South African teenager Caster Semenya Runner's Gender in Question

When I first heard of this story I didn't really think anything of it, mainly because it was women's track. The only time this is mainstream is when it's an Olympic year or Marion Jones is going to jail. But the more I hear about this the more it made me think. What has the Sports World come to?




When did we get to the point where we have to question a person's gender when they succeed. Yes, Caster Semenya is a little masculine...when you compare her to you or me, but compare her to the rest of her field. Almost all female track stars appear a little masculine. They are one of the most in shape athletes in the world. They are going to have more muscle than the average woman.

Now a days we turn to Performance Enhancing Drugs when an athlete dominates. So when Barry Bonds passed Mark McGuire's single-season then Hank Aaron's career home run records we questioned how he did it (turned out we were right), when Lance Armstrong won his 7th Tour De France he was questioned, when Michael Phelps won 8 Gold Medals there was talk of Steroids.

Caster Semenya, 18 years old, kills the field in the 400-meter so we should question her about steroids right? Nope she's not even a woman, we say. Accusing someone about taking drugs is hard enough to deal with, but now the world is questioning your gender. How does an 18-year old deal with that?

Listen, when this is said and done she might be a he and it should be dealt with accordingly, Barry Bonds turned out to be enhanced and so did McGuire, but you don't heard anything about Usain Bolt and his record breaking performances. Lets wait and see on this one for the sake a young woman.

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