If we're going to test Semenya's gender, we have to test Tom Brady's, too. If merely having features and/or behavioral trates of the opposite sex is enough to raise speculation, then we have to apply the same standard to popular American athletes.

Given the terms of the public debate, I'm glad that you focused on defending Semenya from crude binary definitions of gender identity - gender is fluid and people need to get used to that.

That said, I'm left questioning what the implications of a fluid definition of gender are for women's sports, and am little disappointed that you merely say that question needs more debate. It obviously puts gender radicals in a difficult, contradictory position to say that gender is fluid without then saying that there should be no gender segregation in sports. I can envision a trans-future where genitals, chromosomes, phenotypes and identities are mix-and-match and gender segregation wouldn't be necessary, but such a ruling would put today's top "women" athletes at a competitive and (even more of an) economic disadvantage in the most popular sports. Maybe its missing the polemical point but I’m thinking in this second paragraph as a sports fan. Thanks.

Athletes with a natural genetic advantage who show up to dominate their sport have always existed. It's only when a woman comes along who's perceived as too masculine by the current social standards that all this sleazy gawking and cruel sniping happens. Does no one remember the last summer Olympics when the NBC commentators purred over all abnormalities that make Michael Phelps the best swimmer in the world? Hell they're listed near the top of his Wikipedia page.

"A few physical attributes particularly suit Phelps to swimming: his long, thin torso offers low drag; his arms span 6 feet 7 inches (201 cm)—disproportionate to his height of 6 feet 4 inches (193 cm)—and act as long, propulsive "paddles";his relatively short legs lower drag, and perhaps add the speed enhancement of a hydrofoil;his size 14 feet provide the effect of flippers; and his hypermobile ankles he can extend beyond the pointe of a ballet dancer, enabling him to whip his feet as if they were fins for maximum thrust through the water"

No one complains that Phelps was born to swim or that Randy Johnson is six foot ten but when a woman has too much muscle the muttering will never stop. The Cake song "Short skirt long jacket" has it right. What does society want from women? Everything at once.

Did you not read this article jjdynomite? Or did you read it but not understand it? I ask because your point is almost completely unrelated.

This is one of your best essays. Thank you, Dave and Sherry. You've cut right throught to the heart of the matter. Bravi.

This country has become the richest country in the world due to the African Slave trade for well over 400 years, and no reparations. The founder of Duke University, James B. Duke, at one time controlled 90% of the world's tobacco according to National Geographic Magazine. Today, Duke is a powerhouse. No questions its history. Now, we have Ms. Semenya, and her gender is being questioned.

In an effort to put gender testing in another perspective lets flip it on its head. If women who are deemed overly athletic are to be targeted, what are the implications for men who are under-athletic? Can a man who is slow, lacks a muscular physique and struggles to grow sufficient facial hair ask to be tested and re-classified as a female for the purposes of international athletic categorisation?

The rambling gibberish of the white supremacists cum misogynists cum simpletons who grace these pages after a Zirin article are incredibly predictable.

And their nonsense must sound reminiscent of the dying dinosaurs as they toppled to the earth not long before their days as fossil fuel.

I never really thought about it, but for those people born with XY chromosones, and apparently there are quite a few, if they are born somehow outside of the clear-cut categories of gender, and have to live with that, then if they can excel in sports or whatever, as the gender they have chosen, then who are we or anyone else to take that away from them? Its not hurting us any. I mean, questioning our basically held assumptions is always a difficult thing, especially about something as sensitive as gender, but its something we have to do if we want to be a fair and just society. Gender-associated anatomical features aside, Im glad some people have the Stones to raise those questions!

Thank you, Dave and Sherry, for writing this article. This issue of the social construct of gender is far past overdue for us (everyone) to talk about. It's so obvious that it's invisible in sport.

And I'm happy to see that people are willing to talk about this. Why expect Dave to come up with a solution to our problems when we can work it out ourselves? Has he ever even run an 800?

As was already mentioned, every athlete has a certain level of 'talent' that could be deemed unfair by some- but for the purity of sport we all start at the same line at the same time and throw from the same ring and then let the chips fall where they may (and T&F is one of the most pure athletic pursuits- simply how fast, how far, how high).

There are always an abundance of folks who will complain that the person who is faster than them is cheating (professionals used to be considered as having an 'unfair' advantage because they spent time training). And calling a person a cheater because they may have been born with genetic differences that allow them to throw farther is just silly. Especially when we construct the gender line from social, not actual concrete, definitions. If there is no gender line, what are we testing? How are we testing? Why isn't everyone tested? Why aren't men tested?

Clearly, we need to allow all folks to compete in sport, so by eliminating women's category races we may just be shoving 95% of the elite athletes out of the picture all together. But maybe we should allow the athlete to decide their own gender. And maybe we all just need to grow up a little before this can be a reality, but allowing and expecting the powers that be to decide our personal concepts of self is just ridiculous. If that were the case, I would have allowed my jerk high school coach to talk me out of running and I never would have earned five All-American awards in college.

My main point? Let's quit allowing the higher-ups dictate our own roles to us. The participants should get the say in how their sport is run. We all should get the say in what kind of person we are or aren't. Think for yourself, jjdynomite- I ain't gonna do it for you. Do you even want me telling you which sports you can or can't compete in?

And what's the point of your complaint about women getting paid the same for playing less matches? Venus Williams does not dictate the number of matches she wants to play in- nor does Federer.

As for hormone doping, this article did not discuss that issue at all. Dave and Sherry didn't cover it because they were discussing the myth of gender, not the doping problems. That's entirely huge discussion all on it's own.

Thanks for raising issues about gender that hardly ever get raised in the main-stream media - the gender binary, the expectation of heteronormativity, and intersex folks. Keep up the good work!

Everywhere I look, people are trying to erode boundaries just because they are there. A cat will sit there and meow at a closed door even if nothing is in the room yet, also just because it is there. I have run cross, several times, the ridiculous tagline "the possession of male genetic indicators cannot render someone not female/ should never exclude anyone from the womens' categories." What? It can, folks, and it does. The very statement is a work of art that can only boggle the mind. It amuses me, kind of like going to see a magic show.

It is "hip" and a temporary gratification of wants and desires of a crowd to "buck" what is perceived as an oppressive system. The complaining is mainly centered around things having to do with women, and it is given support by mostly women it appears. They are unsatisfied with things that hurt people on occasion, and they want everything to please immediate hopes. The family hopes for a win, the community hopes for a win, many women (who did not race with Caster and see these things) hope for something that will represent a cause and so they make more noise around this than I have ever witnessed. Try racing, in the actual sport girls. Get out on the track yourselves. Be forced to compete with someone who is not a full woman, and is confident and cocky and happy as all getout. You would complain. People opposing this testing are armchair warriors. They are sitting there at home with the simple minded immediate concern that someone is calling women weak and so the group should band together and grasp at straws by invalidating science at the speed of near light and being so loud that no one can hear their own thoughts above the din. As these people would have it, there would be no standards by which the games are conducted.

No, the "people" do not need to have more of a say. That is because to you, the "people" are those you agree with and anyone with a low self esteem who does not have any training. Like your movie watching circle of weekend friends. The judges and commitees of respected professionals ARE PEOPLE you fools. They are people who spent their every waking hour devoted to this job, unlike a spectator sitting in front of a TV or someone with a cut and paste agenda who is not a real doctor. Why don't we just throw together a throng from random people picked willy nilly off the streets and throw them out onto the track with the comment "do whatever the bleep you feel?" Might as well, after all nature does not decide gender, there is no gender, feelings decide 100 percent of everything, and rules just get in the way, isn't that what you more than imply? Get out of the kitchen if you don't like the heat. Enter into a sport and you will be judged by the rules of that sport. Unfair advantage via male biological traits is a valid concern. No matter how many vocal contingents bend words and cry discrimination and rewrite history, and even attempt to make science take a backseat to what can only be described as anecdotal "poetry" and contradictory wordcraft, fact will remain fact. I seem to be the only one who trusts the authorities in this. I seek to uphold the Olympic standards and the standards of other games, as well as standards in fields that are not ralated to sports but utilize measures of precise grading. The atmosphere people take for granted when they go see the games only exists because everything is carried out from start to finish by people who are there to scrutinize each minute detail according to refined and strict standards that have been rehashed, rehearsed, and honed by committees of people who do just THAT. You do not know how lucky you are that you grew up in a world in which things had definition, it gave you the very time to think long enough to ironically declare there should be no judgement calls or definitions ever because they surprise and disappoint certain groups. If this was me, I would say in front of the WORLD, "I humbly accept disqualification on grounds of unfair genetic advantage." I am that respectful of the necessity of rules and standards, and I am only one person, would be making only one sacrifice soon to be forgotten by the general public and people who show up at the games to see some SPORTS. Drop it already. And yes, Europeans and Americans of suspicion should face testing and disqualification as well.

For folks who have raised concerns about some of the more misinformed or idiotic comments, please know that it is a sign of success once you get your own trolls!

It's all good
Dave Z

Re: steve
LOL! That's a good one.

I guess the faux-standard bearers of so-called beauty are in a bind over this. She doesn't have the mane full of hair, the caked-up cosmetics, or the rail-thin physique. You got pre/post ops who fit the above descriptions running around on Maury or Springer...and yeah, they ought to test some of these athletes on pedestals!

I love the whines that anyone who disagrees with the point of this article (What was the point, exactly?) is racist, misogynist and some other ist, and a "dinosaur."

First, attitudes are not genetic, so they don't become extinct. They change as culture changes, as a general guideline, but individuals may always be outliers. It's as likely for a culture (long term) to change one way as another. So drop the smug, superior tone. It comes across as a failed attempt at one upmanship.

Second, men aren't tested because there are no events where women can beat men, as far as speed, strength and stamina--call me all the names you want, then go look up the records. It's not fair to women NOT to gender test, as the East Germans demonstrated in the 60s and 70s. If we just allow open competition without gender or (for some sports) weight classes, large men win every event, end of story. This gets boring fast and proves nothing.

As an FYI, slavery ended almost a century before the US became a world power. Nor do I see how that's relevant to this discussion.

Now, since the article doesn't offer a solution, let me have a whack at it:

Transsexuals--after two years, eligible to compete in their chosen gender--this is the current IOC policy.

Physical characteristics unmodified since birth should qualify as gender, since we have no control over our genes--so Semenya is a woman. Are we done, now?

For the very few people born intersex physically, if they wish to choose one gender and compete, more power to them.

There, that wasn't complicated, was it?

It wasn't another "ist" - it was "simpleton."

Now, that wasn't complicated, was it?

Just wanted to quickly point out that you guys, especially Tornado, are wrong in terms of the way you bring up East German athletes. Tornado states that " Dave's intellectual predecessors in the Soviet Bloc passed off stronger male athletes as women".

In fact, as you later gloss over, they did no pass off men as women. they doped female athletes (and male athletes) with incredible amounts of hormones and other performance enhancing drugs.

The fact that you consider a doped up woman a man is itself exemplary of the binary and ridiculousness that Dave is bringing up.


You should also know, since you read these articles all the time, that Dave is also profoundly anti-doping, especially when it is in some way sponsored by larger institutions (in this case a country/political regime).

There's no doubt, I think, that changes in gendered conceptualization will have a profound impact on the world of female sports. I don't know what the answer is or how you even begin to address these issues. But like Dave said, our view on sex and gender will change wether we like it or not. Before you were either gay or straight. today you can be queer, bi, gay, straight, curious, a straight man that has sex with other men etc. etc.

Western culture has long considered there to be only two sexes and two genders. But consider that global estimates of inter-sexed people are between 300 - 500 million in the world. There are more inter-sexed people than there are Americans...but we don't deny that Americans exist as a category, now do we?

Anyhow, its an interesting article and thanks for bringing it up dave.

Dave, unless your idea of success is being a sportswriter for that reputable sports magazine the Nation then you are quite far from ever becoming a success. You already know that though don't you.

Cheers