Paper Presentation VII:
The Gendered Body
Sunday, April 11, 10.00–11.30

Adrianne Blue
Department of Journalism, City University, UK

The controversial, multi-disciplinary and very public gender testing in 2009 of the runner Caster Semenya following her gold medal at the World Championships in Berlin has not only raised the issue of the abuse of Semenya’s human rights, it has revealed a confusion on the part of the IAAF, the sport’s governing body, as to how they define a woman for the purposes of sport. The morphing of the discredited, once mandatory sex testing of all elite sports women  (but not men) into gender testing only in special cases, i.e., Castor Semenya's, seems to muddle the concepts of sex and gender.  The multi-disciplinary nature of the test may also be a response to overlaps and confusions in the medical sciences.  Although the “fact” that Semenya is intersex, allegedly leaked to an Australian newspaper, has been reported by the media globally, the governing body of athletics has decided not to reveal its determination of her gender.  As the barn door has long since been left open, there is reason to doubt the IAAF’s professed reason for silence, that of benefitting Semenya by keeping  sensitive medical information  private.  Allowing her to  keep her gold medal will protect the IAAF from possible legal repercussions.  Having admitted to errors in the early conduct of this case, the IA­­AF has embarked on a year-long study of the wider question of what defines a woman for the purposes of sport but it has shown an insensitivity into the effect of its equivocation on Semenya, social and professional status.