Obviously it's a very ambiguous situation. I'm not sure what to feel. Here are a few observations though for discussion.
1. When I saw the tape and how she took off at 650, I seriously thought it was a joke from a hater here. It was just ridiculous and a dominance that I (a former 800 runner) have never seen. Something's fishy. (or not, lol)
2. The way she is/looks can be explained by doping also.
3. I find the "100% pure woman" standard intentionally ambiguous and a little unfair to the subjects in question.
4. It's one thing to keep penises and XY chromosomes out of female races. But why do we protect women from freakish (but natural) physical specimens but not the men. Her "cheat-code" finish was no more "cheat-code" than Bolt's was. But no one is talking about him as some kind of unfair monster that needs to be kept out. Seems a little paternalistic to me.
4a. If it were "unnatural" i.e. from a bottle or needle, that would be a whole different story of course.
5. If she were a man, she would not win a HS State meet. Or many dual meets. The HS team I train with has 3 guys with faster PRs. My PR is faster and I'm not especially good. So if she's a man she's not a very fast one.
5a. Wonder if many of the people crowing the other day about Jenny Barringer's NCAA-mens-like times think the same about the same way about Semenya's comparatively slower results. What does that say about the state of the W-Steeple? My answer is: young and novelty-class like the pole vault was a few years ago.
6. Finally, my take: the rapid time progression is serious cause for concern, a suspicion the IAAF shares. Test her for doping. Top-level gender testing is also appropriate. But if you want to go by "characteristics", it becomes a question of whether you want to find a positive or not and that's dangerous.
7. The mean personal attacks are not appropriate, but to be expected I suppose.
