When I was writing this, I started to go off on the magazine but I stopped myself because first I don't know how Caster felt about it and second the "pretty her up" issue is an entire post all on its own.

~Denise
BlogHer Community Manager


Flamingo House Happenings

I am uncomfortable with the text on the cover of the magazine. Its tone indicates we should be shocked by how great she looks.

I don't care how Semenya looks, as long as she's comfortable with it - and as long as we (and particularly the media) don't judge her for whichever choices she makes.

The girls in line at the check-out, I believe they take their lead from the tone of the magazine. The magazine wants us to be shocked by how great she looks... which leads us to believe she did not look great before... which leads us to believe she's a freak.  Very unsettling.

~Denise
BlogHer Community Manager


Flamingo House Happenings

It is possible to have some form of gender ambiguity or an intersex condition and not know it. It's also possible to have been born with such a condition, have parents who decided you were going to be X gender, and have parents who never told you.

My gut tells me Caster's parents did not get an intersex diagnosis when their daughter was born. My gut tells me that Caster's parents did not get an intersex diagnosis at any point leading up to the tests last month.

~Denise
BlogHer Community Manager


Flamingo House Happenings

Amenorrhea is very very common in world class athletes because of their low body fat levels, particularly in runners.  It is known that elite women athletes often have to slow down their training and deliberately gain fat in order to menstruate and fall
pregnant.

It would not surprise me if up to half of all Olympic-class runners are not currently menstruating and that many of the younger runners may never have menstruated.This is despite the well documented fact (google on Drinkwater, 1994)  that exercise-induced amenorrhea is known to have short term complications of increased likelihood of stress fractures and long-term health complications with osteoporosis - there are some trainers/coaches who treat young girls in sports as if they are not truly serious about their training if they are menstruating.

The South African outrage against the speculations about Semenya was in response to generations of Western media images that present African women as freakishly unfeminine because they are not pale and dainty.  They were not wrong to react strongly against those aspersions being cast yet again against an African woman, even if in this case it appears that Semenya may indeed be genetically intersexed.  Plenty of other strong African women athletes have had similar slurs cast against them with no such evidence in their case.

At the same time, I question the South African government's
unwillingness to come to terms with the possibility that they entered
an athlete into a competition where their athlete may have had an
unfair advantage, in a similar way that the use of steroids is enough
ground to disqualify a male athlete.

Perhaps, unlike you, they are well-enough informed to realise that XY or XXY individuals with female genitals generally have Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, meaning that their body does not respond to testosterone at all (otherwise they would have developed male genitals in utero). So all that testosterone allegedly sloshing around in her system would be giving an intersexed woman with AIS no benefit in terms of hormonal muscle bulking. Indeed, even if she were to take steroidal androgens, they would have no effect due to AIS.

AIS is not the only possibility to explain the alleged facts in the leaked reports, but in any case Intersex individuals competing against women have never once been demonstrated to have a significant physical advantage against their competitors due to their condition. Not once. Which is why the International Athletics Federation allows Intersex women to compete as women, in case you didn't know that either - most of the press certainly doesn't seem to know it.

You are looking at Caster Semenya and her family through the lens of your own life and experiences.

As a highly trained athelet, she would not be expected to menstruate. She would be expected to look very much as she looks now - lean, muscular.

We also do not know our hormones are not in sync if we are 18 year old highly trained athletes who have always been this way. We tend to notice hormonal changes, not status quo. We don't notice something wrong if we've never experienced anything different.

There is also no evidence that she did have an unfair advantage as we do not know what type of health condition she has or how testosterone plays a role in that condition. And, I refuse to pash judgement on Semenya, her trainers or South Africa - if they did not know she was Intersex, then they did not willingly and knowingly enter an athelete who violated the rules of the game.

~Denise
BlogHer Community Manager


Flamingo House Happenings

To everyone who says "She must have known"

This girl grew up in Limpopo.  A world very different from yours.  Have you been to any rural parts of South Africa?  Believe me when I say - things are different. People have a totally different take on reality. I'm not saying they are wrong, or even that they are ignorant.  Totally different, from their understanding of science, to their views on the human body.

(I hate saying "they" and "them" all the time, please bear with me as its difficult to have this conversation without doing that)

Her family and community are probably not informed about all these delicate shadings of gender.  You get Men, and you get Women.  In that community any divergence from the very traditional male and female roles (and bodies) would be a extremely big deal.  Even if Caster and her family understood that something was different about Caster, they would very likely not even have admitted it even to themselves. What would be the benefit? 

I agree with everybody who says that the South African authorities have mishandled this.  I just hope that Caster can come through this with her dignity and positive attitude in tact.  To give you some hope - this morning one of our more tabloidy newspapers had the huge headline "Still Our Golden Girl". 

I have a friend who was born intersex. Her parents chose to have her raised as a man. She did not know... not until it was almost too late.

I don't believe this is the case. I don't believe her family knew. I have no evidence of that, just a feeling.

~Denise
BlogHer Community Manager


Flamingo House Happenings