Comments on: The Question Of Caster Semenya’s Sex

By: Jack Vermicelli

Jack Vermicelli — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 21:51:25 +0000

Other than for our pretty ideas of equality and political correctness, what would be the problem with this? If all events were for humans, of course surely some events would be dominated by men. A few might have a higher count of women. In any case, men are on average more athletic so it seems reasonable that this should be how it would play out. Certainly you’d agree that there are areas where women excel over men?

If I were a woman and an athlete, I think I’d rather compare myself to the entire field, than to always have that “..for a girl” hanging over my head. It’s only a matter of degree (called into question in this case), the difference between men and women, and lefties and righties, and people of different heights, and athletes and non-athletes, etc. Does it make sense to segregate competitions by handedness, if it can be shown that a certain side has a non-trivial advantage at a particular endeavor? What kind of a win is it to do well… for a white guy, or to win… among the sedentary?

By: Jude

Jude — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 20:18:25 +0000

and even moving beyond that, both ARE socially constructed and fluid. poststructuralism seems to make the most sense to me in understanding the subjectivity of gender and sex, so check out some books on the subject if you’re interested.

By: Jude

Jude — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 20:17:07 +0000

This fucking irks me to no end! It bothers me even more when I have professors in SOCIOLOGY classes that do it too!! Or people who identify as trans*…that’s even more frustrating…

By: Daniel

Daniel — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 19:24:42 +0000

That is a fucking meaning. The most women in the world have problems with her healthness. What do you say? Muscular women are the high level and gold style physique!
All of the other women are boring and mushi. Or love you fat or unmuscular mens? The mens perfect style is androgyn and muscular! The perfect women style is the androgyn cats- and tigerstyle, nothing pork- cowstyle! I think, you prefer this style for one´s.
I love: Irina Press, Caster Semenya, Jarmila Kratochvilova, Aida Diop, Jordanka Donkova, Marion Jones and all of the muscular and ripped women in the world. WOMEN WITH THE KICK!!!

By: MichelleBella

MichelleBella — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 05:12:22 +0000

by Dr spock MD.
“Female development will occur unless maleness is actively induced by the Y chromosome. In females, the gonads become ovaries; …and the phallus becomes a clitoris. In males, the Y chromosome causes the gonads to develop into testicles, which start to produce the male hormone testosterone by 9 to 10 weeks of pregnancy. Testosterone leads to development of the penis and scrotum and the internal tubular system that will later carry sperm. Another hormone produced by the testicles, anti-mullerian hormone (AMH), inhibits the development of a uterus and vagina.”

Base on the article, when Semenya was born, she did not have enough testosterone to produce a penis and scrotum. She also did not have enough “AMH” to inhibit the development of a vagina. Therefore she was born a female. Y chromosomes did not actively induce maleness. All women create testosterone. Some create more than others. This doen’t make you any less of a women. It also doesn’t mean that your oravies are now “internal testes” because they produce a lot of testosterones.

By: Living with Hypomnemata

Living with Hypomnemata — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 03:35:48 +0000

[...] to many physiological features, and sometimes the features point to different categorizations. Sociological images has a great post that includes a relatively comprehensive list of such features (even throwing in “sexual [...]

By: Semenya’s Makeover: Gender As Performance » Sociological Images

Semenya’s Makeover: Gender As Performance » Sociological Images — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 15:40:34 +0000

[...] posted earlier about the biology behind the controversy over Caster Semenya’s sex. Germán I. R.-E. and Philip Cohen (who has his own post on the topic) asked that we comment on [...]

By: Caster Semenya e Michel Foucault « victor com c

Caster Semenya e Michel Foucault « victor com c — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 21:09:54 +0000

[...] um postulado falocêntrico e estaríamos dispostos a admiti-lo? (encontrei este vídeo muito bom neste post, do Sociological Images, que resume muito bem) Semana passada, tive acesso a um livro que é [...]

By: American Women Athletes Part Two: How intersex athletes are punished by the gender testing system | The Angry Black Woman

Sat, 05 Sep 2009 13:17:17 +0000

[...] Images out with a great post The question of Caster Semenya’s sex If you were to try to decide what qualifies a person as male or female, what quality would you [...]

By: Alessandra

Alessandra — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 19:37:31 +0000

An interesting question in the original post – with my immediate response edited throughout:

If you were to try to decide what qualifies a person as male or female, what quality would you choose? I can think of eight candidates:

1. Identity (whatever the person says they are, they are) – Usually reliable, but certainly no guarantee, since humans can be totally delusional about any aspect of their own themselves.

2. Sexual orientation (boys dig girls, vice versa)- Nonsense

3. Secondary sex characteristics (e.g., boobs/no boobs, pubic hair patterns, distribution of fat on the body)- yes, but this only for adults – male and female also include children

4. External genitalia (e.g., clitoris, labia, vaginal opening/penis and scrotum)
5. Internal genitalia (e.g., vagina, uterus, and fallopian tubes/epididymis, vas deferens, seminal vesicles, prostate, etc)
6. Hormones (preponderance of estrogens/androgens)
7. Gonads (ovaries/testes)
8. Chromosomes (XX/XY, the SRY gene)

I also thought of:

9. Skeleton (for adults) – there are male/female differences

10. facial structure, bones and other aspects

(for both of the above, see this, for example:
http://www.secondtype.com/skeleton.htm )

11. other chemical and physical constitution differences such as body fat percentage, etc.

I think physicians could point out other physical details that lay folks wouldn’t really be very aware of.

By: Megan

Megan — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 16:13:17 +0000

I’ve always heard that 2% of people are intersex.

By: Sue

Sue — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 15:37:29 +0000

“in which having”

“If women think”

By: Sue

Sue — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 15:36:49 +0000

No, because in many elite sports in which have a male-typical build and physiology are advantages, there will be no women champions. If women don’t think they have little-to-no chance of winning they’re not going to commit to arduous years of training.

By: karinova

karinova — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 06:53:18 +0000

A very good point to remember.
Some of these people don’t find out they have unusual chromosomes or whatever until they’re tested.

By: karinova

karinova — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 06:49:09 +0000

If this sports thing is so dang important:
Class them.

Doesn’t that solve it? Divide them by by weight, like they do martial arts (which is often co-ed) and certain other sports.