A Simple Solution to the Caster Semenaya Controversy
Caster Semenaya, the runner who was forced to undergo “gender testing,” has caused a lot of controversy over the past few weeks, especially on Friday. The media and the blogosphere were quick to start lobbing the term “hermaphrodite” around when it was revealed that Semenaya lacks a uterus or ovaries and that her body produces more testosterone than a cis-gendered woman. I have several problems with the media’s treatment of the story.
First of all, the term “hermaphrodite” is considered to be offensive by most intersex people. The term “intersex” refers to anyone who is born with ambiguous genitals, someone who has the internal reproductive organs of both sexes, or someone whose chromosomal sex varies from the XX or XY combinations. According to statistics, about 1 in 2000 children is born intersex – which is about as statistically common as a child being born with Down Syndrome. But our society is so locked into binary modes of thinking (i.e. boy/girl, pink/blue) that we never talk about this. In fact, most parents are told that their child must have surgery in order for them to live a normal life.
Surgery is definitely being recommended in Caster Semenaya’s case. According to Womaninst Musings:
The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) is ready to disqualify Semenya from future events and advise her to have immediate surgery because her condition carries grave health risks. They have also not ruled out stripping Semenya of her 800m world championships gold medal . . .
The questioning of Semenya is the perfect example of cissexism. It began because we have narrowly defined the category of ‘woman’. Had Semenya had a eurocentric hair style, nail polish, and makeup on, when she raced, how many of her detractors would even have thought to raise an objection? They would have seen the performance of femininity and accepted her. We teach gender performativity from birth and little girls that are slow to assimilate are often referred to as tom boys. Little boys that display what we have decided to be traditionally feminine characteristics, are bullied and ordered to hide their emotions.
I totally agree – and I think there is a simple solution to this controversy. First of all, we could stop sex segregating sports. Little boys and girls play together when they are younger, but by the time they reach junior high school they are locked into rigidly segregated sports worlds. Many would argue that women are biologically unable to compete with men, but that’s a load of bull. When women are encouraged to compete and socialized into the rigors of training to be competitive athletes, they can compete at the same level as men. Basketball is basketball, and track is track. Women even play professional football these days, though you would never know it since it never gets covered ESPN. And anyone who thinks that women can’t be aggressive competitors has clearly never watched a WNBA game. At the 2007 WNBA finals between Detroit and Phoenix, several players received black eyes due to the very physical nature of the games. (I’m a Phoenix Mercury fan, so I won’t get into specifics on this, but let’s just say that Detroit played dirty.)
One thing about Semenaya’s case is that you would never hear of a “male” athlete having his gender questioned. Why? Because nobody thinks it’s a risk for a transman or an intersex man to compete with cisgendered men. The assumption is that estrogen and a vagina is equal to inferior athletic performance. If one athlete is going to be tested for chromosomes and hormones, then every athlete needs to be tested. That or people just need to get over it and let people play the game. Period.
For more info on intersex, click here.
1Stacy N.
wrote on 14 September 2009 at 22:52
Great post, Serena. I have been pissed off at the “created controversy.”
2montesireland
wrote on 21 September 2009 at 16:45
Excellent analysis. The factors that have contributed to Semenya’s abusive treatment by the IAAF are derivative of interlocking oppressions. The lesbophobia and cissexism that run rampant in women’s athletics are bad for women of all sexual orientations and physical embodiments. Sportswomen are forced to constantly navigate the space between looking and behaving in gender appropriate ways, appearing ‘feminine’ – and therefore not being taken seriously as an athlete – and being as tough, competitive and strong as they are, which of course is constructed as being ‘too masculine.’ Too masculine, and she is threatened as ‘not entirely female.’ The clear assumption is that any sportswoman who is a formidable athlete is a lesbian or “has a chromosome loose somewhere,” as was often said of Navratilova, and of Semenya. It’s always of importance to control female bodies. To segregate the women from the men, as you mentioned, is to not threaten our biologically essentialist illusions and binaries of male/female. If we were to give those things up, we might have to see each other as equal.