Olympics, Part X: A matter of human rights?

One of the dumbest articles ever in favor of allowing intersex athletes to compete as woman just appeared on Yahoo: Caster Semenya delivers poignant message while savoring gold medal. It was full of cliches about dignity and inclusiveness, all meant to obscure the real issue.

The relevant excerpts (with my comments in parentheses): 

RIO DE JANEIRO – After she won an Olympic gold medal Saturday night, Caster Semenya was compared to Nelson Mandela. Semenya smirked at the reporter who did so. Mandela is one of the great men in modern history. Semenya is an 800-meter runner who Saturday won an Olympic gold medal. Beyond their South African roots, they share something else: a fight for what’s fair and what’s right and what a better world might look like.

(See? Semenya is another Mandela.)

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• EmailRIO DE JANEIRO – After she won an Olympic gold medal Saturday night, Caster Semenya was compared to Nelson Mandela. Semenya smirked at the reporter who did so. Mandela is one of the great men in modern history. Semenya is an 800-meter runner who Saturday won an Olympic gold medal. Beyond their South African roots, they share something else: a fight for what’s fair and what’s right and what a better world might look like.

Madiba, as South Africa fondly refers to Mandela, fought for racial equality. Semenya, still today, is fighting for sports to end their warfare on human biology that she has fought for seven years.

(Is "warfare on human biology" an accurate characterization of what "sports" are conducting?)

“Sports is meant to unite people, like Madiba said,” Semenya said. “I think that’s what we need to keep doing. It’s just fantastic. I think I make a difference. I mean a lot to my people. I’ve done well. They’re proud of me. That was the main focus. Doing it for my people and the people who support me.”

(Certainly no one can argue with any of those statements; the problem is, none of them address the issue that intersex competitors raise.)

Those people stuck by a woman whose career sent her into the jaws of stigmatization, questions of her gender, leaked results of the disgraceful sex testing she underwent. She reportedly has been forced to take drugs that changed who she has been since she was born because the ever-shifting definition of womanhood in international sports happened to settle on something that deemed her physiologically unfair.

And after all that, listen to what Caster Semenya thinks of the world, one that so often sought to bring her down.

(The world didn't seek to "bring her down," only to see if she was female, since she wanted to compete as a female. Though it does sound as if she barely escaped being eaten by the "jaws of stigmatization.")

“It’s all about loving one another,” she said. “It’s not about discriminating against people. It’s not about looking at people how they look, how they speak, how they run. It’s not about being masculine. It’s not about sports. When you walk out of your apartment, you think about performing. You do not think about how your opponent looks like. You just want to do better. So I think the advice to everybody is just go out there and have fun.”

(Again, cliches about loving one another and wanting to do better and having fun -- all of which are inarguable -- don't really address the issue at hand.)

Semenya had plenty of fun Saturday. She laid waste to the field in the women’s 800-meter race at the Rio Games. Some competitors argued she shouldn’t be allowed to compete because of hyperandrogenism, which means Semenya’s body produces an excessive amount of testosterone. Then she ran the race in 1 minute, 55.28 seconds, beat all seven opponents by at least a second and flexed as she crossed the finish line before breaking into a LeBron James-style Silencer.

(If I were Semenya's agent, I'd advise her against striking that arms flexed pose after her victories.)

Which is about right for all she has endured from the people who have called her a man and said she should not be allowed to compete in the Olympics because of a natural advantage. Not only is this argument morally repugnant and ethically flimsy, it runs in direct contrast to the charter that governs the Olympic Movement and makes clear that the rights of an athlete are beyond reproach.

(It always helps to paint a viewpoint you oppose as "morally repugnant and ethically flimsy." But if the rights of an athlete are "beyond reproach," why castigate dopers?)

The Olympic Charter was written to protect athletes like Caster Semenya. It outlines the seven central tenets of what the Olympics are supposed to mean. One in particular speaks specifically to Semenya, whose blessing and curse was to be born with a different anatomy than most.

On Page 12 of the Olympic Charter, principle No. 4 reads: “The practice of sport is a human right.”

(Do separate men's and women's competitions infringe on human rights?)

Here’s the reality: Caster Semenya doesn’t look like what a cisgendered society expects of a woman. Her hair is tightly braided to her head. Her breasts are small. Her muscles ripple. Her voice is deep. Her partner is a woman. Rather than the sports-bra-and-short-shorts uniform her competitors in the 800 wore, she prefers a full-body suit like the one used by male track runners....

(Again, that's not the issue: small-breasted, muscular lesbians with braided hair are welcome to compete as women at the Olympics. In fact, a substantial percentage of the female competitors can be described by one or more of those phrases. But having internal testes rather than ovaries is a different matter.)

Complicated though this issue may be, the fearmongering is reminiscent of all baseless propaganda perpetuated by frightened, exclusionary, ignorant people. Nobody wants men to compete in women’s sports. This is not opening the door for that.... 

(Get it? If you oppose allowing Semenya to compete against women, you're "frightened, exclusionary, and ignorant." You don't want to be those things, do you? Then get with the program!!)

Neither of these cases applies to Semenya. She is a woman, indubitably so, and because the IAAF has determined to view womanhood through the lens of a hormone more prevalent in men does not make her any less so and should not make her any less capable of competing against those with whom she shares a gender. Competitors who want to complain about it should take up the issue with their parents. Just like Semenya, that’s where they got their DNA and all other biological components.

("Indubitably?" Why? Because you say so? And the issue is not that she is "less capable" because of her condition, it's that she's more capable. But yeah, if you don't like it, go complain to your parents. Good suggestion. "Hey Mom and Dad, why couldn't you make me like Caster? I feel left out -- I wanna be a hermaphrodite too!")

Another piece of the Olympic Charter applies directly to Semenya. The second principle says: “The goal of Olympism is to place sport at the service of the harmonious development of humankind, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity...” 

(Again, useless platitudes that do nothing to address the question at hand.)

All Caster Semenya ever wanted was to run like she was born to, and CAS allowed her that. Once she got that, Semenya wanted the world to grow, to understand who she is, understand that she deserves, like everyone else, her dignity and the chance to compete. To unite people, as they should be.

(That's the real problem here: not that Semenya has an unfair advantage, but that the world has to grow.) 

It can't be emphasized enough, Semenya is not a cheater like those who take PEDs; she was simply born the way she is. But that doesn't settle the issue, which is, as long as you're going to have separate competitions for women and men, then you have to be clear about exactly how "female" is defined. Anybody born with a vagina, but with internal testes instead of ovaries, occupies a gray area in that regard. 

There's no easy solution. It's not fair for women to have to compete against the intersexed, but it's also not fair to demand the intersexed compete against men. It's certainly not the cut and dried, clearcut issue this simple-minded Yahoo article presents it as. And however this issue finally gets resolved, it's not going to be because one side occupied the moral high ground, as Yahoo would have it. 

If he were around today, Samuel Johnson would say that political correctness is the last bastion of the scoundrel.