Word: semenya
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Concerns over Semenya's understanding of the gender verification process first surfaced earlier this week, when Wilfred Daniels, her coach at the time of her World Championships victory, told a British paper that Semenya had undergone gender testing before leaving for Berlin with the mistaken belief that they were anti-doping investigations. But that assertion contradicts claims by Athletics South Africa president Leonard Chuene, who has insisted that no gender tests were carried out on Semenya prior to her departure for Berlin. (IAAF spokesman Nick Davies could not be reached for comment on the South African government's possible lawsuit...
...story, The Daily Telegraph did not say which intersex condition the test has revealed Semenya has. But if the paper's report is accurate, it is possible that she has partial androgen-insensitivity syndrome (AIS), a condition in which a genetic male is partially resistant to androgens, the male sex hormones that include testosterone. In many cases of partial AIS, the testes never descend from the abdomen, the genitalia may resemble female genitalia, and the individual will display both female and male characteristics. People with AIS often have high levels of testosterone as the body produces more...
...Athletes with AIS and similar intersex conditions are often allowed to compete in international athletics. At the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, seven genetically male athletes with AIS were allowed to compete as women. On Friday, the IAAF emphasized that Semenya's gender verification tests were a medical issue, not a doping one, and there were no insinuations that the athlete - whose family in South Africa insist she is female - cheated...
...IAAF spokesman Davies told the Associated Press on Friday that, whatever the test reveals, Semenya would probably keep her world championship medal. "Our legal advice is that if she proves to have an advantage because of the male hormones, then it will be extremely difficult to strip the medal off her, since she has not cheated," he said. "She was naturally made that way, and she was entered in Berlin by her team and accepted by the IAAF." (See pictures of South Africa...
...report in the Daily Telegraph and South Africa's response only serve to keep in the public sphere that which is a very private matter. Semenya, at least, seems to be displaying the same gritty fortitude that propelled her to victory in Berlin. When asked by South African magazine You about the gender issue, she reportedly said: "I see it all as a joke, it doesn't upset me. God made me the way I am and I accept myself. I am who I am and I'm proud of myself. I don't want to talk about the tests...