Wednesday, September 16, 2009
By DeAngelo Starnes
Imagine you’re eighteen years old and you worked hard to become the best in your chosen event in track. You’re chosen to represent your country in the world championship, which in itself is an honor. You go to the world championship and you run your heats beating the competition such that now you’ve qualified for the finals. Another honor because you’ve just been chosen as one of the best and you’re running against the best. Then you dominate the chosen few and are honored as the best in the world. Suddenly, after it’s over, someone cries “foul” and claims you’re not who you claim to be.
This happened to Caster Semenya last month after she dominated the 800 meters race at the World Athletics Championships in Berlin. Upon her crushing victory she suffered crushing humiliation as questions about her gender immediately arose and tainted her victory.
What followed had to be horribly humiliating with stories accompanied by photos describing her alleged masculine features. It was said she had a deep voice, heavy musculature, a thin mustache, and no breasts. The stories were wrought with heavy skepticism highlighting a quote from her parents saying, in paraphrase, they had no doubt she was a girl. No doubt? Reading the quote made me cringe as it seemed to imply the parents had their suspicions, too.
We find ourselves intrigued by this story about Ms. Semenya because there is no question about cross-gender but rather one of intersexuality. Intersexuality is the new term for hermaphrodite, albeit maybe one of political correctness, but maybe not accurate. Intersexuality describes a complex issue of chromosomes and developed or underdeveloped sexual organs.
Essentially, what occurs in the womb is that one possesses the X chromosome until that Y chromosome determines that a penis and loads of testosterone demarcates your gender from female to male, give or take a few scientific assumptions. What’s true is that sexuality is ambiguous for a period until it is determined one way versus the other. For some folks, the genetics don’t make a decision. But this is not something to be judged by. It’s a condition. But because we divide ourselves by the existence of a penis versus vagina, we judge.
It’s rare that one’s gender is questioned. Behavior in response to agenda, yes, but not actual gender. Pull down your pants and the issue is resolved, right? Apparently, it’s not that simple. Because they have tests to determine how many XY versus XX chromosomes you possess, and how much testosterone is emitted in your bloodstream. XY and a lot of testosterone equals male. But what if you possess those traits without possessing a penis?
And so it was that an eighteen-year old who had lived her whole life as a woman was duped into thinking she was being tested for doping but instead they were measuring her XY chromosomes and testosterone count. Did they think she was a cross-dresser? Sure, some men act effeminate and some women masculine. But as cross-genderish as they may act, you don’t doubt they are a man or woman. We may get fooled by transvestites at times, but again, there is no question about their gender when the pants come off. So if they have to go beyond the pants test, what does that say about the Competition Committee?
The person who said life ain’t fair couldn’t have spoken a greater truth. Because there will always be haters. Worse there will always be haters in control. And even worse there will always be haters in control of the message about you.
The Creator bestows upon us many gifts which benefit us in any number of given situations. Most of the time, we marvel at these gifts. We wish we could run that fast or jump that high or hit a ball travelling faster than we drive on the highway, or move on snow and ice at a high speed with amazing dexterity. The bottom line is when we choose to do so, the ability to do these things has to do with the physical condition the Creator bestowed upon us. It’s generally thought of as a blessing – not a curse.
But we have seemed to curse this young woman for her physical condition. Worse, we have chosen to publicly discuss and speculate about it, and then test her about it, and then publicize the results for public sport. As a result, we have crushed her psyche such that she wants to return the medal, her coach has quit, and the International Representative says, “He handled it wrong.”
On that last note, damn right he did. If you don’t read the foreign press, you believe the parents suspected she was a male all along (they didn’t and are more outraged than these biased ESPN reports let on). If you rely on the test results, which should not have been released, you think she cheated. If you listen to the jokes, you get a stunted idea of the issue.
This is a person who was raised a female, treated like a female for her eighteen young years. This controversy, all in the name of so-called competition, has stained her for life. Will she even be able to run track on the world stage again? And if so, how loud will the accusations be when she dominates again?
We are not talking about someone who cheated to win but who may have been cheated by Nature. In life, we define and demarcate. What happens when you have to check multiple boxes or none at all? What happens when you can’t choose? You fall into some nether-category?
We pass judgment so many times based on differences without having taken a step in the other’s shoe. We talk about deformity without sensitizing ourselves to the impact of that designation. We talk about aesthetics without recourse to the Law of Life that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Judgment says more about us and our insecurities than the subject of judgment. Unfortunately, judgment becomes so-called fact which founds the basis of action. Karma and the Universe will judge the judgers at some point, and it won’t relent in that judgment.
Let me be the first to say out loud, Caster Semenya is a unique being whose accomplishment deserves to be praised – not questioned. She won that race fair and square. You don’t punish someone because the Creator blessed her with exceptional strength. You don’t tear her blessing down and call it a defect. Allow her to be who she is and live life the way we all live it, or wish to live it. Do not condemn her by calling her physical nature a curse or a shortcoming. Life may not be fair but we can extract some justice from it. Race on, Caster Semenya!
DeAngelo Starnes is a freelance writer and attorney who resides with his wife and son in Denver, CO. He welcomes direct constructive feedback at deangelo_starnes@hotmail.com.
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