ASA Chief Suspended Over Semenya Gender Row

You'll recall the story of Caster Semenya, world women's 800m champion from South Africa. She has both male and female organs, thus being a hermaphrodite. Today, the president of Athletics South Africa (ASA) has been suspended for lying about his involvement in the case.

In fact, South Africa's Olympic governing body, Sascoc, disciplined the entire board, and particularly Leonard Chuene, ASA chief.

Revelations came on Sept. 19th when, after weeks of denials, Chuene admitted at a press conference that he was fully aware there were questions over Semenya's gender.
He also admitted that he knew gender testing had been performed on Semenya on August 7th in Pretoria, which was a week before Semenya won gold in Berlin. Finally, he admitted that he was advised by team doctor Harold Adams to withdraw her from the 800m final.

Chuene later said he lied about his knowledge of the tests to protect Semenya's privacy.

The ASA issued a press release officially apologizing to Caster Semenya and her family:

"Athletics South Africa (ASA) has taken note of the African National Congress Caster Semenya Support Task Team media statement issued on 16 October relating to Caster Semenya and the gender verification tests conducted on her.

"ASA appreciates the ANC's position on this matter, fully welcomes and accepts without any reservations the findings and recommendations of the task team.

"Consequently, Athletics South Africa wishes to publicly and unconditionally apologise to Caster Semenya and her family, the President of South Africa as well as to all South Africans for the handling of her gender verification processes and the subsequent aftermath."

Caster Semenya, Women's 800m World Championship, Has Both Male, Female Organs

To be honest, this does not surprise me at all, based on both Caster Semenya's appearance and her publicized deep voice. It turns out, after testing, that Caster Semenya, world women's 800m champion from South Africa, has both male and female organs.

Indeed, this means that Caster Semenya is technically a hermaphrodite. This fact poses both an ethical and political quandary for track and field's ruling body, the IAAF.

In biological context, a hermaphrodite is an organism that has both male and female reproductive organs. Sequential hermaphrodites occur in species in which the individual is born as one sex but can later change into the alternate sex. Simultaneous hermaphrodites may possess fully functional male and female organs.

In Caster Semenya's case, reports indicate she has no womb or ovaries, but rather has internal male testes, which are producing large amounts of testosterone. This would explain her musculature and physique. It also gives her an unfair advantage in track and field.

This will raise huge questions. Would suspending her be right? She didn't do this intentionally. On the other hand, the levels of testosterone in her body means Caster Semenya has a huge advantage over other women. I don't expect this to be settled soon.