Remember Caster Semenya, the mannish-looking South African sprinter who caused a controversy that led to her being gender tested after winning the 800 m gold at the World Athletic Championships? Well, the test results are IN!
The good news is that Caster IS a woman; the bad news is that she is ALSO a dude. According to the results, Semenya doesn’t have a womb or ovaries but does have internal testes. With the revelations that she is a hermaphrodite, track officials are unsure of their next step, do these tests mean she should be stripped of her medals? Does this change nothing?
According to a source at the IAAF, who ordered the tests in the first place:
Everything is going to have to be done absolutely by the book, no question of a challenge to our findings. There’s all sorts of scans you do. This is why it’s complicated. In the past you used to do a gynaecological exam, blood test, chromosome test, whatever. That’s why the findings were challenged, because it’s not quite so simple. So what they do now is they do everything, and then they can say look, not only has she got this, she’s got that and the other. The problem for us is to avoid it being an issue now which is very personal: of the organs being a hermaphrodite, of not being a ‘real’ woman. It’s very dramatic.
Despite having higher hormone levels than normal, Semenya is still within the official limits for a woman. As well, her birth certificate and her family both claim her as woman.
This whole experience has ruined at least one thing for me, I used to think sex tests sounded like FUN, now I’m disillusioned.
[The Sun]
The Slanch Report 
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