Word: semenya
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...Speaking at a news conference in Pretoria on Friday, Sport and Recreation Minister Makhenkesi Stofile said he was "shocked and disgusted" at the treatment that Semenya has received from both the international media and the IAAF. He said lawyers were being consulted over possible human rights violations amid concerns that Semenya was tested without her consent. (See pictures of Caster Semenya's triumph and trials...
...press conference came after an Australian newspaper reported that a gender test revealed that Semenya has an intersex condition. In a story published on Friday, the Daily Telegraph said that the test shows the 18-year-old has no ovaries, but rather internal male testes. Semenya came to the world's attention after winning the African Junior Championships in Mauritius in August and then the 800 meters at last month's World Championships in Berlin by an amazing 2 seconds. Her extraordinary times and masculine appearance led the IAAF to request gender verification tests. (Read: "Is a Female Track Star...
...they have not received results from the tests - and the IAAF has refused to confirm the Telegraph's story. But Stofile said the results are irrelevant: "She may be a hermaphrodite, but so what? She is still a girl ... a young girl enjoying growing up." Stofile added that if Semenya is ruled ineligible for further competition by the IAAF, "it will be a third world...
...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...