(The following article is from the December 1-31, 2009, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)

By Johan Boyden

Caster Semenya, South African runner, will be able to keep her gold medal and prize money, the South African department of sport has announced. At the world athletics championships last August in Berlin, Semenya won gold in the women's 800 meter race by an impressive margin - almost two and a half seconds - finishing in 1:55:45.

     A fraction of time; a volume of media scrutiny - aimed not just at her, but all black women, all people who do not quite fit dominant social gender categories.

     Even before her victory, the attack had begun. Focusing on the young athlete's appearance, various commentators somehow diagnosed Semenya offensively as an "hermaphrodite" (the incorrect term for intersex). This gossip was enough for the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) to launch an investigation into her gender.

     That IAAF public decision has dragged Castor Semenya's name through the dirt. As the corporate media types volumes on her what her genitalia may look like, it is difficult to imagine the impact on the shy 18-year old runner, and all those whose gender is similarly ambiguous.

     In South Africa the response has been outrage. "[T]he purpose of these `gender-tests' are simply to undermine her outstanding performance and ability to achieve beyond the benchmark set for female athletes," Gugu Ndima, spokesperson for the Young Communist League of South Africa told People's Voice in an email. The YCL South Africa called the IAAF decision an "affirmation of the Eurocentric stereotypes about African women in general," and demanded a public apology.

     "There are stereotypes about what is deemed to be feminine", Ndima added; "we strongly condemn people that infiltrate such stereotypes."

     Semenya's story has provoked widespread debate about gender. As one transgendered activist wrote at Rebel Youth magazine's blog, "this isn't an issue of her biological sex _ that is easy to tell and any steroid test would give away the testosterone. The worry is the way she presents - i.e., short-hair, muscular, athletic, natural eyebrows." Why?

     After all, she isn't the only butch female runner nor the first person have to deal with IAAF's archaic sex tests. Androgen insensitivity syndrome (AIS), for example, means a woman can have male chromosomes - without any athletic advantage. The woman might not know, like Indian 800m runner Santhi Soundarajan, stripped of her silver medal after a very public gender test "failure" due to AIS at the 2006 Asian games.

     Perhaps we could say all solid gender binaries melt into air as little more than comforting illusions; we are compelled to face our real conditions of life, including the dignity of a person to choose their own gender identity.

     As to Semenya herself, her life has changed tremendously.  "It's not so easy. The university is OK but there is not many other places I can go. People want to stare at me now. They want to touch me. I'm supposed to be famous but I don't think I like it so much," Semenya told the Guardian newspaper recently. She is quoted in New Yorker magazine saying "It sucks when I was running and they were writing those things... Now I just have to walk away. That's all I can do."

     South African youth are also walking away from this degrading episode. Semenya is now a hero among South African young athletes. She came from an impoverished rural village, her track team often training without shoes. "The most practical support [for Semenya] is to ensure that we build sporting facilities... Why are there more shebeens (bars) than sports grounds in our townships?" YCL-SA's National Secretary, Buti Manamela, recently said.

     This sentiment echoes in Canada. How many sports facilities are in Aboriginal communities?

     Semenya's partial victory - she is still waiting to hear if she can keep competing as a woman - also came around the same time as the Trans Day of Remembrance, memorializing trans people killed by gender violence. According to the British Trades Union Congress, by June of this year over eighty official cases had been reported of transgender people murdered world-wide for no other reason than they were different.

     So Semenya is running forward for many people. Irregardless of her test results (which will remain confidential) she is also running forward for the trans and intersex community. She is also running for all those who cherish democracy and dignity. Her race is another step in the long struggle for full equality.