Umm, wtf?! This is such bullshit.

Caster Semenya, an 18-year-old runner from South Africa, is really fucking fast. She beats all the other bleeders regularly, including her most recent win at the world championships — a gold medal in the women’s 800m. However, rather than simply applaud her talent and determination, the intolerant jerks that are involved in the sport have ordered a humiliating inquiry into whether or not she is truly a woman (on suspicion of “gender issues” due to her strong athletic performance). See here for more: “Gold Awarded Amid Dispute Over Runner’s Sex,” NYTimes.

(Oh, and yes, you read right: “The Bantu, a group of indigenous South African people, may be more predisposed to being hermaphrodites but they do not always have obvious male genitalia, said Dr. Maria New, an endocrinologist at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. They are genetically female yet have both testes and ovaries.”
The author quotes the doctor and what we are left with is basically the suggestion that the Bantu are a hermaphroditic indigenous group. I had to rub my eyes and take a swig of something strong to make sure I was getting the implication right. At least the moronic writing makes the gendered and racialized nature of this issue plain.)

So what does such an inquiry on “gender issues” entail? From the article: “The testing done on Semenya, at the behest of the International Association of Athletics Federations, track and field’s world governing body, takes weeks to complete. It requires a physical medical evaluation, and includes reports from a gynecologist, an endocrinologist, a psychologist, an internal medicine specialist and an expert on gender. The effort, coordinated by Dr. Harold Adams, a South African on the I.A.A.F. medical panel, is being conducted at hospitals in Berlin and South Africa…. It is unclear what the exact threshold is, in the eyes of the I.A.A.F., for a female athlete being ineligible to compete as a woman.”

This whole mess leaves me dizzy and disoriented. Maybe they could throw a few more tests and doctors visits in different countries into the mix just to make it a bit more time-consuming and stressful. Maybe they could call on a few more scholarly professionals to offer their expert opinions on the matter just to define Semenya’s life for her a bit more. Maybe they should think a little bit more about whether genetic conditions (none of which has Semenya been diagnosed with yet…) can offer athletes “unfair” advantages in athletic competition. What the hell does that even mean?! Do I have an “unfair” advantage in looking hot while I dance because I am genetically predisposed to have an amazing derriere? Maybe they could just label it a “tranny witch hunt” and chase down any woman with wide shoulders and a chiseled jaw line. (Bet she could fucking run faster than their fat idiot asses!)

Or maybe it’s fucking time that we start reevaluating the gendered categories that we have established for ourselves and why we so mindlessly continue to adhere to them. Penis vagina penis vagina penis vagina eggies spermies eggies spermies!! We are gonad-obsessed drones.