[Eljay]

She is the new 800m womens' champion of the world. She is from South Africa. Me too. She is our hero. She came from very humble beginnings, got a scholarship to study and now at only 18 she's the best. But....
Problem is she looks more like a guy than a girl. She's quite attractive, very muscular and her hair is in very close cropped braids. But she is all women, meaning she's got a vagina. Now this poor 18year old small town girl will have to go through a hundred tests to prove that she can keep her medal, just because her look is not feminine enough. They've already established that she did not use steroids and what not to improve her performance. How can you discriminate against someone just for the way they look? She can't help how she looks. And there is nothing wrong with her. How can people just deside her look is not right. What look is right? How should you look to be considered normal? I'm sure this whole experience will hurt her, because she is still a teenager. And that is sad. I hate it when people are so prejudiced and small minded. Caster, you go girl!!!

[Donna_N]

Strangely enough I know the answer to this, they want to do genetic testing on her
Women should have XX chromosomes and men XY
there is a rare syndrome where a person will have XXY have all the girl parts, but a tad more masculine than usual
If she is like this then she won't get to keep her medal

[GrayNess]

I've read the articles concerning this and they're testing to see if she is transgendered or has some other sexual genetic disorder. Part of the reason I think is that in the past year, she didn't even qualify yet this year she got first place and didn't use steroids.

There have been cases where a person was a female and at around 20 years old or so, she became masculine due to a genetic disorder.I believe the cases I'm referring to are of Alexina/Abel Barbin but there's alsoi Marie/Germain Gerard. The / represents the change in name when they were discovered to have developed male genitals when they previously lacked them.

There's numerous genetic disorders, anything from XX males and XY females to 5-alpha reductase deficiency and so on. Strangely enough, on their panel of experts, they have a psychologist or psychiatrist (forget which one), a gynocologist and some other experts. However, they have NO teratologist, which I find to be pretty funny.

However, despite this, I think it's of nobody's business to know that they're running tests on her. Perhaps if she is shown to be a male or very male-like, then I could understand the rationale of announcing that IFF (if and only if) that involves an issue with her keeping her medals. Other than that, I feel it's only a concern to her, her family, her coaches and the panel of doctors.

[Eljay]

I think it's very sad that Caster can't enjoy and be proud of her performance, because of something out of her control. She was ment to be born the way she is. And where can she now go to display her talent if she's not allowed to compete with women or men. Very sad. She absolutely can't help how she was born.

[Maven]

Perhaps they need a transgendered or intersexual category for these events. It's not her fault, no, but the fact is, women's bodies are different than men's, and Semenya has physical advantages that the other women don't, because she carries more testosterone. She may or may not have been treated unfairly, but the other women in the competition deserve to compete on an equal plane, as well.

[perpetuallysad]

How could she have possibly known if she has this rare genetic thing? And how on earth could it be something she's responsible for? From what I understand, some women have to take hormone replacement therapy because of random reasons, and there are some women who just have more testosterone. Is there some defined "standard" of level of hormone to make someone perfectly "male" or perfectly "female"? Otherwise, its unfair to target anyone for elevated levels when they clearly weren't doing something against the rules or illegal.

[Maven]

Nobody said she knew or was responsible for it. It's not about the hormones, as I understand. It's that she had both male and female genitalia, although I think the male genitalia was within her body.

[perpetuallysad]

I don't see how she could lose her metal for something she has no control over; to me that is holding her responsible for it.

(And my questions were just typing my thoughts out loud, I wasn't saying anyone in the thread said any of it were her responsibility.)