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healingmirthMy sheltered life, let me show you it:
I was checking the headlines, as I try to do, and was not at all expecting to find this. I need to do some more searching to see if there's more to the story, but:
South Africa to Test Gender of Runner
BERLIN (AP) -- Facing questions about her gender, South African teenager Caster Semenya easily won the 800-meter gold medal Wednesday at the world championships.
Her dominating run came on the same day track and field's ruling body said she was undergoing a gender test because of concerns she does not meet requirements to compete as a woman.
***
Before the race, IAAF spokesman Nick Davies stressed this is a ''medical issue, not an issue of cheating.'' He said the ''extremely complex'' testing has begun. The process requires a physical medical evaluation and includes reports from a gynecologist, endocrinologist, psychologist, internal medicine specialist and gender expert.
So, there's that. Thoughts?
ETA LA Times article
The issue of gender testing is so controversial that the International Olympic Committee suspended widespread gender testing in 1999, reserving the right to do psychological, gynecological and chromosome investigations "if there is a valid suspicion," IOC medical director Patrick Schamasch said in an e-mail.
Yeah, I can imagine it might be.
In other news - I'm still not sure what, precisely, to say about this other thing. I've been drafting this post in my head for the better part of a week, and the ideas are still a bit like balled-up paper in my head, so feel free to call me out on any portion of this. It's sloppy, I know.
I have somewhere between 2 and 5 friends from high school who I talk to on a regular basis. The type of people who exchange birthday or holiday cards, who I would more than likely invite to my wedding, should I ever have one. People who I routinely go for months without speaking with, but we get along based on our past experiences, if nothing else.
One of these friends, K (who I really do adore, even if I'm crap at keeping in touch with her) is getting married in 2 months, so there have been some efforts for us to all get together with her and her fiancé. Her fiancé who is from Pittsburgh, Republican, definitely fiscally and politically conservative, and so far as I know socially conservative as well, and who has a sincere respect for a number of popular conservative commentators. But he's a good guy, really, and they love each other. I'm not going to go out of my way to pick a fight with him (or start a debate, even) but I was curious enough to try to test the waters.
I've got a friend from college who just finished a Masters in Education, and has a new job as a high school teacher in the city, and after telling some pointless time-filling story at dinner, I mentioned the fact that we'd talked about whether we ought to be looking for someplace that's already "good" and enjoy it, or settle someplace with a rockier road, but where out actions and our influence could potentially have a greater effect (he as a gay man balancing honesty, a latent interest in advocacy, and the need to earn a paycheck somewhere that isn't going to make him hate himself; myself as a person with a professional interest in the greater good, trying to pick a community and a career to settle into).
So, yeah. I was sort of expecting that to be the most awkward moment of the evening. As it turns out, I was wrong. The awkward moment? Started like this: after dinner, when K, who is legitimately an awesome and thoughtful person, said "that's gay," in response to something, and immediately winced and corrected herself. I mentioned my favorite PSA ever, which sent us off into a sort of conversational eddy about the descriptive uses of gay(-as-happy-or-otherwise)/lame/queer/whatever. As you do.
I don't remember that part as clearly, because while K and I were having this lighthearted word thing going on, J suddenly launches off into this rant about gay people and rainbows and how she "can't just like rainbows" anymore without "people thinking [she's] gay" and I have never, in my life, so much wished that I could rewind a conversation and listen to it again, because dude, she was serious. She went on and on. She was mad. And when she wore herself out, because I literally could not find words to interrupt her, the first thing out of my mouth was, "I think that's the most hateful thing I've ever heard." So, good times.
And, I mean, it's not the most hateful thing I've heard, clearly. I used to work with an electrician who consistently referred to his most senior employee (and so far as I can tell, "friend") by a derogatory term for his race. But, yeah. This was at least the most hateful thing I'd heard that week (slow week, maybe) and certainly the most hateful thing I've ever heard someone I consider a friend say. So, thanks, J, for the valuable first-hand lesson about finding blatant intolerance where one least expects it. I'll try to remember that one.
And yes, J has a deep and abiding love for rainbows, as part of her general magpie-like fascination for shiny things, so I'm sure that this is very traumatic inside her brain. I haven't seen her since, and I haven't yet decided whether I'm ever going to make anything of it.
I have more thoughts somewhere, but I've sort of run out of steam.
I was checking the headlines, as I try to do, and was not at all expecting to find this. I need to do some more searching to see if there's more to the story, but:
South Africa to Test Gender of Runner
BERLIN (AP) -- Facing questions about her gender, South African teenager Caster Semenya easily won the 800-meter gold medal Wednesday at the world championships.
Her dominating run came on the same day track and field's ruling body said she was undergoing a gender test because of concerns she does not meet requirements to compete as a woman.
***
Before the race, IAAF spokesman Nick Davies stressed this is a ''medical issue, not an issue of cheating.'' He said the ''extremely complex'' testing has begun. The process requires a physical medical evaluation and includes reports from a gynecologist, endocrinologist, psychologist, internal medicine specialist and gender expert.
So, there's that. Thoughts?
ETA LA Times article
The issue of gender testing is so controversial that the International Olympic Committee suspended widespread gender testing in 1999, reserving the right to do psychological, gynecological and chromosome investigations "if there is a valid suspicion," IOC medical director Patrick Schamasch said in an e-mail.
Yeah, I can imagine it might be.
In other news - I'm still not sure what, precisely, to say about this other thing. I've been drafting this post in my head for the better part of a week, and the ideas are still a bit like balled-up paper in my head, so feel free to call me out on any portion of this. It's sloppy, I know.
I have somewhere between 2 and 5 friends from high school who I talk to on a regular basis. The type of people who exchange birthday or holiday cards, who I would more than likely invite to my wedding, should I ever have one. People who I routinely go for months without speaking with, but we get along based on our past experiences, if nothing else.
One of these friends, K (who I really do adore, even if I'm crap at keeping in touch with her) is getting married in 2 months, so there have been some efforts for us to all get together with her and her fiancé. Her fiancé who is from Pittsburgh, Republican, definitely fiscally and politically conservative, and so far as I know socially conservative as well, and who has a sincere respect for a number of popular conservative commentators. But he's a good guy, really, and they love each other. I'm not going to go out of my way to pick a fight with him (or start a debate, even) but I was curious enough to try to test the waters.
I've got a friend from college who just finished a Masters in Education, and has a new job as a high school teacher in the city, and after telling some pointless time-filling story at dinner, I mentioned the fact that we'd talked about whether we ought to be looking for someplace that's already "good" and enjoy it, or settle someplace with a rockier road, but where out actions and our influence could potentially have a greater effect (he as a gay man balancing honesty, a latent interest in advocacy, and the need to earn a paycheck somewhere that isn't going to make him hate himself; myself as a person with a professional interest in the greater good, trying to pick a community and a career to settle into).
So, yeah. I was sort of expecting that to be the most awkward moment of the evening. As it turns out, I was wrong. The awkward moment? Started like this: after dinner, when K, who is legitimately an awesome and thoughtful person, said "that's gay," in response to something, and immediately winced and corrected herself. I mentioned my favorite PSA ever, which sent us off into a sort of conversational eddy about the descriptive uses of gay(-as-happy-or-otherwise)/lame/queer/whatever. As you do.
I don't remember that part as clearly, because while K and I were having this lighthearted word thing going on, J suddenly launches off into this rant about gay people and rainbows and how she "can't just like rainbows" anymore without "people thinking [she's] gay" and I have never, in my life, so much wished that I could rewind a conversation and listen to it again, because dude, she was serious. She went on and on. She was mad. And when she wore herself out, because I literally could not find words to interrupt her, the first thing out of my mouth was, "I think that's the most hateful thing I've ever heard." So, good times.
And, I mean, it's not the most hateful thing I've heard, clearly. I used to work with an electrician who consistently referred to his most senior employee (and so far as I can tell, "friend") by a derogatory term for his race. But, yeah. This was at least the most hateful thing I'd heard that week (slow week, maybe) and certainly the most hateful thing I've ever heard someone I consider a friend say. So, thanks, J, for the valuable first-hand lesson about finding blatant intolerance where one least expects it. I'll try to remember that one.
And yes, J has a deep and abiding love for rainbows, as part of her general magpie-like fascination for shiny things, so I'm sure that this is very traumatic inside her brain. I haven't seen her since, and I haven't yet decided whether I'm ever going to make anything of it.
I have more thoughts somewhere, but I've sort of run out of steam.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-21 07:44 pm (UTC)*nods* There are sports where the sex of the body you're born with doesn't make a difference, and even some (horse racing comes to mind) where cis-women are actually at an advantage in some ways because we tend to have smaller frames, but there are real, physical differences between biologically/genetically male and biologically/genetically female athletes that matter in sports like gymnastics and running, at least at higher levels of competition (there are a lot of things that are screwed up about the way female gymnastic competition is currently judged, mind you, not to mention female figure skating -- both priviledge a body type that mature, adult women are less likely to have, hence all those sixteen-year-old Olympic gymnists. It's actually physically impossible to do a triple axle, no matter how good you are, if you're over a certain height and weight and have an adult woman's lower center of gravity, because your momentum will be wrong).
That said, testing someone's biological sex is incredibly invasive, and it gains an extra level of insult when done after the fact in an attempt to prove you're not a "real" man/woman and therefore don't deserve whatever medals and honors you've won. In theory, it ought to be no different than testing for steroid use (which is a specific invasion of privacy that athletes have agreed to beforehand -- I signed a waiver to that effect when I did cross-country in college), but there are all kinds of questions of identity and discrimination tied up in it.
psychological, gynecological and chromosome investigations
Christ. Why don't they just do a blood test like they do for steroids and leave people some dignity intact? Gee, I expect making men and women strip down so that you can examine their genitals and decide whether they pass muster is pretty controvercial. *head desk*
And mentioning the "I agree that I may be subjected to blood tests for suspected steroid use" waiver I was required to sign in order to compete reminds me: are there equivalent legal waivers to the effect of "yes, you may test my biological-sex-of-birth if it is called into question?" Because if not, then officials are on shaky legal ground ordering such tests and could possibly be sued for harassment.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-25 03:59 pm (UTC)I was actually surprised that it wasn't just a genetic test, even given that there are can be genetic variations that fall somewhere in between.
I still feel like I'm using the wrong words all over this, so I'm going to stop there.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-25 06:13 pm (UTC)According to
My theory, given that the athelete in this instance turned out to be unquestionably female on both physical and basic (i.e. "are there two X chromosomes? No Y chromosome? Girl.") genetic testing, completely ruling out any form of intentional fraud, is that the officials in this case know they made a mistake but don't want to back down and admit it, so they're testing her for ever more obscure medical conditions hoping they'll turn up some anomaly they can point to as an excuse for wasting everyone's time.