rojo wrote:
I think it's genius by her to point this out really as a women's rights issue. If you believe in the value of women's sports (which basically protects a subset of the population against high testosterone competitors) , then you pretty much need to be for some sort of treatment or in 5 years we'll have transgender men dominating as society is quickly evolving to the point that people can identify with whatever gender they like.
This is a most profound statement on the need to address this issue - it is truly an issue of women's rights, but it should also be extended to the rights of intersex and transgender individuals. I do strongly feel that physiological differences between the sexes need to be drawn and defined, and I also strongly feel that the progress women have made in athletics must be preserved. But this shouldn't come at the expense of those who are literally and figuratively caught in the middle, and I cannot understand how there isn't enought discussion and initiative to ensure that these athletes be given the same rights that female and paralympic athletes are given.
I remember when Caster was 18 years old, standing up in front of the whole world on the elevated medal podium in Berlin, and how symbolic that was of the struggle she had gone through, the indignities and invasion of her privacy, and the abuse, from the reaction of her competitors to the ignorant miscreants here who would call her "it" like cowards, or were under the misguided impression that they were taking a stand on "principle" by not watching her medal ceremony . I remember reading a report of how members of the press were cheering when she was passed in the final stages of a major race (to be beaten by a drug cheat.)
Even listening to the commentary at the major meets this year, while commentators like Steve Cram and Tim Hutchings are doing their best to treat the subject with objectivity and the athletes with respect, sometimes there are comments which can be quite hurtful - for example, after the 800m in the telecast of the Rabat meet, one of the commentators was talking about the range of testosterone for women - he began talking about a "normal range" but (completely without malice, I know) stumbled over his words and referred to "normal women", a statement which can be equally as hurtful as some of the other slurs used to describe Caster and others like her, or transgender individuals. There is a clear need to accommodate these individuals, to ensure that they too have the freedom to participate, and that begins with science but also includes a rewiring of the language we use to describe them.
As I said, I believe very strongly in the need to define physiological distinctions between the sexes - the quote from the article about how changing hormonal levels results in the 10-12% reduction in speed that typifies performance differences between men and women was most revealing, and like many, I wish that the CAS would admit that it's appalling ruling that there isn't enough evidence of this in science needs to be revisited. The fact is that the traditional separations of the sexes in sports is based more on gender than physiology (a product of history which hasn't caught up with scientific knowledge), and these definitions are inadequate, if they exclude a minority who fall in between physiological definitions of the sexes.
Perhaps the solution is to create and define a third category for athletes, one where the physiological middle ground can be used to level the playing field, including intersex and transgender individuals who identify as female. But obviously this too would lead to a long difficult debate, not the least of which revolves around the science, and what would make someone eligible. Because an individuals own identification with a gender (the social definition) also needs to be considered. Caster and Dutee Chand grew up identifying themselves as women, in cultures which tend to stigmatize anyone who falls outside traditional definitions of gender, and it would be very difficult to ask them to go back on that for the sake of the their sport. In an ideal world, there would be no more attention paid to this than there is to the achievements of paralympic athletes, but similarly their competitions could be separated in this regard, with exceptions made, for example for those who could compete with men (like Oscar Pistorious.) This would only be possible after much debate, beyond the context of sport, but it is possible, hopefully when the ignorance shown in some of the reactions on here could be marginalized, as those people aren't worth being heard.
To those white-trash POSs who would continue to refer to Caster as "it" or some other demeaning term, I wonder what you would say if it was your sister, or daughter, who was on the receiving end of those insults, by people equally lacking in morals or the capacity to be empathetic and open-minded as you are. But then, given your deficiencies as human beings, I would feel only pity for your kids if they were unfortunate enough to be born with you as a parent.
Apologies to divert the topic away from one of the crucial points raised in the original interview - it IS a matter of women's rights and freedom to compete in sport. But I really think that there's another part to this discussion, and it needs to be considered, given that a good part of the world is ready for that discussion. Actually, I would hope that Rojo (and others in the sport) would care equally about women's sports AND Caster Semenya's situation, rather than viewing THE Caster Semenya situation as an obstacle, simply a problem to be resolved.
