Being Alone

Boy, do I feel alone. Not alone in the physical sense, but the political sense. Since the International Olympic Committee released it's recommendations and guidelines on suspected intersexed athletes, they've been verbally pummelled almost into oblivion, by every sports analysist and pundit alive. But not by the female atheles, only the retired ones.

Strange we're not hearing the women athletes disagree, after the case of Caster Semenaya. And this is where I feel alone because I agree with them. She should have never left South Africa (SA) to compete. The SA doctors suggested it to the ASA (SA's sports organization) there.

By all the public accounts, while Caster Semenaya was raised female, possibly due to some condition which prevented her from becoming fully male which is her genetic sex, they reported (or leaked) she has (maybe had as reports now suggest she had surgery) less than fully developed male gentalia and undescended testes, and a partial vagina, but no female sex or reproductive system.

Can someone still claim she is female? And when the testes kicked in during puberty which propelled her athletic abilities to the top of "female" athletes in South Africa, no one wondered why a girl was physically developing into a boy? But they did, tested and examined her, and knew. But the ASA still choose to let her compete.

And they wonder why the other female athletes said something?

No one doubts the IOC screwed it up, but only for politcal purposes and none did the right thing for the other athletes. They were lost in the discussion and decisions. Caster should have been disqualified and her times and wins removed from the record book. And then she could prove her case to have everything reinstated.

But the IOC didn't decide but waited, balked and then hedged their bets. And now they're hedging them again, but at least they're looking at the larger picture of women athletics and athletes. It's not about individuals but the sport. It's sad it's a binary system for competition, but it's what it is.

If you want to compete, chose one or the other but compete fairly, not with some predisposition for being the opposite sex disguised as the other gender. It's been tried and caught. Caster's case is no different. It's not about her life, her race or her abilities, and not her perceived gender. It's about her sex.

And that's what I disagree with the rest of the intersex and transgender communities. So I stand alone there. And there's very little which will change my mind. You can't be a boy, however undeveloped, raised as a girl and still be female. And the little will be the evidence proving me wrong, which is sadly lacking in the arguments on the other side.

They consistently argue around the issue and discuss generalities, and then overlook Caster's actual condition as reported. They seem to want to lump into a class of people she doesn't qualify, only if you stretch some definitions or characteristics, a lot too. They have yet to prove where she is actually genetically and physicall female.

Which they argue is prove she's intersexed. Only in that she was raised a girl. But where were her parents, her doctors and others who knew she wasn't quite, or really, female? She's not alone when they hide things from children, which she can say was part of her believe she's a girl.

Except she didn't change physically into a woman at puberty, but became more a boy. And she didn't wonder? I hope she wasn't and isn't that naive. We don't and likely won't know, but she sure knows now. And I don't see why she can't follow the procedures transsexuals follow to compete, where you can compete.

And to that end, until shown differently, I'll stand here, alone. Not against her or transwomen, but for women athletes. They deserved fairness too, which the IOC needs give them, which they seem to be doing now, and Caster needs to give them as a competitor.