C'mon Dave, if there is no differerence between men and women's abilities, as you claim, this intersex person should have no problem running as a man. Although it is true that the gap has indeed narrowed, the truth is that if there were not separate races for men and women, virtually no women would qualify.

Dave, I love you, but you're way off on this one. I have to agree with the above comment. If there's really no difference between men's abilities and women's abilities, why have separate races at all? Why not have men and women compete together? This is done in some sports (sailing, horseback riding) and should be done in more, but the reason that there are separate women's races in sprinting is because the women wouldn't qualify at the elite level otherwise. I hope I'm proved wrong some day, I'd love to see Natalie Darwitz skating with Mark Recchi. And I deeply sympathize with Caster: The humiliation that she has been forced to endure is cruel and tragic. I hope that this incident will provoke a reasoned conversation about how we define one's gender when it comes to sports. However, if men and women truly had equal abilities in sprinting then Caster's identity would be a non-issue.

I heard about this again on BBC. You know the main ones protesting her where the US team. Every time a US member loses they complain. THis is especially true of the sprint events and the 800.

when will they back off on the entertainment pedal? i don't know if the two above comments understood the paradox of your article; that men and women have differences when we compare shared abilities but we can't really know how they are different because we have different standards and expectations, especially in the more fundamental youth leagues. A dunk in the WNBA goes on sportscenter and a chuckle from every hardcore NBA fan, shaking their head...but maybe dunking and lay ups are catered to the glitzy entertainment side of things, like the home run, or in my activity of choice, an aerial in surfing. Taking the icing on the cake and making a cake entirely out of icing is what the biz does. What I wanted to say is that the overall quality of women's surfing has gotten way closer to the men's in the last fifteen or so years, so maybe the gap won't be closed, but maybe, like in real, non-competition surfing, it simply won't matter, that these performance barriers we set with all our records will dissolve in to the milieu of human experience, so maybe one day the best athlete will, like in surfing, be the one having the most fun.

Maybe what we're missing is in hockey's stated mission, where hard work, presence and style are admired above numbers and given a cult status with a depth rivaling the shallowness of mainstream, outsider expectation. What about Caster, then. My voice doesn't matter and noone whose does cares, but I say let her run. Is it so devastating to have this? Really? I don't want to incite the fallacy crowd, though. Substituting athletes in an incorrect division is wrong (see boxing; modern olympics; the Pittsburgh Pirates ;-)
Oh those silly Nazis, what will they cook up next, puttin a wig on a fellow for the high jump, master race indeed, pff.

Sometimes I suspect that the reading comprehension levels of the people who comment here are a little sub-standard. Where does Dave say in this article that there are not differences between men and women. He simply is asking questions about what we might see without so much predjudice and sexism. He is not giving defenitive answers, simply pointing out what is happening to female athletes, and women in general. bringing up valid points and then openly disscussing the issues and questions that arrise is how we have inteligent discourse. Not giving adhoc answers to complicated and dynamic issues. When will people in this country learn this simple skill?

I think that my reading comprehension level is pretty high, thanks. When did this become a debate about literacy? Anyways, while Dave's article never says, explicitly, "there are not differences between men and women," it's implied, starting with, "Lurking beneath the salacious coverage is the sports world's underlying ethic--women are inferior to men. The notion that there is an enormous physical gulf between men and women's athletic abilities is rarely questioned." The implication here is that the idea that males are naturally faster and stronger than females is wrong. This is reinforced by the list of examples in the following paragraph. This implication is what I was disagreeing with.

Scott's right . . . . Zirin strongly implies that we should doubt that there is an "enormous physical gulf between men and women."

Zirin then compares outdated men's records to current women's records to show that there's no big difference.

It's like comparing the 1950 Minneapolis Lakers to the 2010 Los Angeles Lakers.

It's typical Zirin -- demagogic and intellectually inconsistent, but sounds "radical."

So should there be sex segregation or not in sports Zirin? And what would be the impact on current women's athletics. Answer the real question.

I think Dave's points about how much closer the performance 'gulf' between men and women is needs to be taken in context.

The point is that simply stating "Semenya is too fast to be a women" is not sufficient to ban her from competition. There needs to be a specific violation of the rules, which the IAAF needs to announce. In fact, they have done the opposite, stated that Semenya did not cheat and deserves to keep her medal.

I think it is useful to compare her results in the World Championship to that of Usain Bolts. If you normalize the results, Bolt's time was 3% better than anyone else in the field while Semenya's was only 2% faster than the rest of the field.

So why is Bolt praised and Semenya shunned?

Why is Bolt considered an Athletic phenom when Semenya is considered a freak?

Caster has every right to demand an explanation from the IAAF. If her condition does give her an advantage, then the IAAF needs to come out and say exactly what that advantage is. They can't can't hide behind some vague notion of what kind of athletic performance is "possible" by women when the very purpose of competition is to redefine what is possible.

Some great comments here. Just FYI, I absolutely do not believe in gender segregation for sports but I also acknowledge that if it was abolished the net effect would be terrible for women and women athletics. I think if we started at a young age and worked our way up, the results would shock many. That doesn't mean btw that you wouldn't have different teams based on skills but why not break people up by height or weight? Why gender?

One thing I grapply to comrehend is why this may be seen as an 'advantage' and so we must correct it. But in basketball we do not expect tall people to have corrective surgery, lance armstrong is not having his lungs changed to intake as much as other people's oxygen amount, rich athletes who can afford camps while growing up are also at an 'advantage' so why latch onto genitalia?

Furthermore, there are millions of intersex people, some who are incredible athletes, who is to say they can't compete? Our understanding that there are two sexes is a construction, bodies develop in many different ways. If the goal of sports is to see what the body is capable of, everyBODY has to be allowed.

I enjoy this column because it recognizes sports as a site of resistance for people and for communities. Sports culture must move away from it's colonial, racist, sexist and homophobic past.

LET HER RUN!

This article shows a real lack of understanding in elite running. Coming from somebody that has been around the sport all my life I can understand the pain Semenya must feel by not being able to race because that is like having a part of your life taken away. But, women and men are physically built different, pretty simple. While women are catching men on the ultra distances there is still a big difference in say a race like the 800. If we were to simply integrate the races the females would get even less attention which happens in your local 5k race. The top women usually comes in with little attention. We don't need to consolidate more sports. All that has done in the past is put more power in men controlling women sports.
I agree that Semenya had to deal with a lot of crap from almost everybody, but if she has a physical advantage then it would be unfair to women that are working hard to be as good as they can and then have someone with an advantage come in a easily win. The real culprit of this mess was the south African association for track. They tried to ignore the testing when it should have occurred.

Dave,

For once, I appreciate your candor, in admitting that you oppose separate men's and women's athletics. And I appreciate your candor in admitting the effects it would have on the current state of women athletics.

I think it's foolish and feel-good position, which would be calamitous to women athletes. You'd effectively repeal Title IX and exclude the majority of women from top-flight athletics.

But at least you've admitted it.

I think it is quite clear to everybody here that there are fundamental differences between men and women. Nobody is claiming that women are physically as strong or as large as men. What we are claiming is that there are a significant amount of women who are both strong enough and large enough to compete alongside men, and if they were allowed to play with the men, starting at an early age, and treated equally, then things would be a lot different because their skills would develop differently. People would start to notice that the SKILL level and INTENSITY level of women, regardless of size and strength, can be just as high as men. Women might even be naturally more intense than men. Have you ever argued with one?

Anyway, what is the difference between the skill of shooting a basketball or playing a piano? Do you ever hear the argument that women are not capable of playing piano like men? No, of course not. In fact, you might hear the opposite. Women may be less likely to be born with hands big enough to hit Rachmaninoff chords, but they sure do tend to be beasts at the instrument. Think about it - a significant number of the best long range NBA shooters are actually shorter and weaker than most of the competition, aren't they?

We're not saying that we should be going out of our way to recruit women and place them at the center position in basketball or on the front line in football, but if women had been playing with men for the past 100 years, being conditioned and seasoned at the same level, you best believe there would be plenty of professional women athletes right now playing with men.

At any rate, this women should be allowed to run. The argument that somebody made about Lance Armstrong's lungs before... that was a pretty strong one. Honestly I think these men are just afraid of a women being as fast as them, that's all.

Caster needs to allowed to run! I don't think being intersex gives her any advantage. She still worked and trained hard and she should be allowed to run.

I agree, Dave. I don't believe in gender segregated sports. And I understood your point. Women can achieve or surpass the records of men, even if those records are 4 years old. What would happen if we began training women at a younger age, at the same level we train men at that same age? Like you said, "Gender bias in sports has been studied in children's T-ball where boys hitting off a T are coached and corrected, while girls are largely ignored--poor athletic performance is expected and goes uncorrected."
As a female cross country runner, I remember the emphasis put on the boys to do good. They were always encouraged to win. Whereas for us it was always the "just go out there and do your best," "it doesn't matter if you win or lose" crap.
I wanted to be pushed, but oh no, I'm female therefore I'm too "fragile." Give me a break.
If women can beat men's records from 4 years ago, the can beat men's records NOW, within the same year. BUT ONLY if we stop gender segregating sport training and eliminate gender bias.
"I think if we started at a young age and worked our way up, the results would shock many."
I agree, Dave. Sadly, many don't share our view.

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