"A fine quotation is a diamond on the finger of a man of wit, and a pebble in the hand of a fool." - Joseph Roux

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Secret of Semenya's sex stripped bare

"THE world champion 800m runner Caster Semenya has been revealed to have male and female sexual organs, posing an ethical and political quandary for the sport's ruling body, the International Association of Athletics Federations, and her home nation, South Africa."


I'm sure this won't stop the accusations of racism, sexism and jealousy.

The key problem here, of course, is that sports events are divided into two gender categories - male and female - in order to prevent the former having an "unfair" advantage over the latter.

Of course, this is "unfair" for eunuchs, transsexuals, hermaphrodites and other people with assorted intersex and endrocrinological conditions (generously estimated at 1% of the population), but the alternative is to be "unfair" to everyone else (or at least the women, at least 45% of the population).

Just alleging that sexism and racism are why people are kicking up such a fuss is quite beyond the point - especially since the very same people doing so would likely condemn collapsing the gender categories and having men and women compete on equal terms. And probably also cry foul if male-to-female transsexuals competed as women.


Another interesting article:

Caster Semenya: Boy, can she run

"IN a school photograph taken shortly before her 15th birthday, Semenya stands awkwardly under the blinding African sun. A full head and shoulders above her classmates, she is dressed in men’s pleated trousers and an unflattering shirt. Her friends wear knee socks and skirts...

“I was caught out, too. Caster was always rough and played with the boys. She liked soccer and she wore trousers to school. She never wore a dress. It was only in grade II that I realised she was a girl myself.

The way she looked, so masculine, did cause her some problems but few were brave enough to bully her.”...

Dorcus admits her daughter’s progress is far from ordinary. Unusually for a young woman perhaps, Semenya’s main interest has been WWF wrestling, a sport notable for competitors with extraordinary physiques...

The problem for athletics is that it has never quite worked out what to do about competitors who blur the line between the traditional image of men and women...

After the advent of the [gender] tests, a suspicious number of international women athletes suddenly retired."

Steven Pinker: "It is said that there is a technical term for people who believe that little boys and little girls are born indistinguishable and are molded into their natures by parental socialization. The term is "childless.""