Male or female

I came home from work this evening and put on the television to see some black youngsters chatting about this and that in Africa. Only after a few minutes did I realise that the thin but athletic looking boy was who was featuring heavily in the segment was in fact Caster Semenya. I am a big athletics fan so I watched the rest of the programme and it was intriguing; to me Caster Semenya looks very masculine and the initial reporting of the IAAF's tests showed her to be male but the programme was very heavily slanted in favour of the subject of the programme and so was joyous when she was cleared by the IAAF.

In August 2009 I blogged:

'It seems to me that there are girly girls and manly women and Kratochvílová was in the latter camp. As for Caster Semenya, time will tell although when I saw the last lap of the 800 metre final race live I did immediately notice that she was a very different physique to the other athletes...'

Having watched the programme for about 25 minutes I must say she sounds like a man, facially looks more masculine than feminine and physically looks different from most women. What's the truth? Who really knows.

Caster Semenya - man or woman?

The fuss over what is Caster Semenya's gender reminds me of an athlete from the 1980s, Jarmila Kratochvílová. Jarmila Kratochvílová was a Czech woman 400 metre runner who ran her first public 800 metre race and broke the world record (a world record that has never been surpassed). 10 days later she had won both the 400 metre and 800 metre events at the first World Athletics Championships in Helsinki (she also won gold in the 4x400 metre relay). Jarmila Kratochvílová was an incredible athlete and at the time questions were raised about her gender and her drug taking.

It seems to me that there are girly girls and manly women and Kratochvílová was in the latter camp. As for Caster Semenya, time will tell although when I saw the last lap of the 800 metre final race live I did immediately notice that she was a very different physique to the other athletes; see what you think...