Posted on 11/18/2009 10:49:19 AM PST by JoeProBono
While the debate continues over whether Caster Semenya, the 18-year-old South African track sensation who blew away the field and took the gold in the women's 800-meter in Berlin in August, is a man or a woman, we soon must confront an even more complex issue: Are elite athlete humans or androids?
International Association of Athletics Federations will decide Semenya's fate later this week as it announces the result of her gender test. Semenya will no longer be able to compete as a female if the association rules that a hormonal imbalance resulting from alleged intersexuality offers her an unfair advantage. But if a little extra testosterone is a problem, what then do we do about the myriad performance-enhancing drugs and devises that athletes experiment with to go just a little longer, faster or higher?
... Relative unfair advantage Semenya's provocative case can provide a foundation for what is perceived as an unfair advantage.
All top athletes, after all, have an advantage over non-athletes. They're bigger, stronger or faster. That's why they are athletes.
Lance Armstrong allegedly has unusually long femur bones for his height, which gives him better leverage when he pedals.
Michael Phelps has a proportionally longer wingspan and size-14 feet that bend at the ankle 15 degrees more than most people, turning his feet into flippers. I'm a skinny freak who can't swim. Is that fair?
What, then, does Semenya have that other women don't have? To what degree do elite female athletes have male characteristics in terms of hormone balance and the distribution of muscle fiber and mass? And where do you draw the line, for clearly all individuals with ambiguous sex are not athletes.
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
Ping.
Ping.
Ping.
You can put a dress on a man, but it’s still a man.
Duct tape, strategically placed?
And an athlete found to have been taking hormone supplements will be barred from sports.
Like a little extra testosterone, a little extra proofreading would enhance this writer's performance.
It doesn't really matter, but humans are delicious... 
while androids and robots make excellent toothpicks!
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