Suspected Intersex South African Female Sprinter Caster Semenya keeps Gold medal, Sex test results remain a secret

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The AP in Johannesburg reports that the South African sports ministry says 800 world champion Caster Semenya will keep her gold medal.

Caster Semenya has been under humiliating public scrutiny for several months now, when it was made public that the gold medal winning world champion female runner was suspected of having been born with male sex organs and had an unusual amount of testosterone for an actual woman.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersex

Caster was forced to take a gender test, and the alledged test results were leaked, and falsely reported internationally.The leaked results stated that Caster was rumored to have been proven to be a male, and a female at the same time.The report of the results were confusing at best.

The actual results of the gender test will remain closed and confidential, saving Caster from any more intimate public scrutiny,it is truly the right thing to do in this case.

The South African sports ministry pushed the IAAF to keep the recent gender test results strictly between patient and doctor. Once the IAAF agreed, the ministry announced today the confidentiality and urged South Africans and media to please respect Semenya’s privacy.

She will also be allowed to keep the prize money winnings she earned in August at the IAAF World Championships in Berlin in where she won the gold medal by blowing out the competition. That is where suspicion grew about her actual gender, based on her deep voice, and muscular build.

A quote reported in the Huffington Post explains the Caster Semenya’s gender qualifications test situation as follows….

She was tested for not being female enough even though the kind of conditions required to disqualify a self-identified girl from competing in boys sports are quite extreme. In fact, according to the IAAF‘s own policy document on gender verification (2006), women can compete even if they are genetically male:

Conditions that should be allowed: (a) Those conditions that accord no advantage over other females:
– Androgen insensitivity syndrome (Complete or almost complete – previously called testicular feminization);
– Gonadal dysgenesis (gonads should be removed surgically to avoid
malignancy);
– Turner’s syndrome.

As well, athletes who choose to have sex changes are permitted to continue to compete in sport as long as they have completed a mandatory number of months in hormone therapy…

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/emma-rubysachs/semenyas-struggle-teaches_b_363668.html

I did not know that there were rules that governed intersex athletes in international sports, but, given that they do exist, and some may excel in sports, I think that the International Sports authorities have shown some proactive leadership in specifying the qualifications for the intersex athlete around the world.

The official ruling clears Caster Semenya and the South African Sports association of any wrongdoing, or malicious intent, like the violations of doping and steroid abuse that seems to be so prevalent among international athletes covering a wide range of sports.

I personally look forward to Caster continuing in her chosen field of sport, and I am sure that she will continue to set new world records, and represent her country well in the coming Olympics, should she choose to compete.

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For more information on the life and times of world champion runner Caster Semenya, please follow this link…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caster_Semenya

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