By Sarah A. O / September 27, 2019
For centuries, societies across the globe have continually felt the need to place individuals into strict categories in terms of gender. There is a tendency to link certain physical and abstract characteristics into the gender binary. The terms “masculine” and “feminine” are adjectives used as a form of jurisdiction over where individuals are categorically placed into this binary. People who identify as cisgender—meaning that their gender identity is the same as their biological sex—can associate and identify themselves into the gender binary much easier than individuals who do not fit into the binary at all. However, what happens when you identify as a cisgender individual but you possess characteristics of the opposite gender within this binary?
In the case of Caster Semenya, her sex was constantly being questioned essentially due to the physical capabilities that she obtained through extensive training as an athlete; this then made her almost undefeatable for a period of time. The curiosity behind Semenya’s true sex was certainly racially motivated, as black women within professional athletics are constantly critiqued—especially if they excel tremendously in the sport that they participate in. Caster Semenya’s case is absolutely crucial when analyzing “sex” and “gender.” Due to the fact that there were extreme conflictions and arguments within the trial, it arose many questions about the prodigious effects of the gender binary within the athletic industry.
In this essay, I will be using Munro’s “Caster Semenya: Gods and Monster” in order to discuss the following concepts and notions. I will talk about how we contextualize the debates on sex-testing. I will also go into depth about the true meaning of “sex-testing” and the implications behind the whole process, using Caster Semenya’s case as an example. I will then discuss why race is a significant factor in the prolonged controversy over the genetic makeup of Caster Semenya. I will then conclude this paper explaining the impact of Caster Semenya’s case and why she is still scrutinized by the IAAF in 2019.
Semenya’s trial—that forced the results of her sex-testing to be publicly shown—was not a matter of chance; there are multiple factors that led to this controversy that we must be contextualized. Munro asks readers to look at the various “social and historical contexts” behind the sex-testing of athlete, Caster Semenya (Munro, 2010: 384). According to Munro, when looking at the situation, we must consider “the afterlife of imperialism under globalization, the international politics of race, and how models of sex and gender normativity are produced and circulated” (Munro, 2010: 384). The effects of imperialism by the Western world has created a distinctive power dynamic between them and the countries in which they have colonized/controlled in the past. In Caster Semenya’s case, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), founded in Sweden and comprised of mostly European members, administered the sex-testing and were responsible for her fate as a track athlete.
Within South African history, there are multiple examples of sex/gender misconduct that are consistently fortified through the concept of race (Munro, 2010: 385). Munro uses historical events, such as the enslavement of Sara Baartman and the sexual threat of black men against white women during apartheid, to explain how South African history has significantly shaped the way that individuals view the sexual identity of African bodies in a global perspective (Munro, 2010: 385). Along with that, the normativity of sex and gender that is constantly produced and circulated within powerful industries such as professional sports, perpetuates the idea that there can’t be any fluidity or gray areas beyond the gender binary. There are not only two categories separating runners based on their assigned sex/assumed genders (strictly constructed around the gender binary), but there are also strict guidelines that runners must fit in order to compete within these already limited boundaries.
In the case of Semenya, her body produced higher levels of testosterone “than other women giv[ing] her an unfair athletic advantage,” (Munro, 2010: 383) which then created controversy regarding whether she should be able to even compete with her peers that were also self-identified women. But the question is: why must we have such strict divisions and guidelines based on “gender” and “sex,” when these concepts are objectively versatile and adjustable to one’s personal experience/body/identity?
Regarding the topic of “sex-testing, Munro uses the works of multiple writers in order to make a crucial argument stating that the notion of “sex” is way too complex to simply obtain clear results from one ambiguous test (Munro, 2010: 388). Anne Fausto-Sterling supports this belief by stating that the problem with sex-testing is that “the more sophisticated polymerase chain reaction to detect small regions of DNA…cannot do the work the IOC wants it to do” (Sterling, 2000 in Munro, 2010: 388). In addition, Alice Dreger proclaims that there is scientifically no “one marker” that can be used in order to test the sex of multiple individuals (Dreger in Munro, 2010: 388). This section of Munro’s article is absolutely pivotal when discussing the violations within Semenya’s case. The fact that “sex-testing” in itself is not an accurate measure of one’s true identity clearly shows that there are other factors—other than her high production of testosterone—that led to the need for proof of Semenya’s genetic makeup; one of them being her status as a black woman.
From tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams to Olympic gymnast Gabby Douglas, there has been a historical pattern of purposefully concentrated adversity placed on black female-identifying athletes. Munro discusses how “legacy of imperialism and slavery” has significantly “shaped the figuration of black women” (Munro, 2010: 390). Munro goes on to explain how the image of black women has been controlled by a “racist gaze,” as they have been continuously hypersexualized, causing their careers to not be taken as seriously (Munro, 2010: 390). Munro uses Michelle Obama, “a black woman hailed as a global icon of conventional femininity and grace,” as an example due to multiple incidents where she was compared to a monkey (Munro, 2010: 390). Janelle Hobson perfectly illustrates the issue with Western society and black women by explaining that there are too many “associations of black female sexuality with animalistic characteristics” through the use of pseudo-scientific studies in the past (Hobson, 2005 in Munro, 2010A: 390). Due to these negative connotations about black women around the world, it is no surprise that Caster Semenya’s race and gender played an important role as a catalyst for her long, arduous trial.
Munro’s article about Caster Semenya’s trial was written in 2010, however, her “sex” and “gender” are still being critiqued to this day by the IAAF. In 2010, I was eleven years old and didn’t even know who Caster Semenya was. However, she came up in the news a few months ago regarding the same issues that I discussed in this essay, which goes to show that this is still a topic up for debate. I believe that the true issue within the IAAF is that they are looking at the individual rather the system as a whole. Caster Semenya is not the problem at all. She can’t help the way her body operates and produces certain hormones. The real problem is that professional sports—along with other industries and corporations—are not only constructed around a gender binary, but that binary consists of a strict definition of who is a true “man” or “woman.”
The IAAF needs to stop wasting their time antagonizing a successful, talented black woman athlete and instead, focus on deconstructing a system that unfairly discriminates against individuals who worked hard for their spot at the top. Honestly, I believe this to be very hard to do just because we have been socialized to believe that “gender” and “sex” have strict definitions and boundaries. In another reading, we learned “how gender is actively policed in producing dominant versions of masculinity and femininity” as young as the pre-school age (Bhana et. al, 2011: 444). This policing of genders causes individuals to inherently see something wrong when someone portrays themselves in a way that steers away from the stereotypical norm of their assumed gender. Caster Semenya was first looked into because of the way she presented herself to the media, in a more masculine form than her peers. In the near future, I hope that we can all use Caster Semenya’s case to further our understanding of the detriments of using the gender binary and living in a heteronormative world.
References:
Bhana, Deevia, et al. “Gender in the Early Years: Boys and Girls in an African Working Class
Primary School.” International Journal of Educational Development, vol. 31, no. 5, 2011, pp. 443–448., doi:10.1016/j.ijedudev.2010.09.001.
Munro, Brenna. “Caster Semenya: Gods and Monsters.” Safundi, vol. 11, no. 4, Oct. 2010, pp. 383–396., doi:10.1080/17533171.2010.511782.