What makes you think South African sprinter Caster Semenya is not a woman?

The South African Runner Who's Too Fast to Be a Real Woman

South African sprinter Caster Semenya had to go through complicated tests to prove she's actually a woman, just because she is not actually a woman!

Tests conducted during the world athletics championships in Berlin last month, where Semenya's gender became the subject of heated debate following her victory in the 800m, revealed evidence she is a hermaphrodite, someone with both male and female sexual characteristics.

Okay, so they found that Caster Semenya, one of the best female sprinters in the world:

1. Has no womb.
2. Has no ovaries.
3. Has "internal testes."
4. Has three times the testosterone of a normal woman.

Embattled running sensation Caster Semenya dropped out of a race Saturday following a newspaper report that claims she's a hermaphrodite.

"We have decided that Caster will not run [Saturday]," her coach, Michael Seme, said Friday, adding that the 18-year-old was "not feeling well."

An article in the Sydney Daily Telegraph and Sydney Morning Herald cited an unnamed source and claimed the champion runner has both male and female sex organs.

The International Association of Athletics Federation, which ordered a gender test after she won the women's 800 meters at the world championships last month in Berlin, would not confirm or deny the newspaper report Friday.

The IAAF said it will continue to review test results and release the findings in November.

The newspaper report sparked outrage from the South African's family and her supporters, who said they won't allow Semenya to be banned from international competition.

"We will go to the highest levels of contesting such a decision," said South Africa's sports minister, Makhenkesi Stofile. "I think it would be the Third World War.

"We think her human rights have been violated and her privacy invaded," Stofile said. "I don't know why she is being subjected to this."

"I've raised her as young girl and I have no doubt that she is a girl," said Semenya's grandmother, Maphuthi Sekgale. "As the family, we don't care who is saying what. We will always support her athletic talent."

Semenya won the World Championship 800-meter race in Berlin on Aug. 19 by 2.45 seconds in a world-record time of 1 minute, 55.45 seconds. Her deep voice and dramatic improvement in speed and muscle sparked speculation about her gender.
Now it's only a matter of time before everyone starts demanding to see her genitalia, too.

“I am who I am and I’m proud of myself.”
Ms Semenya..says she is not bothered by the negative publicity following her gold medal at the Berlin World Championships last month.
“I see it all as a joke, it doesn’t upset me. God made me the way I am and I accept myself,” she said.




UPDATE: 19 Nov 2009


South African runner Caster Semenya will be allowed to keep the gold medal she won in the women's 800-meters at the World Athletics Championships in Berlin, Germany, in August, the country's sports ministry announced Thursday.

In a statement on their official Web site the ministry added that Semenya had been found innocent of any wrongdoing but the widely anticipated results of gender tests conducted would not be made public.

"We have agreed with the IAAF that whatever scientific tests were conducted legally within the IAAF regulations will be treated as a confidential matter between patient and doctor," the statement read.

"As such there will be no public announcement of what the panel of scientists has found. We urge all South Africans and other people to respect this professional ethical and moral way of doing things."

The world governing body for athletics, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), have refused to comment on the announcement, only reiterating a statement published on their official Web site on Wednesday that the release of their gender-test findings would be delayed until "further notice."