The scrutiny over Caster Semenya’s body is a study in racism, sexism, and transphobia

A decade-long battle for South African Olympic runner Caster Semenya has culminated in the Court of Arbitration for Sport determining that she must take medication to reduce her testosterone in order to compete.

The scrutiny over Semenya’s body and gender started in 2009 when she was only 18 years old, and the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) publicly announced she would have to take a sex verification test to prove she was female. Many in South Africa decried the testing as racist, arguing that Semenya was being discriminated against because of the standards of white womanhood. “Who are white people to question the makeup of an African girl?” said Leonard Chuene, then-head of South African athletics, to the Guardian in 2009. “I say this is racism, pure and simple.”

The IAAF conceded after testing that Semenya was, in fact, a woman, and she was allowed to return to her athletic career. However, in 2011 the IAAF announced that women with the intersex condition of hyperandrogenism, which causes excess levels of testosterone, would have to take medication to lower their testosterone, claiming the condition gives those athletes an unfair advantage. They later changed the regulation to only affect women running in events from 400 meters to the mile. Semenya argued that this regulation specifically targeted her, but today the Court of Arbitration for Sport upheld that policy. According to the Telegraph, Semenya said that all she wanted to do is “run naturally, the way I was born.”

The ruling exposes racism, ‘gender essentialism’ in sports

Women’s rights advocates should be horrified that a woman is being forced to alter her body in order to keep her athletic career going, and many are. But there are also many trans-exclusionary radical feminists (TERFs) who are celebrating this as a win, despite the fact that Semenya was assigned female at birth, and is therefore not a transgender woman. Despite much of so-called “gender critical” ideology being communicated as “women have vaginas, men have penises” there are now TERFs claiming that Semenya is not a real woman because of her testosterone levels. For many trans women and their feminist allies, the TERF response to this ruling reveals both the hypocrisy and the misogyny at the heart of TERF ideology, which poses increasingly narrow definitions of womanhood.

someone who calls themself "gender critical", "biologist", and a "realist" is deciding that Caster Semenya is a man based on her testosterone levels. when we tell you that terf rhetoric is about policing all women and will hurt cis women too, this is it in action. pic.twitter.com/hZKemkUXdu

— samanthuel (@splendidland) May 1, 2019

The case of Caster Semenya is a really good example of how TERF style gender essentialism is harmful to women across the spectrum. Women can’t be reduced to a single “ideal” body or physiology, and doing so will always lead to violent and coercive control of our bodies

— Rebecca Pierce (The Afrikomen) (@aptly_engineerd) April 30, 2018

Anyway, the tl;dr of this is still

1. Caster Semenya is not transgender
2. The ruling against her is an *actual* threat to women’s sports
3. It’s being celebrated by the same people who claim to care about women’s sports
4. Because they think Semenya is trans.
5. When she is not

— Parker Molloy (@ParkerMolloy) May 1, 2019

The ruling has also renewed criticisms of the IAAF as racist and sexist, notably requiring medical intervention to change Semenya’s so-called “unfair advantage,” but not requiring any such change for swimmer Michael Phelps, who was shown to have half the lactic acid of his competitors, and was celebrated as a “biomechanical freak of nature.” People angered by this ruling point out that when a white man had a natural genetic advantage, it was praised, while a Black woman is being punished for hers. Others noted that the decision may have been made to appease Semenya’s white competitors, who blamed losing to her on her testosterone, even when she came in first and they came in sixth.

When medical tests proved that the reason Phelps is the most elite butterfly athlete in the world is because he produces less than half the lactic acid that his competitors produce, FINA and the IOC waxed lyrical about how lucky he was to have such an insane "genetic advantage" https://t.co/7X4gKIthiC

— claddagh-róisín (@clxddxgh) May 1, 2019

this decision will go down in the annals of history. Not just as a mistake, but a hideous, racist, misogynistic and colonially managed acquiescence to white fears. Solidarity with Caster Semenya, whose womanhood, blackness & humanity have all been subject to outrageous abuse. https://t.co/WOD7jXSZsA

— Oli (@CraftBeerCommie) May 1, 2019

white women's tears endanger the lives and livelihoods of black women.

lynsey sharpe came in 6th in rio, didn't have a piss icicle's chance in hell of winning dust let alone a medal but blamed her failure on caster semenya? pic.twitter.com/1jF48HY56g

— GIFLord DanielléDASH (@DanielleDASH) May 1, 2019

The new rules will go into effect on May 8, meaning women athletes with hyperandrogenism who want to compete on the international stage will have to begin hormone treatment immediately, or risk being disqualified.

READ MORE:

• Asexuality is real—and it has nothing to do with celibacy
• I’m a lesbian and a transgender woman—and those two aren’t mutually exclusive
• TERF wars: Why trans-exclusionary radical feminists have no place in feminism

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