"He [Zirin] is implying that sex segregation in athletics, as a rule, is more about an obsession with sex categories and their affirmation than it is about sports."

This applies to much more than just athletics. If as a culture we lost control of the rigid sex categories, what would happen?

"To me, one of the most interesting things that Zirin says is that sex isn’t actually a good indicator of athletic ability. He may be a guy, he says, but having a penis doesn’t translate into outrunning anyone."

It does seem that way, and his logic compels the conclusion that we should abolish sex-segregated track events. If determining sex is so hard as to be nearly impossible, and racist and sexist besides, AND there's no difference in athletic ability between the sexes, I don't see what other option there is. Alternatively, anyone who claimed to be a woman, no matter how obviously male, must be allowed to compete in the female category without question. Either way, it would end with the effective abolition of women's athletics.

"…why didn’t they test Usain Bolt?"

Test him for what? For being a cyborg?

"If these criteria don’t always line up, then we have to pick one as THE determinant of sex."

I don't think we do. 1) and 2) of the criteria are not relevant to the physical form of the body. A homosexual male will still compete with men (Greg Louganis), just as a lesbian woman will compete with women (Martina Navratilova). So those are out. 3) is too subjective, so it's out too. I think the best solution is to require anyone who does not line up on 4-8 as female simply must compete in the "male" category. It may be unfair to a very small number of persons, but will help preserve women's athletics.

These kind of debates always irk me as an amateur anthropologist. The first thing I was taught was that your sex is what you are physically, but your gender is how you identify -- the two may or may not be in concert. A lot of people seem to mix the two up.

I am with Cute. The first thing that really pisses me off (and I know it seems like semantics to some)is that they are calling it gender testing and not sex testing like you are correctly doing in this post. Gender is something we identify with or choose. It can't be tested. And I know that might seem arbitrary and annoyingly academic, but it is really important to those who have had to make that choice, or refused to make that choice.

And Daniel, you are contradicting yourself on that last point. You are forcing a choice in order to "preserve woman's athletics."

And this choice further marginalizes those that don't fit the binary. "It may be unfair to a very small number of persons." I would argue that it is not as small a number as you think. And that those are the same people we are always unfair to.

This effectively excludes a lot of people from sports. Do we need to have testosterone testing, and stratify athletes based on that? And of course, since we value masculinity so much, the highest level of testosterone would be the major leagues.

no difference in athletic ability between the sexes? when was that proven?

Ok, Annoyed, what is your solution then? It's very well to say that sex is not always neatly divided into unambiguous males and females -- certainly true -- but that dodges the question of what you mean by "fair." Someone who shows up to compete in women's track is making the implied claim that something important about them is essentially female, or at least is not male. If that person cannot be questioned as to that claim, sex segregation in track will operate purely on the honor system, and men will start to show up and win races given the financial incentives. As I said, this would mark the end of women's track.

I, too, have to echo how annoying it is that the commentator in the video keep using the word "gender" when they mean "sex." They want to test her to make sure she has female SEX characteristics.

Dave Zirin: "Roughly 1 out of 1600 people born in the United States are what's known as intersex... There are more intersex people in the United States than Jews."

Not sure where he gets the idea that 1/1600 = 0.0625% is larger than the percentage of Americans who are Jewish, which is, according to Wikipedia, 1.7%. If his 1/1600 figure is right, for every intersex person in the US, there are 27 Jews.

Just trying to wrap my head around the incidence of intersex. Based on his figure, my college graduating class of a bit over a thousand would be expected to contain just one intersex person, all else being equal (not that it is!).

I'm not really sure why you include sexual orientation as a criteria for sex/gender. That would seem to imply that people who prefer the same sex ought to be considered the wrong gender, which is extremely backwards. I know you mean no offense by it, but it seems very out of place in this discussion.

I think that the most worrisome part of this "debate" is that the athlete in question is not even suspected of intentionally cheating the system that is in place. She simply does not fit into society's narrowly defined ideas of how women and men look AND she's bloody good runner. Too good to be a woman, right? The rub? Officials have also said that she won't necessarily be stripped of her medal if the tests come back showing anything deemed abnormal. So why are we doing it then?!

"Testing continues, but IAAF spokesman Nick Davies says Semenya won't necessarily be stripped of her gold medal even if she is found to be "male." He says, "Legally if you are found to be of a different sex to that declared that is not cheating [...] It is a very delicate matter." "-via Jezebel(http://jezebel.com/5342508/communists-germaine-greer-weigh-in-on-semenya-sex-controversy)

Objectively we don't "need" to have gender-segregated sports. We gender-segregate sports because we want to allow women to have a shot at being competitive athletes.

For instance, Semenya 800m time was 1:55.45. The Alaska state high school record is 1:54.94 seconds. So, it definitely seems like there's sexual dimorphism at work.

Do any major bodies ban inter-sexed people from racing as either gender?

If not, then testing Bolt isn't interesting. The judgment would be come out 'female' or 'male' (based on whatever standards we're using), and either way, he's the fastest human in the world and will win track races.

Haha, yeah, go ahead and do away with sex segregation in athletics. Then watch as no woman ever wins anything again (ok, maybe an occasional medalist in archery). You feminists can't be pleased. We give you female sports, and then you complain when we try to make sure that it's actual females who compete in them. Yawn.

Seeing this, it occurs to me that I don't know what natural female athletes look like, because the only ones that make it on TV in America have to feminize themselves with implants and long (blonde) hair to be considered viewable.

Zirin says ... that sex isn’t actually a good indicator of athletic ability. He may be a guy, he says, but having a penis doesn’t translate into outrunning anyone.

But this isn't a game of pick-up basketball. This is competitive athletics at the highest level. And it is a peculiarity of the human organism that the strongest males are stronger than the strongest females, and the fastest males are faster than the fastest females. Yes, being male does not entitle Zirin to any athletic accomplishments. However, in a field of exceptionally gifted, thoroughly trained athletes, sex segregation is as justified as differentiating athletes by age or with weight classes.

Keeping this in mind, I think it's more of a philosophical than a scientific decision how to differentiate athletes - or not. We could carve up athletic competitions so finely that each person competes only against her- or himself; and we could lump all competitors together in the same field. Practically, few sports take to either of these extremes. Different sports and different competitions each take their own circuitous path to some compromise between these poles of fairness and inclusiveness.

I think that I'm working toward the same end-point as Duran here: if there is a removal of sex categories from competitive athletics. One point is that there are physical differences between bodies that developed as male nd bodies that developed as female, such as muscle-mass, hip-femur-knee angles, lung capacity, etc. These have impacts on physical capability that would easily tilt the advantage to a male-to-female trans-sexual individual, especially in events using fast-twitch muscle.

One minor quibble - "Semenya is getting far more media attention than the recent cheating scandals of higher profile athletes" This statement is true in the "general" media, but ironically absolutely not true in sports media. In the sports media this story is being covered, but isn't getting nearly the attention of any of the previous recent controversies in sports, or even most of the stories of today. The story has rarely even been before the first commercial on most of the sports news programs I watch, when it's come up at all.

Just go check the best records for males and females in several sports, you'll understand why there's sex segregation. Save for few exceptions, males are physically stronger than females, I don't see how this could be argued. And in a lack of a better method, we have to work with the one that is least flawed.

We can't expect to compensante and adjust to every single exception, else a lot of things would be impractical and we would simply not be allowed doing them. It is unfortunate but that's how it is. That applies to a test for determining someone's sex. Simple answer is a genetic test, even though it's not perfect, it is the one closest to being accurate.

Would a better method be separate the athletes in categories based on their performances? Probably. But that's pretty much what sex category does. I do agree though that in some sports it doesn't make much sense to separate, and this issue should be put to discussion, but we can't close our eyes deny our biology, it is not a perfect world.

Arg, well anyway. For people still thinking this is "fair" and "what can we do?". This? As Daniel, ironically, said earlier, this didn't happened due to ehr performance, other athletes with better performances weren't tested. Why it was? IT WAS BECAUSE SHE DOESN'T LOOK LIKE A FRAGILE "FEMININE" FLOWER. And boy, most racers don't look like that, but this one is also young and also black. See the story of women athletes who are subjected to theses "fair tests" and you will find mostly black women that in a white supremacist world don't look like the embodiment of "femininity."

So, of course, "it's right" for some people, the ones who are subjected to this? Well, who cares.

I'd be really curious to hear what a female track athlete thinks about eliminating sex separation in events. I don't want to speculate too much, but I'd doubt they'd really want it.

That said, the case of this girl does strike me as having more to do with binary sex and gender categories than anything else. Michael Phelps has unique ankles that aid his kick. Lance Armstrong metabolizes lactic acid in a unique way. Usain Bold has a unique mixture of super-fast twitch muscle cells. Caster Semenya (might) have a unique chromosomal/hormonal makeup. Why does her physical uniqueness disqualify her, or make the competition unfair? Maybe women with hormonal makeups closer to the median (or something) are unable to match her times, but the same goes for men with average ankles, lactic acid metabolisms, and super-fast twitch muscles.

Maybe for events like these, what's really needed is a stratification with more levels across some, as yet unknown, dimension, like weight classes in wrestling. That's actually a pretty scary concept though, considering how unhealthy wrestling can get with athletes trying to move up and down weight classes as needed. Something like that tied to hormonal levels could get pretty horrific.

You know,Joe, it's funny, because all I'm hearing it's more upset men complaining or "ditching" the hypothetical "elimination of sex separation" thingy. Because, of course, women aren't competition for men.

And this is what brings a lot of the issues. individual traits are better for athletes, and of course, men have some biological advantages, but it is something that makes such a huge gap?

See, of course women athletes aren't the same as men athletes. For once, they are taken less seriously. See all the men commenting here, finding ridiculous than men and women could compete! Women athletes find the same since the start of their careers, of course they don't aim to compete with men, but they can't anyway, look at the men 100 m marks, and look ant the women 100 m records. You have trainers and sport experts telling women athletes that what Flo Jo reached was kinda miraculous. Men athletes can attain whatever they like.

And they Flo Jo as an example, she got a big records for women races, and even with that she was perpetually doubted, she got her sex tested, she got drug tested, and still today everyone says that she may had taken drugs even when she came clean.

And this happens in all sport, women athletes are repeatedly told and trained to not be at men's level. This without the sexism and ditching that women sports suffers.

And now we have Caster, and look what she gets. She gets this for being good. She is humiliated for being good, something that men don't get. (Then, the William sisters.)

Well, I won't tell you that environment is all that is behind this, but I can't take seriously a bunch of men going "how it will the end for women sports if they let them compete with men!" without even try to look at what women athletes face, and while finding "sex testing" for women who do decent completely acceptable because "that's how things work". Oh yeah, the epitome of fair, isn't it.

Although my philosophy is in line with intersex advocates on most issues, I do not necessarily disagree with testing in this case, and I do not think it is necessarily a racist practice.

Suppose, on one extreme, it turns out that Semenya turns out to have been born unambiguously male and deliberately disguised as a female for sporting advantage - highly improbable, but suppose that's what we find out. Then we might be upset that an unambiguous male took advantage of the kindness of gender deconstructionists for personal gain. I think it rather unlikely that an unambiguously male man would give up his gender identity in an elaborate ruse only to win at a sport against women, but strange things do happen.

One of those strange things is the USSR and East German female athletics programs in a Cold War where Olympics medals counts were an icy battlefield. In such totalitarian regimes, athletes could be forced to take steroids or try to pass as a different sex despite the personal cost - in other words, deliberate attempts to game the system. While some unambiguously female women were incorrectly accused and tested, the majority of those accused were Eastern European, not of African descent.

On the opposite extreme, suppose Semenya's tests come out unambiguously, 100% female. This might be a great thing for intersex and feminist advocacy! After all, why do the other female sprinters in that video keep long hair, makeup, and relatively slim arms and shoulders? The answer is not athletic advantage - for all those things are probably disadvantages in a sport where every advantage must be used to shave off precious hundredths of seconds. The answer is, pure cultural pressure to conform to ideas of femininity. Of course, these women athletes have every right to choose to express their gender however they want, but if Semenya proves to be unambiguously female, it might spark a wave of change in women's athletics. If it is okay for a female athlete to bulk up and shave her head and do the things that male athletes do to gain an edge, what a great gain for women's sports and women in general!

Obviously, female weightlifters and bodybuilders are free to build up their physiques however they see fit. (Female bodybuilders often do keep strongly gendered clothes and hair and makeup, however.) All female athletes should have that freedom.

If Semenya turns out to be intersex, I don't think that necessarily means she should be excluded from participating in women's sports. I do think that intersex status must be seriously weighed by sports organizers in a manner that is fair to all. For instance, perhaps an intersex person could compete in either men's or women's events (or both) as desired, but with an asterisk next to stats, which is left open to interpretation by audiences and future generations. This is by no means meant to marginalize their accomplishments, but simply is a footnote to indicate that more reading might help to understand the specific circumstances of that person's situation. And that approach might solve the general problem of how to deal with sex-segregated sports in the absence of any satisfying definition of sex - let people compete in whichever category they choose, but place an asterisk for people who might warrant an asterisk, and let the audience decide what it means in each case.

One drawback to using an asterisk, of course, is the question of Olympic medals. We tend to think of sports standings as objective, quantifiable absolutes, and the question of who takes home a medal - or more importantly and more absurdly, which countries take home which medals - is fraught with egos and tension, which is not a great environment for accepting ambiguity. But reality is ambiguous when it comes to trying to squeeze every human into a binary sex system, so eventually we will either have to deal with asterisks or keep on denying reality by ostracizing ambiguously sexed (according to our prejudices of what constitutes each gender) people like Semenya.

I don't know if anybody else here reads Slashdot, but they just posted up something about this on Saturday August 22nd. The writer of the post asked at the end of it, "I'm curious what the Slashdot community thinks: what can be considered proof of someone being male or female? Is it simply a case of having the right genitals, or are there other criteria that should be used? Is the IAAF right in claiming that someone should be prevented from competing because they have a rare medical or genetic advantage?" It has already spawned over 500 comments.

There are your normal, run of the mill comments that I have come to expect but there are a couple of really fantastic debates going on here. It seems that, when it comes right down to it, the IAAF has standards of measurement which they go off of to make sure there is an element of "fairness." Of course the question we have to approach is - when there are variations which fit poorly into either category, where do they fit in the end?

How about we go with the recommendations of the Women's Sports Foundation. They are much more reasonable and humane than many of yours. They make much more sense and put it in a historical perspective.

http://www.womenssportsfoundation.org/Content/Articles/Issues/Equity%20Issues/G/Gender%20Testing%20%20Gender%20Verification%20at%20Elite%20Sports%20Competitions%20The%20Foundation%20Position.aspx

I have to wonder if this conversation would even be taking place if she'd worn the little running underpants like the rest of the competitors. She was the only one in long shorts.

Huh, I have to wonder why we would be concerned about someones underpants.

I'm so angry and upset about the way Caster's been treated. It's depressing to see how much fear and hatred that's residing in most people over issues do with gender and sex.

http://www.sportsscientists.com/2009/08/caster-semenya-male-or-female.html

“To me, one of the most interesting things that Zirin says is that sex isn’t actually a good indicator of athletic ability. He may be a guy, he says, but having a penis doesn’t translate into outrunning anyone.”

I am working with figures from About.com's Track and Field specialist. World records by event:

100 meters: Usain Bolt, 9.58 sec. Women's record: Florence Griffith-Joyner, 10.49

200 meters: Usain Bolt, 19.19. Women's record: Florence Griffith-Joyner, USA, 21.34

400 meters: Michael Johnson, 43.18. Women's record: Marita Koch, 47.60.

800 meters: Wilson Kipketer, 1:41.11. Women's record: Jarmila Kratochvilova, 1:53.28

1000 meters: Noah Ngeny, 2:11.96. Women's record: Svetlana Masterkova, 2:28.98

1500 meters: Hicham El Guerrouj, 3:26.00. Women's record: Yunxia Qu, 3:50.46

High Jump: Javier Sotomayor, 2.45 m. Women's record: Stefka Kostadinova, 2.09 m

Pole Vault: Sergey Bubka, 6.14 m. Women's record: Yelena Isinbaeva, 5.05 m.

Long Jump: Mike Powell, 8.95 m. Women's record: Galina Chistyakova, 7.52 m.

Shot Put: Randy Barnes, 23.12 m. Women's record: Natalya Lisovskaya, 22.63 m.

And so on. You may say any of these women record holders could thrash me, which is true, but rather beside the point. Or that some of those numbers are pretty close, but there is a reason they measure in centimeters or hundredths of a second: those are the winning margins at the extreme end of human performance.

When women and men compete the same events, it is remarkable to find a woman in the position of a record-holder. Not impossible, just remarkable: Pamela Reed, Astrid Benohr, Tanya Streeter come to mind. Perhaps an evolving world will change this--if such a list as mine above ever has half women and half men in front, perhaps it's time to junk the whole sex-segregated system and just have a 100m footrace.

But in the world of fact, not the world of our hopes, we have to ask: why do we have separate women's events? And the answer is not, in general, to protect the fragile egos of male atheletes. It is to have women's champions. Perhaps this goal is worthy; perhaps it is ultimately counter-productive. But, if sporting has this goal, then sporting must have a way of determining who is qualified to compete against women. Is self-identification a high enough bar? I am just not inclined to think so. It seems less than fair to the other competitors.

I hate those underpants that women athletes, wear, too, but I don't believe that was the reason Semenya was tested. How about:

"A source close to the investigation into the 800 metres gold medallist has confirmed that tests carried out before the start of the World Championships indicated that the runner had three times the normal female level of testosterone in her body."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/athletics/6078171/World-Athletics-Caster-Semenya-tests-show-high-testosterone-levels.html

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 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.

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I think this is clearly black and white...no pun intended...if you have or ever had the ability or the parts needed in order to inseminate the female sex...weather the parts work or not makes said individual a male. The same goes if the person has or ever had the ability or parts needed to produce eggs and carrying a fetus...weather those parts work or not...makes you a female. When it comes to fairness in competition it is simple...ur male or female...we shouldnt change the rules by the looks of a person or the individuals identification. If a women (not by association) produces high levels of test naturally then lucky her. A man who decides he is a women, then competes against real women it is unfair. Since when do feelings matter. Feelings slow the progress of the world by adding stupid time wasting events. The world really is just black and white. 2+2=4. Now matter how much you want to change that or how much that offends you...2+2=4 not 5 not 77 it's 4. Everything in life is that simple.

Personally I think it is totally unfair, Caster should be allowed to compete in women races after all she is a woman, just because she is a female who is stronger, faster and more powerful than other women, does not an she has to be questioned, tested and publicly embarrassed by the media. Usian Bolt is the same is the men's he is faster, stronger and more powerful than the other men and he is not questioned by media or the IAAF and WHY should be different for women it is totally unfair!!!