57 min
FAIR GAME for Caster Semenya Fair Game
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- Sport
South African Middle Distance Runner, Caster Semenya is a world record holder and Olympic gold medalist, she competes at distances from 800meters to 5000meters. She stormed to victory in the 2012 and 2016 Olympic Games to take gold in the 800meters. Semenya comes from a rural village in South Africa, she’s black African woman, she was born, raised and now identifies as a woman, and she is openly gay.
But back in 2008, after she set her personal best of 1:55:45 in the 800meters at the Worlds, it’s reported that Semenya underwent a Gender Verification Procedure. And that is where the story starts. Caster’s performance in this these events were so dominant that the rumours started that she must be a man competing in the women’s field. The IAAF want to protect women’s sport and ensure fairness for female athletes, and have been called on to do so by athletes like Paula Radcliffe, Martina Navratalova and Lindsay Sharpe. One of Caster’s competitors, American athlete Shannon Rowberry said “I think it challenges and threatens the integrity of womens sports to have intersex athletes competing against genetically genetic women. Women have fought for far too long to even have the right to compete and now it is being challenged by intersex and trans athletes and I don’t think that’s right.” And so to try and formally decide what are the criteria for competing in the mens’ and womens’ categories, the Athletics Governing Body have are ultimately trying to define what a female athlete is, what the criteria is, what are the ways that we measure and decide upon the Question: What is Woman and what is Other?
South African Middle Distance Runner, Caster Semenya is a world record holder and Olympic gold medalist, she competes at distances from 800meters to 5000meters. She stormed to victory in the 2012 and 2016 Olympic Games to take gold in the 800meters. Semenya comes from a rural village in South Africa, she’s black African woman, she was born, raised and now identifies as a woman, and she is openly gay.
But back in 2008, after she set her personal best of 1:55:45 in the 800meters at the Worlds, it’s reported that Semenya underwent a Gender Verification Procedure. And that is where the story starts. Caster’s performance in this these events were so dominant that the rumours started that she must be a man competing in the women’s field. The IAAF want to protect women’s sport and ensure fairness for female athletes, and have been called on to do so by athletes like Paula Radcliffe, Martina Navratalova and Lindsay Sharpe. One of Caster’s competitors, American athlete Shannon Rowberry said “I think it challenges and threatens the integrity of womens sports to have intersex athletes competing against genetically genetic women. Women have fought for far too long to even have the right to compete and now it is being challenged by intersex and trans athletes and I don’t think that’s right.” And so to try and formally decide what are the criteria for competing in the mens’ and womens’ categories, the Athletics Governing Body have are ultimately trying to define what a female athlete is, what the criteria is, what are the ways that we measure and decide upon the Question: What is Woman and what is Other?
57 min