Caster Semenya withdraws from race in South Africa ("Woman" Track Winner May be Hermaphrodite)

Guardian.co.uk ^ | September 11, 2009 | David Smith

[BradtotheBone]

Athlete Caster Semenya has pulled out of her return to competitive sport amid growing fears over the psychological impact of rumours about her sex. The 18-year-old withdrew from a cross-country race in South Africa tomorrow after it was widely reported that a leaked sex test reveals she is a hermaphrodite. Her coach, Michael Seme, said she will not run because she is "not feeling well". South Africa condemned the international media reports as an invasion of the teenager's privacy and threatened a "third world war" if the women's 800m champion is disqualified from athletics.

[calex59]

You keep saying this on threads about this girl, and you are either a liar or simply mis-informed. There is plenty of documented evidence of Hermaphrodites existing. In fact this person is sort of an anomaly since she has no male organs, except for testicles that are up inside of her/his body. There are plenty of pictures with human Hermaphrodites that have both sets of organs fully developed and quite capable of using either organ in sexual relations. It is a shame such a condition exists but there it is. The person who is afflicted with this may choose to have one set of organs removed and hormone shots given to establish one sex. Normally they are raised as males since the penis is more visible, alas, so is the vagina.

Now, maybe you have a different name for this condition, but nonetheless the condition does exist among humans and is well documented and is commonly known as "Hermaphrodite".

[China Clipper]

And the State Dept will extend her a refugee visa to bring her/him to the US, plus free medical care and housing for xx years.

XX years...

I LOVE the irony in that comment.......

[Vaquero]

Sir Francis Dashwood aka Joe Wilson called me a liar...

now where is my appology????

[Ghost of Philip Marlowe]

That’s some pretty omniscient knowledge you have.

Whether there has ever been someone with both full sets of organs, none of us can know.

But I think we can agree that was is commonly mislabeled “hermaphrodite” is actually a case of the genital development being stuck between gears.

As I said, I know someone who was “female” all his/her life as a child. It wasn’t until adolescence did everything switch over.

[firelight]

From what I hear from my South African friends, she really didn’t know.

Externally she is female. She has a vagina and all external female plumbing. The leak is incorrect that she doesn’t have any ovaries. She does have small ovaries that produce estrogen. Her estrogen levels are normal for a female. She also has breasts.

She is just a teenager and didn’t know. Externally she is every bit a girl and had no reason to believe otherwise. Internally, she has very small internal testes that produce testosterone. Women do produce testosterone and her levels are higher than an average woman but not extremely high from what labs are reported to say. She has no uterus. She also has no adam’s apple.

I feel deeply sorry for her and her family. It would appear as if they really had no idea that something wasn’t right since she isn’t trying to bear a child and there are no other symptoms. Yes, she is muscular and has a deeper voice but if the external anatomy is correct then why doubt??

This is sad and very damaging to a young teen girl to deal with this in the spotlight.

[Vaquero]

Anyone who says otherwise is a liar...

NO a liar is someone who prevaricates....anyone who truly believes something by whatever terminology they have relied upon, whether true or false is not a liar...if they are wrong they are wrong, but calling them a liar is either arrogant, or just stupid.

I feel something spoken here might be a little too close to home for Sir ‘Frances’

I think thou dost protest toooooo much.

[Vaquero]

Anyone who says otherwise is a liar...

NO a liar is someone who prevaricates....anyone who truly believes something by whatever terminology they have relied upon, whether true or false is not a liar...if they are wrong they are wrong, but calling them a liar is either arrogant, or just stupid.

I feel something spoken here might be a little too close to home for Sir ‘Frances’

I think thou dost protest toooooo much.

[freedumb2003]

The press is purposely and inappropriately using the term "hermaphrodite" to push the homosexual agenda.

There has never once been a single documented case of a hermaphrodite mammal.

I think the press is using the term for a shorthand for "sexually ambiguous." I assume by your definition, you mean a creature born with complete and functioning male and female organs (womb, testicals, etc.). In this case, it is the opposite (which is what they mean, I think): No womb, vestigial testicles, high testosterone -- a man with a slit, essentially.

I just don't see the homosexual agenda and that doesn't seem to come into play. The card being played is nationalism and racism. The South Africans are claiming this has nothing to do with biology and everything to do with race. The fact that it is BS and most of the premier runners for the last 30 years have been black doesn't seem to matter.

[married21]

Her body is unique, but temporary. Her soul is perfect and eternal. I hope and pray that she knows that.

[kaila]

She should have surgery to have the testes removed. That would enable her to race again without controversy.

[j-damn]

It took 48 posts before someone brought up the stupidity of the South Africans as a whole in this one...threatening a “third world war” over some freak who shouldn’t be racing women? Give me a break.

Hey South Africa, why don’t you go back to your real national sports—stealing cars, rape and murder.

[freespirited]

If she has been menstruating it is certainly credible that she didn’t know. If she hasnt, it’s a lot harder to believe.

[freedumb2003]

No womb, so I would put the probability of menstruating pretty low (but possible — this is one freak of nature).

[heartwood]

XY individuals who have lost the SRY (Sex-determining Region Y) gene develop as infertile females. They don’t make significant quantities of testosterone. XX individuals who have picked up an SRY develop as males, but infertile.

There are other XY individuals who have androgen insensitivity syndrome (AIS) - their bodies make testosterone but do not have the receptors for it. They develop as females, typically tall and slender, small-breasted, infertile, not heavily muscled. Partial AIS results in a devlopment more on male side of the spectrum, possibly what affects Semenya.

[heartwood]

But no one has ever been both a fertile male and a fertile female - able to father a child and to carry a child in the womb. Your start with two proto-gonads that become testicles or ovaries. No one ends up with one functional testicle and one functional ovary.

[muawiyah]

Not having a uterus is not that unusual. Plenty of XX and even XXX wmen suffer from the condition.

There are also people who are a chimera, with part of their body cells of one configuration, and the other part of another. They are rare, but sometimes you hear of a mother who is not a close genetic relative of her own children (by close, I mean close enough for a transplant).

The two-headed girl is a case of a single individual growing two torsos.

In ancient times when the concept of a human hermaphrodite was first broached, no one knew anything about genes, or DNA.

[wardaddy]

man..not woman.

[Mila]

"Her body is unique, but temporary. Her soul is perfect and eternal. I hope and pray that she knows that."

What an absolutely beautiful thing to say! Thank you for posting such a lovely and loving thought.

[wardaddy]

thank you..the Unicorn

so many here believe that one

this was as they say in porn “chicks with d*cks”

[normanpubbie]

You other folks can discuss Semenya's "gender identity" and athletic qualification. To me, the heart of the matter is his/her physical sexuality. This discussion has been based on reported information which is curiously incomplete.

The published leaks say that this individual lacks a uterus and ovaries and possesses a testosterone level three times normal for a female; futhermore, the parents insist she's a girl.

Apparently "Caster" is a male name in that part of the world. So what? It may be unusual, but it isn't rare that parents give a boy a girl's name or vice versa. But it is curious and possibly significant that the parents gave Caster a male name while insisting that she is female. I think it's fair to ask the parents why.

Let's look at the testosterone level issue. According to several sources on the Web, female testosterone levels are between 20 and 80 mg/liter and male testosterone levels are defined as 300 to 1000 mg/liter. There's a big gap between defined male and female testosterone levels. Even if the level is three times the maximum female level (240), that's still less than the minimum male testosterone level (300). Conclusion: Definitely not male testosterone level.

Now to the internal organs. Without a uterus and without ovary(ies), and with undescended testicle(s), this individual would seem to be male. But this was apparently unknown until the IAAF insisted on an internal organ examination.

The article doesn't mention the external organs, i.e., genitalia. It would seem that there are six possibilities here: Penis only, vagina only, similarly-sized penis and vagina, vestigial penis and normal-sized vagina, vestigial vagina and normal-sized penis, or indeterminate.

Of these six, the first, third, and fifth seem unlikely. As for choice four, it's possible that the penis never developed or enlarged, especially after puberty. Possibility number six: See my third paragraph above.

From my perspective, in the remaining cases two or four, she's a she. I suspect that the chemical test results are going to be a mixed bag.