Caster Semenya’s coaches and

count

should be at her defence

or

 

Mokagadi Caster Semenya

By Shoshana Berman, Opinions Editor

ast month South African medium
Ls runner, Mokagadi Caster

Semenya broke her previous
record in the 800 metres by seven seconds
and was thrust into the international
spotlight. Semenya is a black 18-year-
old young woman from a small village in
Limpopo province. She attends Pretoria
University for Sports Sciences on an
athletic scholarship. After winning the
800m by smashing her previous record,
the International Association for Athletics
Federation (IAAF) requested that she be
gender tested to assess her eligibility in the
sport as entirely female.

Semenya has a deep voice, facial
hair, broad shoulders, narrow hips, and a
muscular physique that is extreme for a
woman, even in elite sports. It’s easy for
people to make a quick passing judgement
and think there is something unusual about
that. It’s
also easy
for people
who
lost to
be jealous. One would have expected,
however, a more discerning, reasoned and
discrete response from the IAAF, rather
than to make this request at all, far less to
make it public. The IAAF claims they do
not believe there is a question of cheating
per se on her part. No one doubts that
Semenya was raised female by her parents,
living her entire childhood as a girl. Why
then question her gender and eligibility to
compete?

The International Olympic Committee
has not routinely sex-tested female athletes
since 1999, because this was deemed
to be inconclusive. In fact, there is very
little, other than outright masquerading as
female that can get an athlete disqualified
from competition. Transgendered male-to-
female athletes can compete two years after
surgery, if taking feminizing hormones.

As well, the JAAF Policy on Gender
Verification 2006 guarantees eligibility for
women with various masculinising medical
conditions.

After a battery of physical,
psychological, genetic, hormonal and other
tests, Semenya’s status as “entirely female”
will now be evaluated. Since no one has
had a medal removed that wasn’t reinstated

“Is there anything worse than questioning a
woman ’s identity as female?”

since sex testing stopped, and basically

any masculinising medical condition still
qualifies her to compete, what would be the
point of defining her gender in this case?

Is there anything worse than
questioning a woman’s identity as female?
I can’t personally imagine a much more
violating situation than to be probed,
screened, examined, and questioned by a
battery of physicians. Then to be assessed
by another committee of mostly men,
whose judgement is then made public to the
world media questioning my womanhood.
These questions would be completely
demoralizing.

Weeks before the World
Championships, Semenya’s level of
testosterone tested three times higher than
normal for a female. The head coach of the
South African track team is Ekhart Arbeit,
the former East German coach found to
have extensively used steroids on his female
track athletes in the 1980s, including the
female-to-male
transgendered
shot putter Heidi
Krieger. Krieger
maintains that
Arbeit shot him so full of steroids, he
basically became a man and had no choice
but to change genders.

How much power does a young black
woman from a village in South Africa, at
university on an athletic scholarship have to
refuse her coach, if/when he injects her with
something to improve her performance,
defend herself from questions of her gender
internationally, and stand up to international
governing bodies of sport? Why aren’t her
head coach and his history of doping the
main focus of this inquiry instead of her
gender?

This is why we have to consider the
athlete’s race and class, as well as the
status of dominant nations at the IOC and
IAAF as a factor. The IAAF has shown
no consideration for the consequences of
their public accusation against this young
person. They have allowed the 18-year-old
Mokagadi Caster Semenya to bear the brunt
of the consequences for her federation’s
lack of clout and preparedness, her head
coach’s history of pushing steroids, as
well as their own gross indiscretion and
unwillingness to examine doping in their
sport.

 

    
 

ms

-PINIO

Homeless not helpless members of our community

By Shoshana Berman, Opinions Editor

wo incidents that occurred last
[ieee in Surrey and Vancouver

illustrate the complex issue of
how homeless people are regarded in our
communities.

In Surrey, at the encouragement of
local business owners, city staff and the
local by-law police thought it wise to place
chicken manure adjacent to a homeless
drop-in centre and 24-hour shelter to curb
loitering in the area. While in Vancouver,
Curtis Brick, a homeless man, died in
hospital after lying in the sun for several
hours on one of the hottest days ever in
Grandview Park on Commercial Drive.

To consider chicken manure as a
solution to curb loitering is only possible
if these city staff and business people
considered

unconcerned with this man’s plight.

In the first instance, the homeless were
treated with disdain, as less than human,
less deserving of rights. In the other case,

I also believe the protesters were treating
the homeless as less deserving of civil
rights, less able to have autonomy and self
determination.

You may ask, “How can fighting for
better treatment of the homeless be taking
away their rights?” I suppose it all depends
on how you qualify “better treatment.”

In Mr. Brick’s case, when the man was in
distress, people responded. He was taken
to hospital and treated. In the park there
had been water and shade readily available.
There’s an old adage about leading a horse
to water. We cannot and should not force
the homeless to drink or go into the shade.
Neither should we disturb them when they
are sleeping

the indigent —_ “gw can fighting for better treatment of the ‘8% tempt
members ° 9” to do so.

of their homeless be taking away their rights? I
community believe the
as less than homeless

human, less deserving of the same social
freedoms and basic common courtesy than
the rest of us.

In the other incident, Mr. Brick was
found convulsing after lying in the sun for
at least six hours and possibly drinking
Lysol. There was shade, a drinking

fountain, sprinklers and a washroom nearby.

When he was seen convulsing, two people
came to his aid. He was then taken to
hospital, by ambulance, where he later died.
Several groups of people were incensed

at his death and considered it inhumane
treatment of the homeless. They helda
protest march demanding better treatment
of the homeless people seen daily in our
communities, citing families nearby and
those drinking lattes as being monstrously

should be treated with the same respect

as anyone else. They have a right to be on
public streets and to access public services
without harassment; but they also have the
right to sleep unmolested in the sun. When
was the last time anyone woke people up
lying on the beach to make them drink
water and get into the shade? The homeless
are not children. They should not be
infantilized by well meaning activists, nor
should they be treated with scorn.

Indigent members of our community
should be treated kindly, with respect but
be allowed to make their own choices about
how to live their lives, and which public
services they wish to access.

The protest for Curtis Brick

 

Core

~

N