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By the age of 18 - didn't anyone notice that she wasn't having a period?
While I understand that she was "raised" female - and she may posses internal "male" organs with apparently ambiguous "female" exterior organs - without ovaries or a womb she certainly never developed breasts - nor did she ovulate - nor did she produce estrogen.
I understand gender ambiguity - but I fail to see any "female" attributes (chemically)
I can raise my puppy as if it were a kitten - but it will still grow up to be a dog (I mean no offense by this)
With all the trainers and locker room doctors isn't it strange that no one "noticed" that "she" had NO estrogen at all.
And those pictures of her "glamour" shots were even MORE sad - looked like a man in a dress.
By the age of 18 - didn't anyone notice that she wasn't having a period?
While I understand that she was "raised" female - and she may posses internal "male" organs with apparently ambiguous "female" exterior organs - without ovaries or a womb she certainly never developed breasts - nor did she ovulate - nor did she produce estrogen.
I understand gender ambiguity - but I fail to see any "female" attributes (chemically)
I can raise my puppy as if it were a kitten - but it will still grow up to be a dog (I mean no offense by this)
With all the trainers and locker room doctors isn't it strange that no one "noticed" that "she" had NO estrogen at all.
And those pictures of her "glamour" shots were even MORE sad - looked like a man in a dress.
Your body still produces estrogen even if you have no ovaries or uterus.
many female athletes menstruate extremely late due to their lack of body fat.
LOL my cousin got really into basketball and weight lifting around 9th grade and mom took her to the doctor because she was positive she was pregnant when her period stopped coming.
Call it woman's intuition - I could tell the first time I saw her/him, it was a guy.
'It' is not a guy. I could understand some 'I told you so' bravado if, in fact, the tests proved conclusively that Semenya was not a woman, period and was, in fact, a man. Period.
Some of you don't seem to realize that all female runners are routinely tested for gender these days. Not just the ones that 'look' questionable. Most pass of course. I haven't followed this closely enough to know why not, but I am a little surprised that the issue never came up in earlier competition.
I don't doubt that Semenya or any of her people didn't know about her condition. In the U.S. we are exposed to a variety of scenario's that lead to more speculative thinking and we have a medical infrastructure that can provide the answers relatively inexpensively. In Semenya's culture there would have had to have been a very compelling medical reason to order such tests. On the other hand, it is really hard to make the case with a straight face that neither Semenya or any of her handlers even suspected that she was... ... 'special'. I think she, they, suspected but as long as the track medals kept coming in there was not going to be much incentive to look for trouble. She is hardly the first masculine looking woman to come along. How masculine she really was was the mystery that I suspect not even she was fully aware of.
Still, as female athlete, would you want to compete against her? I wouldn't. If I lost to her in past competition, hell yes, I would want her medal if I was the next runner up. If you don't understand that, you have never been a competitive athlete. Yes, its tragic. The fault isn't Semenya's but, again, if you were the athlete or athletes that lost to her it might not be so easy to say "let her keep her medals because she didn't know she had an unfair advantage".
And yet if you had "him" naked in your bedroom, you would find no penis.
What would your intuition say then? "Even though this person has a vagina, I KNOW there's GOT to be some internal testes?"
Sorry, but though i know sex and gender are complicated things sometimes, I consider having a penis a lot more important in determining who I consider "biologically male" than testes. Whether the plumbing is internal or external pretty much lets a person know WHAT they are. Half the people on this forum could be walking around with a random testicle or ovary inside, but unless you go looking for it, whose to know?
Nor breasts or any hint of a female shape. Anyone who says that he/she looks like a woman is a liar. In the original pictures she's rockin a six pack and ripped muscles. The first time I saw the picture I was like, "That's a dude." and anyone who says they thought the contrary is a liar. She was coerced into that stupid magazine photo op by her handlers because they know that they're golden ticket may be expiring. Read the quote that I already posted again; her sexual ambiguity wasn't breaking news to her:
When quizzed by South African magazine You on the gender issue, Semenya said: "I see it all as a joke, it doesn't upset me. God made me the way I am and I accept myself. I am who I am and I'm proud of myself. I don't want to talk about the tests - I'm not even thinking about them.''
Regardless I feel really sad for he/she; it's got to be an uncomfortable situation for the person to be in.
I feel very badly for this young person. Not only is her identity as a female now messed up but, also she will need to have the "male" reproductive organs she does have removed as they will be at an increased risk of cancer. She will not be able to have children (biologically).
If "She" dates men does that classify her as homosexual or if she dates women does that in turn classify you her as homosexual?
I'm not trying to be insensative, the point I'm getting at is, could it possibly be that many have some degree of sexual ambiguity from birth? Could homosexuality truelly be a matter of one's own complicated physiology?
Semenya withdraws from race amidst reports she's hermaphrodite - Fourth-Place Medal - OLY - Yahoo! Sports (http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/beijing/blog/fourth_place_medal/post/Semenya-withdraws-from-race-amidst-reports-she-s?urn=oly,188930 - broken link)
Quote:
Caster Semenya, the 18-year old at the center of one of the biggest gender scandals in sports history, withdrew from a weekend race in South Africa amidst unconfirmed reports that her gender tests have revealed that she has both male and female sexual organs.
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