I agree with you. Semenya is a woman, just one with internal testicles. To me, she's just doing what we all do as athletes - try to be the best she can be. Using the word real women doesn't help things. I have a LOT of respect for Caster. She could easily just avoid all of this and not compete.
To you and I, she's a lot different than the cyclist, but in the end, in many's eyes, amazingly she's not different as one's gender is now for many how you identify. Obama last week just said let people use the bathroom of their choice, play sports as the gender of their choice. Ok, fine, let them play the sports as the gender of their choice but only if they get treatment.
Using the term "real women" isn't going to help things at all or the PC police will win this argument. In society, in arguments like this, you don't want to appear to be conservative or intolerant. The future of women's sports depends is at stake here. That's why I think it's really critical that we phrase this argument as a "women's rights issue".
Human rights activists are supporting Chand and Semenya. And for good reason, they are sympathetic figures. But these human rights activists are thinking about this too narrowly and aren't scientists or athletes. Thus it's critical that we explain to them the human rights of 50% of the population are at stake here.
As Harper points out, there used to be just "Sports". People with low levels of testosterone aren't great at that. So we created a subset to sports called women's sports. The issue is that Semenya is a woman with internal testicles. From a fairness standpoint, one could argue she's got the same advantages of someone on steroids.
Rather than frame it as men vs women, we could have a category of open and those with testosterone levels below 10. Or those with gonads (internal or external) and those without.
If this doesn't happen, Harper points out that we'll be ruining sports for a whole number of people (all women without internal testicles) simply to protect a few like Semenya (and down the road transgender people who refuse to do HRT).
I think the key is to have someone like Joanna and Caitlyn Jenner lead the way. I only wish that this Q&A was appearing in the NY Times with photos of Joanna before and after. I still think Ross should add photos of Harper to this Q&A to help it with its effectiveness.
I also think Caitly Jenner should say, "Do you think it's fair if they let me compete in the 1976 Olympics as woman under the name Bruce Jenner? Of course not."
I'm not sure about Mutola, but the name from the past that jumps out at me is Pamela Jelimo.
I've been told that you don't want to "out people" but I don't get that argument. We as a society need to move beyond that. Semenya did nothing wrong. She has internal testicles. So what? If you were about to marry a Jelimo, and you were her husband, wouldn't you want to know if she had internal testicles or not?
We got flak for writing in our Rabat preview and basically without saying saying that it was likely that Niyonsaba was in the same category as Semenya. Thus I was pleased that in this article,Harper basically said that Niyonsaba and Wambui have the same condition as Semnya she said 2 of 3 medallists from world indoors.
It's not good for Semenya to be the focus point. Then it looks like you are bullying. But if we point out the entire event is being dominated by people likt his, it's a more persuasive article.
I would be curious to know from a science standpoint why it's reallly only a big issue in the women's 800. Harper did a good job of explaining why it's more common in India/Africa as that's where close family members more often reproduce with each other ( "In those remote areas where 5-ARD and consanguinity (inbreeding) are both common, a significant percentage of the population will carry the gene for 5-ARD.") but it would be interesting to know why they end dominating the 800.
I'll get into my theories on that next time.