Thursday, September 17, 2009

Hermaphrodites and Athletics

Caster Semenya is exploding all over the media with the recent discovery that she is a hermaphrodite.  Semenya has no ovaries or uterus and does have internal testes that produce large amounts of testosterone, which would explain her deep voice and her physical shape.  This is a new debate that is very interesting to me because this has never really been a problem before in athletes nor have we had to technology to diagnose those in question.  Semenya with male traits and testosterone running through her body would be the debate that would give a bigger advantage to other female runners.  I say if we are going to get technical with the amount of testosterone in someones body then we need to look at the genetic makeup of every single participant of that athletic competition.  Yes testosterone is defiantly going to give a female athlete an advantage over others, however, how can we not exclude other female athletes whos genetic makeup is very athletic and similar to that a of a male body, which would give them an advantage to a competitor who isnt.  That is my opinion but who is to say that a female is too male, and a male is too female.  This i believe is going to be a long ongoing debate for those who are a hermaphrodite.  I mean who is to judge someones gender preference and disregard it because it would be an unfair competition.  again, if its going to be looked into that closely then I think that other factors must be taken into affect as well.

3 comments:

  1. I cannot even imagin what Semenya is going through right now. I feel that even though she has been determined a Hermaphrodite I still feel like she should be able to keep her medals she earned before this was proven. I mean give her a break it's not like she knew that she had this condition before she won those races. I really hope she can get things straightened out and get back on the track soon.

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  2. You say that you believe that it should not matter how much testosterone and that we should not get technical in looking at genetic make-up. But we must do this because testosterone and estrogen determine what sex you are going to be. Caster is caught in the middle. She has too much testosterone to be a girl be she doesn't have enough to become a man. That is why she has the physical appearance and has internal testis. Without testosterone and estrogen we would all be the same person with no sex or any sex organs at all.

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  3. I agree that if we are going to make specifications of testosterone Caster, it should be done to all female athletes. It was only done to Caster because of her success and manly build.

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