SA fury over athlete gender test

[ruckmarch]

New 800m world champion Caster Semenya has been "humiliated" after being asked to take a gender test, says the head of South Africa's athletics body.

Leonard Chuene also said she had been treated like a "leper".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8211319.stm

What say you......He or she?

 

[mariomike]

Too close to call, from my vantage point.
So I checked "Manswers" for "How Can You Tell if She's Really a He?"
http://www.spike.com/video/how-can-you-tell-if/3050374

 

[CountDC]

Gender test??  We usually tell by looking at certain parts of the body, doesn't take long.

I like the:

The IAAF stresses that it does not suspect her of deliberately cheating but questions whether she may have a rare medical condition which gives her an unfair advantage.

so because she has a medical condition she should not be allowed to compete?  What condition might they be talking about?  Some runners have longer legs that gives them an unfair advantage - better put in a rule on maximum leg length.

sounds like a bunch of sour grapes to me. She kicked butt so must be something wrong.

The only thing I would scrutinize is the drug tests.

 

[Staff Weenie]

'She' may have some form of DSD - Disorder of Sex Development, possibly something akin to Swyer syndrome. If true, she would have a 46 XY chromosome - making her in essence 'genetically male'.  In Swyer syndrome a mutation on the Y chromosome leads to a failure of testes to develop, thus no hormones to create external male genitalia.  The fetus then defaults to developing female external genitalia (with some internal bits and bobs too). but without ovaries, they never develop and female characteristics at puberty.

So....to make it short - the infant would look female, but be male. As they grow, due to lack of hormonal influence they really never fall neatly to one side of the other - they are 'Intersex'. She may just have developed more musculature as a male than as a female.

 

[CountDC]

the bloody chromosomes again - i really hate it. The wife understands all that stuff and always goes on about how this combines with that to create this  ???.

Unless someone did some surgery I'll stick to she is a she - not her fault if nature gave her a little extra boost.

 

[mariomike]

(CNN) -- South African runner Caster Semenya will be allowed to keep the gold medal she won in the women's 800-meters at the World Athletics Championships in Berlin, Germany, in August, the country's sports ministry announced Thursday."
Results to remain confidential:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/SPORT/11/19/athletics.semenya.test.gold/index.html