absolute than penis versus vagina. As controversy swirls over whether the gold-medal-winning 18-year-old is wholly female, I wondered, should it even matter? Assuming this isn’t a cynical ploy on the part of the South Africans to win at all…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,6,36,38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-by-hillary-fields","category-current-events","category-news","category-sportsmanship"],"yoast_head":"\nCaster Semenya: Should We Take "Her" Word For It? - Everyday Ethics<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/08\/caster-semenya-should-we-take-her-word-for-it.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Caster Semenya: Should We Take "Her" Word For It? - Everyday Ethics\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"What is gender? 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She attended St. John's College in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she studied classics and philosophy, and then respectfully declined to spend the rest of her life in an ivory tower. Instead, she turned to the life of a writer and editor, penning three romance novels published by St. Martin's Press and contributing features to such periodicals as Cosmopolitan magazine. Her fascination with the moral dilemmas that crop up in everyday life--and the many intriguing ways people handle them--has always colored her writings. Now, that interest is leading her to take the discussion online; where, hopefully, the addition of reader feedback will bring these quotidian quandaries--and their potential solutions--vibrantly to life. When she's not plumbing the ethical mysteries of humanity, her passions include cooking (especially baking), origami, kittens, reading, watching really bad television and playing online scrabble. (And no, she doesn't cheat... much.)","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/author\/hfields"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/197"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}