I see gender as one’s physical design. I see sex as being, well, what we do with that physical design. However, I also see gender as a thing of society, not a more simple thing of science.
Male is a gender with a penis, scrotum, and a ton of testosterone. Female is a gender with ovaries, uterus, and a lot of estrogen. Basically. But like gender and sex, male and female are not always that well defined.
I bring this up because of Caster Semenya, the 18 yr old African athlete who is going through something no 18 yr old should have to face. Her gender is being publicly examined, twisted, ridiculed, and discussed across the globe.
It all started when Semenya won the world championship for the 200m race. Several other athletes decided that the huge margin in time (I think it was nearly 2 minutes) meant that Semenya was actually a male. Not that she is an extraordinary athlete, no, that would have been too much into the spirit of the true competition.
And she’s just 18.
When babies are born, doctors look at one place on the body and announce boy or girl. The parents take that infant home and raise it according to what the doctor pronounced. Pink vs blue. Sometimes, a doctor looks and sees something different, something that is part one and part the other. If the infant’s anatomy contains some of this and some of that, the term is “intersex” (hermaphroditic is considered an incorrect term and is no longer used).
There’s a wonderful article on Medhelp.org that refers to another in Semenya’s shoes, MarÃa José MartÃnez Patiño. The article describes, in decent English, how a fetus becomes male or female. It also mentions a syndrome called Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome. Maria Patino isn’t the only female athlete to face this condition. With a statistic of 1 in 20,000 births, it is not *that* uncommon. In 2006, Santhi Soundarajan, an athlete from India, faced the same scrutiny. The article says this (bolding is mine):
Since testosterone helps in building muscle and strength, an AIS case would not give an XY female athlete any kind of competitive advantage.
Seven of the eight women who tested positive for Y chromosones during the 1996 Atlanta Olympics had AIS. They were allowed to compete.
We can hope that this is what will happen to Semenya. That she will be allowed to keep her medal. But whether or not she will be allowed to compete again? Who knows. I hope they choose well.
Oh! Almost forgot!
Caster Semenya won the 800 metres race in style. The defending world champion came in second, and a full two minutes behind the speedster, Semenya. Semenya got the gold and some tongues began to wag. First they tested her for drugs and discovered to their chagrin that she was as clean as an unused whistle. Next they decided to confirm whether she was actually a woman.
(…)
At this point I expected women rights group to be up in arms, fighting for Semenya and stopping men from laying claim to one of their own. Whatever happened to the women who proclaimed in the streets and on the hilltops that whatever a man can do a woman can do even better? Here was Semenya trying to prove that, and the wicked men stopped her. And the women yawned and looked idly away.
Now take the case of Usain Bolt. Like Semenya, Bolt left the other men in the 100 and 200 metres races gasping for breath and looking at the back of his head. Even Michael Johnson, an Olympic medalist, has described him as a freak of nature. Bolt was tested for drugs and he came out clean. And the old school folks in IAAF rested the matter there and went their sloppy way.
And this sucks plenty because the treatment of Bolt is not fair (not fair at all) to Semenya. Have they thought of testing Bolt to see whether he is half animal and half man? No. Yet if you look at Bolt very closely, he would remind you of the last time you saw a horse. Why have they not tested him to find out whether he is more of a horse than a man? My submission is that the man has dual -species status ” he is part horse and part man. Yet IAAF is minded to allow this horse -man keep running and stop Semenya from running.
(source)