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Time For The IAAF To Clean House On Gender Testing

09/16/09-by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
With the news that Caster Semenya may have been put on suicide watch, the question facing the International Association of Athletic Federations is what is the human cost in their pursuit of the goal of trying to determine if Ms Semenya is biologically female, and whether or not they acted in a manner approaching even the boundaries of appropriate.

There are some who seek to blame the South African athletics federation for their handling of this situation. They were asked by the IAAF to investigate Ms Semenya’s gender, and they did a cursory check of the facts. Undaunted and unsatisfied, the IAAF initiated a full out gender screening in order to determine whether or not Ms Semenya was a man, a woman, or somewhere in between. The only reason they had for wanting to do these testing appears to be the fact that Ms Semenya has a gruff and masculine sounding voice and a masculine demeanor. There are a lot of biological women- both lesbian and straight- who have that kind of voice and demeanor. To date, Ms Semenya has not shown an excessive amount of speed on the track, nor has she shown any great advantage over other runners.

Indeed, she has not broken the world record. Her victory in Berlin was a personal best, and broke the record for South Africa.

Screening for excessive testosterone is normal procedure for drug testing these days. Many banned substances in competition cause there to be excesses of testosterone in the blood. The IAAF ‘leaked’ that Ms Semenya had elevated testosterone levels. The fact that Ms Semenya had elevated testosterone levels is not even something that is considered to be surprising enough to raise a red flag. It raises a yellow flag to the officials and she would have had to be retested a short period of time after that.

They should have only instigated the gender testing after that point. Instead, the IAAF rushed into this and made the assumption that there was something wrong with Ms Semenya. Compounding the issue is the fact that they have repeatedly “leaked” information regarding the testing which is supposed to be conducted with absolute secrecy and privacy, and threats that Ms Semenya could be barred from the sport which she loves so much.

The IAAF needs to have a house cleaning, starting with the firing of every single person who has leaked Ms Semenya’s information, and if that means firing every single person in the IAAF who has had direct access to her testing, then so be it. Then the IAAF needs to institute some clear policies as to what causes there to be a trigger for gender testing to be initiated. There has to be some reason other than the discomfort of some athletes who are showing prejudices which border on transphobic. Finally, there has to be some policy put into place to let someone who is born intersexed continue to compete. Transpeople are already allowed to compete in the Olympics so long as they are two years post surgery.

And, yes, to a certain degree, the discomfort and attacks have been largely grounded not in racism but transphobia. Ms Semenya may not be transsexual. Indeed, she may not be intersexed. The assumption that her gruff voice and body language are absolutely indicatory of her being male is transphobic, at least how I see transphobia. People are afraid of any deviation from the gender structure they believe is normal.

The problem is Ms Semenya may indeed be normal. A lot of women have gruff voices and masculine manners, and no one ever says anything other to assume that they are lesbian. Something, however, needs to be done by the IAAF because, honestly, they have pursued this in a manner which may not only have ruined a young woman’s career, but her very life.