Olympics struggle with ‘policing femininity’

[marmar]

(Toronto Star) PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICA— There are female athletes who will be competing at the Olympic Games this summer after undergoing treatment to make them less masculine.

Still others are being secretly investigated for displaying overly manly characteristics, as sport’s highest medical officials attempt to quantify — and regulate — the hormonal difference between male and female athletes.

Caster Semenya, the South African runner who was so fast and muscular that many suspected she was a man, exploded onto the front pages three years ago. She was considered an outlier, a one-time anomaly.

But similar cases are emerging all over the world, and Semenya, who was banned from competition for 11 months while authorities investigated her sex, is back, vying for gold. .................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thestar.com/sports/london2012/article/1205025--olympics-struggle-with-policing-femininity?bn=1

[BlueToTheBone]

1. That must gall those old white men

judging what is feminine and what is not. They must also be horrified that females from Africa are much stronger than woman at "home."

[GodlessBiker]

2. Insanity!

Does a man whose body naturally produces x% more male hormones than the average man have an unfair advantage? It's an advantage, but it's not unfair.

[Fastcars]

3. Wouldn't It Depend On Why His Body Produces More?

n/m

[GodlessBiker]

4. Why? If his body is producing the hormones, it's natural. Not typical, but natural. Same with women.

In piano competitions, are we going to start looking at the "artistic" center of a competitor's brain to see if it has a larger than usual number of synapse connections which gives a competitor an advantage?

Isn't the whole point to make the most with what your body has given you on its own, without any foreign substances being given to you?

[Mairead]

5. What I found both funny and jaw-clenchingly awful

was that, as photos of the race showed,

http://www1.pictures.zimbio.com/gi/12th+IAAF+World+Athletics+Championships+Day+o1hK_GplD-wm.jpg

Caster's body and musculature is no more "masculine" than that of the runner from Ukraina, Tetyana Petlyuk.

The only real difference, it seemed to me, was that Tetyana is a pretty, blue-eyed blond White woman, not a homely Black woman.

[marmar]

6. You think Tetyana is pretty?

nt

[Mairead]

7. Hard to tell in those particular photos, but yes, I do. Tho I should have been

more specific and said "she's a blond, blue-eyed White woman with a pretty face".