If I Were a Boy... the Caster Semenya Controversy From All Angles

There has been quite a debate raging at my office and in the house, and I’m sure it reflects discussions going on globally this week. It’s about Caster Semenya, the gripping controversy surrounding her 800m gold medal win in Germany, and the subsequent doubts as to her qualification as a ‘true’ female.

It’s actually quite amazing that this story has become such a globally followed issue, but for me, as for many others, it is so interesting because it involves both the human side and the not-so-simple science of sex and gender.

I’m sure there was a day not so long ago when gender was viewed as a cut and dry issue by the majority of us – if a person had the external sexual organs associated with either sex, it was accepted that the person was that gender. Since then science has delved further and discovered a variety of cases where this simple identification is just not as straightforward as we’d thought. There is a very interesting 'Intersex' association in North America that answers many of the questions here.

In terms of sexuality, more and more people are identifying themselves as transgender – and are convinced that they are ‘in the wrong body’. There are a myriad of combinations of sexual orientation, along with gender identifications. One of my favourite stand up comedians, Eddie Izzard, commonly wears traditionally ‘female’ clothing and identifies himself as a ‘male lesbian’ or a ‘straight transvestite’. Are these people right or wrong? Who are we to judge?

But when it comes to the case of Caster Semenya, if we look for a minute beyond the personal side – beyond the fact that the media coverage her case has attracted is no doubt humiliating and demoralizing – there are the complicated yet unavoidable scientific and ethical issues.

There are pictures all over the Internet of Caster now, with everyone trying to scrutinize every aspect of her appearance. The fact is that she has the complete outward appearance of a male.

Her speech and mannerisms confirm that view.

So when then is a girl not a girl? If Caster identifies as a female, who are we say she is not?

If Caster is subjected to all possible tests, there will be one of many possible outcomes; anything from true hermaphroditism (where a person possesses both male and female sexual organs, internally and/or externally, to variations like male pseudohermaphroditism or a type of gonadal dysgenesis. The bottom line is that it goes far beyond a simple physical inspection of someone's 'private parts'!



There have been numerous cases in the western world, where these conditions are diagnosed at birth, are closely monitored through childhood, and the child is gender assigned, based on their tendencies. I believe if Caster Semenya had been born in different circumstances – i.e. not in a rural village with no access to expensive modern medicine, she would have been one of these people.

Accounts of Caster’s life only reinforce this. She is said to have identified always with boys – and competed on par with her male peers in school throughout her childhood. However, due to the fact that she had no visible penis (and this is really the only reason), she was assumed to be a girl.

The biggest question is an ethical, moral and philosophical one. It has been my opinion that if a person is found to have a Y chromosome, to possess more than 3 times the testosterone as the typical female (as in the case of Caster), then they have an unfair biological advantage over other females (in terms of muscle development etc.), and hence it would be unfair to compete against 'entirely female' women, especially at this level.

Another perspective (that of JW) is that if the person has been classified at birth as a female, with no outward evidence that this is not the case, then she should be able to compete regardless. Her biological advantage is something she is lucky to have, in the same way that people with higher IQs have a biological advantage to others when it comes to academics – yet we all compete on the same level, regardless of the advantages of the smarter people.

It is a very intriguing debate!

However, this is not a theoretical issue. There are victims. The very sad side of this story is Caster herself. As far as she is concerned, she is a woman. Despite any questions she or others she knows have had about her appearance, she is simply a tomboy… however, the IAAF has strict guidelines that may just determine that she is not in fact female. This would mean they would have to strip her of her medal. Imagine the devastation! Not to mention that the whole world (including me) is currently debating her gender. It is a controversy that she has found herself trapped in, through no fault of her own.

I believe that the South African ASA could have dealt with the issue discretely in advance, completing the tests before the Berlin race, so as to eliminate all the aftermath, but their conduct has been uneducated, boorish and infantile. They have accused the IAAF and international media of being racist, despite the fact that these tests have been carried out on female athletes globally, regardless of race or origin, for decades. In interviews, Leonard Chuene, President of the ASA repeatedly ignores the complex issues at hand.

In 2006 Santhi Soundarajan from India, was robbed of her silver medal after the same type of controversy about her gender. Raised as a woman, this blow devasted her and soon after she attempted suicide.

Gender may not be as simple and straightforward as we’d once believed, but it remains a delicate and taboo subject, and when questioned, can have devastating effects...

Obamarama - the mania is over but the message persists.

With Obama’s visit come and gone – been there, bought the t-shirt (two actually) – Accra has returned to normal.

Definitely the Obama family had a profound effect on the country. Firstly, the cities of Accra and Cape Coast were literally brought to a halt on Saturday, and the circling helicopters made us feel their presence.

Apart from that, there was a buzz in the air, and all radio and TV stations were focused on the historic visit, following Obama on his few planned and strictly controlled visits. The streets were lined with supporters - with flags, scarves, t-shirts...

Everyone wanted some little part of Obama – of the fame, the hope, the power that has now come to signify his name. This was a visit that topped any of the other foriegn dignitaries or prior American presidents. Ghana and Africa felt a deeper sense of connection, they claimed to welcome Obama HOME. There was a wild pride in the air...

But Obama did more than shake hands and smile and feed the politicians of Ghana and Africa what they wanted to hear. He was firm in his speeches, asking the African leadership to take responsibility for the future of Africa. He focused on the US supporting Africa’s independent development and made some giant steps away from the typical western leader’s promise of never-ending aid. At his farewell address at the airport he pointed out the Peace Corps volunteers and asked that if these youngsters had come so far to work in the communities, there was no reason that the youth in Ghana and in Africa could not do the same. And he was right.

In a way, I believe that only Obama could have gotten this message across without any repercussions of being labelled racist. After all, he is considered ‘one of us’ among Africans.

This is a point that has annoyed me during the presidential campaign last year and the ramp up to his recent visit.

How is it that a man who had an absentee father (who happened to hail from Kenya), but was raised completely by his white mother and grandparents and Indonesian step-father, far from Africa, can be called an African man?



Surely we cannot forget the woman that raised him single-handedly, with the support of her own family, while his father lived out his life continents away with other wives, other children. Where is the acknowledgement for those that played the key role in his biological and cultural upbringing, when Africans proudly exclaim Obama’s blackness and African heritage?

It all seems a bit hypocritical, if not deceptive.To put it in perspective for Ghanaians - it would be like Scottish people taking credit for the accomplishments of J.J. Rawlings. It would be like other Europeans welcoming Jerry 'home' back in his heyday, for being the first 'European' leader in Africa. But we all know that despite Jerry having a Scottish father, he is culturally a Ghanaian and there is not much of a connection between him and Scotland. This is because his father did not play much of a role in his life, and he was raised in Africa as an African. The same is true in reverse for Obama...

I agree that Barack Obama has the X Factor, that he is extremely intelligent and an excellent motivational speaker. He is one of the only politicians that I honestly believe has positive motives for genuine change.

Whether Africa or Africans or black America can take the credit for a man with his history and upbringing is quite another story altogether.

I think it’s fair that we ALL take pride in such a leader, globally, and stop harping on a simple biological fact that did not entirely shape Obama’s character.

He is a global citizen, an American, and a figure for positive change. He is not technically a BLACK man nor culturally an African – and it doesn’t matter in the least!

Obama, the Mama, the myth and Drama

I’ve decided to blog about Obama. There comes a time in every blogger’s life where they have to blog about Obama.

I know nothing about American politics and that is by choice. However, it seems the less one knows about the actual political system the better. The democratic campaign of 2008 is about emotions and faith. It is about getting excited and building hope around a person who represents the polar opposite of George Bush.

After being bombarded on the Net, the TV, the papers, the global media monster, the other day I decided to read about Obama and the only aspect that is interesting to me – Obama as a person. His family, his past, what makes him tick. I wanted to get a true feeling about whether his popularity is based on faith, fiction, myth or merit.
What I discovered surprised me. I learned that I could relate to his mother’s story – a middle class North American suburban white girl, intrigued and obsessed by other cultures, with the audacity to believe she could overcome the overwhelming challenges of loving a man from another world.



I learned that Obama’s mother was forced to realize that the union with her Kenyan husband was doomed from the start, found herself abandoned and alone when he was just a baby, and that as a single mom she wanted to establish some stability for her son. She quickly married again – never losing her thirst for exotic adventure, and moved the family to Indonesia. Obama was a privileged expat kid!! He went to the private schools and was even sent to a $14,000 per year boarding school back in that states (Hawaii) as a teenager. He did what intelligent, spoiled American teens do. He juggled schoolwork with becoming a junkie. He smoked joints and snorted cocaine.

A disturbing aspect of his troubled teen years was his proclaimed profound identity crisis and lack of self esteem as a result. And he accredited all of this to his mixed racial heritage.



He blamed his mother and her middle class caring grandparents who he lived with as a teen, for his identity crisis. He changed/shortened his name during highschool to Barry to fit in.



He idolized his absent father, and allowed the romantic and vague stories told to him by his mother as he grew up, to cloud his true judgment of his father.

The true story of his father’s life has been exposed though, courtesy of the media – however I am shocked that the conservative/republican ‘powers that be’ have not pounced on this information to grind his campaign to a screeching halt… after all, the sins of the father…
According to Obama senior’s relatives, he had 8 children in total, from 4 women whom he married concurrently. By western standards he was scum then? And a raging alcoholic who’s involvement in numerous drunk driving crashes eventually brought his demise. Hmmmm…

Obama has since written inspirational books glorifying his father’s life and struggles. But as a mother, learning what I’ve learned about their lives, I just have to assume he is deeply affected by the truth of it all. His father was nothing more than a sperm donor. Married already to a poor woman in his home village, before coniving an idealistic white lady at University in the States to marry him and bear him a child. He then moved on (to another American University, on yet another scholarship) without a glance backward. And he did not stop there. He brought another white American lady back to Kenya with him, married her as well and added more children to the flock.

There is also the fact that Obama senior was a muslim, with the name Hussein. Now what I know about Americans is that the masses have a reputation for being brain washed fear mongers who would, under normal circumstances have a field day with this type of info – drumming up a frenzied fear of the Arab enemy… Otherwise how would Bush have gotten as far as he did?

Anyway, Obama got through his teenage identity crisis by the end of college and got involved in the Democratic Party. He was determined and ambitious. He was smart and relatively charismatic. But Presidential material? I don’t know what he has done to compel people to believe he is the future of the USA. He is all about change and promise and the future. But one must examine his past and his track record in order to make a fair assessment.

The thing about this campaign is that there is no room for fair assessment. Just because there is no better alternative, does not mean Obama is the answer.

He gets the black America vote, despite being an elitist with nothing in common - no roots in slavery, no connection to the 'hoods' or the cultural markers that define this group.

He gets the middle class liberal white American vote despite their underlying racism and uneasiness. He is a chance for them to prove they are politically correct. He talks like them, they can relate...

Whoever says the issues are not racially charged is just dreaming. America is racially divided. They cannot help but to see his colour. There's a one drop rule in America! His close personal association with an extremist black preacher has been widely discussed. Yet still, he gains votes from every corner of the country in staggering numbers.

I just can’t help but think that the American public is so desperate for the promise of something new and different that they turn a blind eye to the glaring issues that would normally have thrown a candidate to the dogs before their campaign could even get off the ground.

The Frightening new South Africa

South Africa of 2008 is crime ridden, the electricity doesn't work and corruption permeates all levels of public service and government. The promises of hope and glory in 1994 have evolved into mayhem and despair. The poor have gotten poorer and more desperate and yet another black government in Africa is letting it's people down.

Watch this disturbing video, produced by a reputable 60 minutes type program called Carte Blanche in South Africa - describing the current state of affairs.

There is mass exodus of whites and this video explains sadly why...