Ending gender apartheid in sport

By Khaled Diab

The case of Caster Semenya is not about . Rather, it has highlighted the need to end in .

 26 August 2009

The jubilant reception and heroine’s welcome Caster Seminya received upon her return to South might provide the unfortunate athlete with some consolation following her humiliating submission to a “gender verification” test following her 800 metres gold medal win at the World Championships in Berlin. 

Personally, I don’t think Semenya’s gender is in question, as she was clearly raised as a woman. If anything is in doubt, it is her . I can imagine how difficult it must’ve been for her growing up looking so manly, and the amount of teasing and mockery she may have been exposed. In their bid to rally around her, South Africans made a point of emphasising her gender, calling her our “golden girl” and “Caster, you beaut”. 

Based on tests that revealed that Semenya had three times the amount of in her body as would normally be expected in a female sample, there are unsubstantiated rumours that she has been taking high dosages of steroids, which could explain her appearance. 

Dubbed “our first lady of sport” by the South African media, her case soon became embroiled with the country’s post-Apartheid . Drawing on the legacy of the struggle against Apartheid, Winnie Madikizela, Nelson Mandela’s former wife, said: “We’ve had difficult situations in the history of this country. Don’t touch us… because if you dare, we will do it again if those who want to challenge us continue to insult us using our own people.” 

But, in this instance, accusations of racism are unfair, as plenty of white athletes have been made to take sex tests in the past, and track events are dominated by black people. Internationally, the segregation we need to be fighting in sport is gender apartheid. 

Big, powerful women like Semenya have, like men, an unfair physical advantage in women’s events, but what is often overlooked is that petit, slender men have an unfair disadvantage in men’s sport. The solution could be to mix the sexes and introduce some new criteria, such as weight or height, to even out the playing field. Moreover, in some team sports, where physical size is less of an issue, why not introduce mixed teams? 

The main justification for separating the sexes in sport is that men’s larger and stronger bodies give them an unfair advantage. However, it is also a hangover from a bygone age when sports were for men, and the only way for women to get in was to demand their own events. It’s time to rethink our antiquated attitudes to sport. 

 

Author

  • Khaled Diab is an award-winning journalist, blogger and writer who has been based in Tunis, Jerusalem, Brussels, Geneva and Cairo. Khaled also gives talks and is regularly interviewed by the print and audiovisual media. Khaled Diab is the author of two books: Islam for the Politically Incorrect (2017) and Intimate Enemies: Living with Israelis and Palestinians in the Holy Land (2014). In 2014, the Anna Lindh Foundation awarded Khaled its Mediterranean Journalist Award in the press category. This website, The Chronikler, won the 2012 Best of the Blogs (BOBs) for the best English-language blog. Khaled was longlisted for the Orwell journalism prize in 2020. In addition, Khaled works as communications director for an environmental NGO based in Brussels. He has also worked as a communications consultant to intergovernmental organisations, such as the EU and the UN, as well as civil society. Khaled lives with his beautiful and brilliant wife, Katleen, who works in humanitarian aid. The foursome is completed by Iskander, their smart, creative and artistic son, and Sky, their mischievous and footballing cat. Egyptian by birth, Khaled’s life has been divided between the Middle East and Europe. He grew up in Egypt and the UK, and has lived in Belgium, on and off, since 2001. He holds dual Egyptian-Belgian nationality.

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