Posted on 08/20/2009 10:01:33 PM PDT by nickcarraway
The controversy surrounding the gender of South African teenage athlete Caster Semenya has prompted the question: what is a hermaphrodite?
The 18 year-old is facing a humiliating gender verification test after becoming a world champion with the fifth fastest 800m time in history at the World Athletics Championships in Berlin.
The International Association of Athletics Federations requested the gender test on Semenya three weeks ago after she ran a time of 1:56.72 at the African Junior Championship in Mauritius.
Related Articles Semenya to face sex test IAAF spokesman Nick Davies confirmed the tests were taking place, though he said the results would not be confirmed for several weeks.
It is understood that the tests are focusing on whether Semenya has a chromosomal disorder.
Mr Davies said it had not been suggested that Semenya was a man who had cheated by concealing his true sex, but that she could suffer from a genetic disorder which means she has both male and female chromosomes.
A hermaphrodite, or ‘intersex’ to use the term preferred by doctors and support groups, is someone with both male and female reproductive organs. Such a condition is extremely rare.
It is estimated that around 100,000 individuals in Britain can be described as 'intersex' because their sexual organs carry traits of both sexes. They may emotionally identify as female, male or inter-gender. Unlike transgender individuals, who are usually born fully one sex or the other but feel they have been given the wrong body for their psychological gender, an intersexual's 'mixed gender' is a physical certainty. Chromosomal disorders include Adrenalin Insensitivity Syndrome(AIS) which in some extreme cases sees females have female sexual organs but XY(male) chromosomes. Gender testing was introduced at the 1966 European Track and Field Championships and first used at the Olympics during the 1968 Mexico City games.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
The decisive test is whether she can write her name legibly in the snow. If not, the record stands.
She completely disagreed with the notion that the runner is a hermaphrodite, because a hermaphrodite would still have significant female body structure (such as breasts and a bigger behind) and the runner clearly doesn't have it. She said that Caster may have been born with male chromosomes trapped in a woman's body.
I've heard of this condition before, and rumor has it that actress Jamie Lee Curtis has male chromosomes in a female body, and is incapable of producing children.
Yeah, thanks for the pic. She looks like the singer from 80s group Kajagoogoo.
This athlete looks to me like an XY with androgen insensitivity disorder.
Although she was capable of producing awesome boobage.
Got that right. Even though she’s genetically male I’d still hit it. After a six-pack of course...
My brother used to date her, the bastard.
This is:
The shape is certainly male.
LOL
Actually if you think about it, that’s not so bad a test !
You have to feel really sorry for anyone in the spotlight like this, remember the Press sisters from East Germany from way back?
“she could suffer from a genetic disorder which means she has both male and female chromosomes.”
What a badly written article!
All normal males have both a male chromosome (Y) and a female chromosome (X). Normal females have two X chromosomes.
There are many abnormal combinations of sex chromosomes (XYY, XXY, XXX, X, XXYY, XXXX, XXXXX), some causing learning problems or physical deformities, others causing no apparent physical abnormalities.
Doesn’t mean a person with any of these conditions is a “classic” hermaphrodite. Genitalia may be ambiguous even with normal sex chromosomes, due to other factors.
http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/intersex/sd4.html
Saw her interviewed on tv. She has a very deep voice.
If that is true, at least Jamie Lee looks like a female and behaves like one. This person who is the subject of discussion does not look especially feminine. Could it be that this runner is taking some kind of hormones which would give her this more masculine features? And if this is the case would this not be discovered before medals leave the games?
I see a 5 oclock shadow...
Next they’ll ask to see his/her birth certificate! Those racists!
There were 74 photos of this DUDE on Yahoo earlier.. 64 now, so my numbers might be off. If you view the following photos and look at a major sexual determinant, the Adam’s apple, it appears to me anyway that this is a male. #’s 24,34,36,59,63. In pic’s #54 and 62, it appears that there is something where male genitals belong, although rather ambiguous. And in #64, where there were three contestants shown, Ester’s eyes are much further apart than the other two runners.
“There are many abnormal combinations of sex chromosomes (XYY, XXY, XXX, X, XXYY, XXXX, XXXXX), some causing learning problems or physical deformities, others causing no apparent physical abnormalities.”
I’m a double-Y chromo and stuck on the penal colony Fiorina ‘Fury’ 161. Damn aliens!
My numbers are now meaningless. Sorry.
VEry interesting dilemma. It's basically like being a female but on anabolic steroids...No?
Oh, please. That’s an urban legend. She may be a mediocre actress who has poor choices in scripts, but there’s no reason to think she’s not a woman. Her father, on the other hand, sometimes one might wonder...
The basic body shape, at least, appears male. However, certain parts do seem to be, um, missing.
South African athletics federation president Leonard Chuene defended the teenager Thursday, and insisted Semenya is facing intense scrutiny because she is African.
“It would not be like that if it were some young girl from Europe,” Chuene told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. “If it was a white child, she would be sitting somewhere with a psychologist, but this is an African child.”
I get so tired of this crap. She looks like a guy, sounds like a guy, runs like a guy with rapid speed increase and times that are "too good to be true" for any female athlete in history, and her former headmaster thought she was male until she was in the 11th grade.
There are also reports that she almost rejected the gold medal because she was "disgraced" and that her family stated they will basically turn down the gold rather than allow her to be tested. Very damn suspicious if you ask me.
Or maybe I'm just a "racist."
I thought people who suffered from androgen insensitivity disorder were tall, big breasted, beautiful skin and hair, very feminine looking — many of them become showgirls or models.
I agree. If she is chromosomally a male, I dont think you can let her compete.
Androgen insensitivity can be partial rather than complete. This can result in a chromosomal male who lacks male genitalia and therefore appears sexually female, but has a masculine features as a result of the partial sensitivity to male sex hormone. By features I mean thick eyebrows, deeper voice, male-like muscles, etc.
This was just something of a wild guess on my part to explain this Caster's great advantage over the others. I do want to wait for the test outcome.
As we’ve read about, in some of these cases, that’s not always definitive. Sometimes the doctors, aware of an abnormality, will just *select* a gender.
That is so true MPHIS - and I hear even the family members used to call her a boy. She was alsoo one of the best players on the all male football team scoring at least two goals a game. Which makes one wonder.
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