Aint no way this guys not actively recruiting dsd athletes to easily gain notoriety.
OozmaKappa wrote:
Aint no way this guys not actively recruiting dsd athletes to easily gain notoriety.
The high rates of DSD athletes in women's athletics in recent years, particularly from certain countries in sub-Saharan Africa, sure make it seem likely that unscrupulous men in those countries actively scour the countryside scouting for teens with Semenya-type DSDs in order to take advantage of the loopholes that have allowed such athletes to compete - and clean up in - women's events. From the story in the OP:
"Botha became more involved in junior athletics in Namibia, becoming the chairman of the Otjozondjupa Schools Sport Union, and started working more closely with the government to identify talent. That's where he noticed Beatrice Masilingi for the first time in 2018 and realised that she was an unpolished gem."
Botha and the Namibian sports authorities seem to be operating out of the same exact playbook that Athletics South Africa and its former head, the corrupt proven liar Leonard Cheune, came up with to advance the running career of Caster Semenya starting 13-15 years ago.
I don't think it's a coincidence that Namibia is next door to South Africa, and was part of SA until obtaining independence in 1990. Nor does it seem to be a coincidence that coach Botha went to university in SA.
I also don't think it's a coincidence that Namibia is a country where most births at the time when Masilingi and Mboma were born occurred in home settings, where most poor young kids of that era did not get routine or any medical care, and where the majority of births of poor black children still do not get registered with the government at or near the time of birth. Even today, after decades of government and NGO efforts to get parents in sub-Saharan Africa to get BCs for their kids by their 5th birthdays, the majority of children in SsA reach school age without BCs - and Namibia is no exception.
A majority of black persons born in Namibia when Maslingi and Mboma were born did not obtain BCs until after they started school - and in many cases not until they were in their teens and the age when Namibians are required to get a national ID was approaching. Thus, in the case of millions of black people in Namibia, particularly the poor ones, there are no birth certificates or other records dating from their early childhoods which show what their sex was originally thought to be when they were babies and young kids.
Same goes for South Africa. When Semenya was born in 1991, virtually no black parents in rural, poor provincial SA got birth certificates for their kids. Most black parents throughout SA, in fact, made a point of hiding their children's births from the government back then - no surprise since apartheid was still the law of the land. One of the aims of Nelson Mandela's government was to get black South Africans to begin trusting the government enough that they'd start registering their children's births and obtaining BCs for them.
Tellingly, Semenya's first BC saying "F" wasn't issued until April 2007, when Semenya was 16 and already had been scouted and identified by Athletics South Africa as the country's potential "golden girl" superstar runner.
RunRagged wrote:
The high rates of DSD athletes in women's athletics in recent years, particularly from certain countries in sub-Saharan Africa,
///snip////
Tellingly, Semenya's first BC saying "F" wasn't issued until April 2007, when Semenya was 16 and already had been scouted and identified by Athletics South Africa as the country's potential "golden girl" superstar runner.
Quite detailed...are you connected to SA?
I am a good friend of the former head athletics coach , who resigned because of the way Chuene et al treated Caster and the dog and pony show around it.
I would add, that in general, maybe DSD is not more prevalent in Africa, it is possibly the fact that those conditions in rural settings at least are not identified/treated.
I was literally just trolling 💀💀💀
How is this actually real life...
I am Sam wrote:
RunRagged wrote:
The high rates of DSD athletes in women's athletics in recent years, particularly from certain countries in sub-Saharan Africa,
///snip////
Tellingly, Semenya's first BC saying "F" wasn't issued until April 2007, when Semenya was 16 and already had been scouted and identified by Athletics South Africa as the country's potential "golden girl" superstar runner.
Quite detailed...are you connected to SA?
I am a good friend of the former head athletics coach , who resigned because of the way Chuene et al treated Caster and the dog and pony show around it.
I would add, that in general, maybe DSD is not more prevalent in Africa, it is possibly the fact that those conditions in rural settings at least are not identified/treated.
No, not connected to SA. Just a longterm observer of SA politics and someone who has done a fair bit of research into the issue of DSD athletes in women's sports and the Semenya saga in particular, which I think is emblematic of a host of different social, cultural and political trends. I actually have enough material for a book about the topic, but in today's climate it's unpublishable.
Anyways, the information about Sememya being issued a SA birth certificate in 2007 was reported in the English-language worldwide press in 2009. Just google "Caster Sememya birth certificate" and images of it will come up showing the date of issue: 2007-04-03. If Semenya had obtained a BC earlier, then the date the original was issued should appear on the BC along with the re-issue date. More to the point, if Semenya had been issued a BC saying "FEMALE" the way the 2007 one does prior to 2007, it's odd that it's never been produced as part of the longstanding campaign to attempt to prove that Semenya was always regarded as a girl. (BTW, Semenya recently made statements to the NY Times showing that all the stories about Semenya being "raised as a girl" from birth aren't really true.)
The low historical rates for registering births and obtaining birth certificates during childhood for kids in SA, Namibia and the rest of sub-Saharan Africa have been well documented by the governments of those countries and NGOs like the UN and the World Bank. It's a big concern amongst those who work in child welfare and in aid to developing countries because not being registered/having a BC deprives children of basic rights. I first became aware that most births of black children in SA were unregistered when I researched a story about the "hidden harms of apartheid" back in the 1980s - when Namibia was still occupied and ruled by South Africa.
As for the issue of DSD prevalence: Sorry, I didn't mean to suggest that DSDs are more prevalent in Africa than elsewhere in the world. When I referred to "The high rates of DSD athletes in women's athletics in recent years, particularly from certain countries in sub-Saharan Africa," I was speaking about DSD athletes in women's athletics specifically and solely.
The fact that a majority of the known DSD athletes competing in women's sports in the current century are from sub-Saharan Africa could be taken as a sign that DSDs occur more commonly in that part of the world - and some people will argue that this indeed is the case. But it doesn't necessarily mean that it's actually true.
After all, the known XY DSD athletes who competed in women's elite international sports during the 20th century all came from Europe and were white. It's only been in recent years that all the XY DSD athletes in women's sports the public knows about have come from Africa and India and are black or brown.
I think there are a number of factors involved in what's really going on here. My own hunch is that the real reason most DSD athletes in women's athletics in recent years have come from a handful of countries mainly in Africa might have less to do with the nature of African demographics than with African politics and world geopolitics.
You are right that in some parts of the world DSDs are more likely to go undetected than in other parts of the world - at birth or in early childhood, that is. But the idea that the sorts of DSDs covered by the WA regs would go entirely unnoticed until age 16, 17 or 18 isn't believable to me (or any woman) because the lack of periods would be a very big tipoff. Most girls start their periods between 10 and 13; 11 is the average age of menarche.
Periods and the hormonal and bodily changes that occur over the course the 28-day menstrual cycle are huge factors in girls' and women's lives - they affect us every day, and we talk about these matters amongst ourselves a lot. So I can't imagine a scenario where a girl anywhere on planet earth would reach 15, 16 or older without ever having a period and not noticing or worrying about it. Most girls would be worried sick that something is really wrong, in fact.
Periods and the menstrual cycle also have an enormous impact on sports training and performance, which is one reason female athletes closely track their cycles. So I also can't imagine a scenario where coach Botha and all the other adults involved in helping Mboma and Masilingi become international track stars never would have noticed that neither runner has ever had a period - and never would have wondered why.