The South African middle-distance runner Caster Semenya married to her long-term partner Violet Raseboya in October 2016. The athlete seemed to be really happy in the photos. She was dressed as the groom and that brought to the fore the rumours about the gender of the athlete.
The controversy began in 2009, when Caster Semenya won the 800-m. World Championship in Berlin. Shortly after the victory, there were lots of questions whether the athlete was women or a man. The results of the sex verification test, Semenya did, weren’t published. However, the experts said that Caster Semenya had levels of testosterone three times over the normal and the athlete was described to have an intersex trait.
To continue with, Caster Semenya was allowed to appear in The 2012 Olympic Games in London, but she only managed to win the silver medal. The condition she had to follow, in order to take part in the competitions, was to take a medicine for suppression of the testosterone. Then, in 2016 the athlete finally won the golden medal at The Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. However, the discussion about the gender of the athlete is never ending. There were lots of angry participants, who were opposing the suspension of the “testosterone rule” in 2015, which allowed Semenya to stop taking the medicine. Two of the runners said that they don’t think Caster Semenya is a woman and added that their final position is not real, because they should be one position ahead.
At both ends, I don’t think the athlete cares a lot of the never ending rumours. She seems to be very happy with her wife and will surely keep winning competitions! But I think the attitude to the South African athlete is completely wrong. For example, do you think it’s right the approach from 1966, when 3 different commissions have seen the athletes naked in order to make sure about their genders.