Caster Semenya (left) has, unwittingly, opened a can of worms. The young woman should by rights, be feeling flush with  victory and pride since winning gold in the 800 metres in Berlin at the World Championships, and training hard for her next big meet when she’ll be the one to beat. The Olympics is just around the corner too, so she should be working hard and concentrating on the big prize.

Unfortunately, due to the negligence and ignorance of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), the issue of gender has never been properly addressed. As mirrored in sociey; why consider gender, sure we’ve all got either pink or blue booties? Only sometimes we have both/none.

Caster returned to Johannesberg to a heroine’s welcome from jubilant South Africans, as well she should. However, this was news. The media seemed to have no idea how to cover Caster’s story. They usually have a closed-minded “is she a goodie or a baddie” attitude when it comes to reporting. Caster looked like she could’ve been a baddie – a man competing in women’s athletics. When it came to pass that she is not only female but exhibited all of the traits the press love in a woman and a heroine; shy, warm, tough background. What to do? The press looked to South Africa. If they accepted her, it seemed, the press would.

In the weeks since her win, the press have been pretty good to her. Ok, they’ve kept the spotlight on her gender and not her ability but at least they haven’t been as bad as the IAAF.

The South African arm of the body, Athletics South Africa, made her undergo the test before the World Championships without telling her what she would be tested for.  “The worst part was that she thought she was going for doping tests … she was in no way prepared for what happened,” Caster’s ex-coach Wilfred Daniels has said.

In this case, there is no evidence or even suggestion of cheating, however, the international body conducted tests to see what gender Caster is. The results were leaked by The Sydney Daily Telegraph claiming that the tests prove she has no womb or ovaries, but internal male testes which are producing extraordinary amounts of testosterone.

First of all, who has the right to check a person’s gender? Gender is about much, much more than genitalia. Secondly, how dare The Sydney Daily Telegraph leak this information before Caster, herself, had been informed.

She is a person. She may have no womb, no ovaries and a lot of testosterone but she is still a woman. All of these things may hand her a genetic predisposition to excel on the track but we don’t point fingers at Michael Phelps.

Phelps is the perfect swimming machine. His arms span 6 feet 7 inches and are disproportionate to his height of 6 feet 4 inches. His legs are relatively short for a man of his height and offer lower drag, “his size 14 feet provide the effect of flippers; and his hypermobile ankles he can extend beyond the pointe of a ballet dancer, enabling him to whip his feet as if they were fins for maximum thrust through the water,” according to Wikipedia. Is he being tested for fish genes? No, he is being lauded as the greatest swimmer who ever graced the water.

Gender is a sensitive issue and Caster a sensitive person. Word is that she has gone into seclusion following all of the brouhaha. It has to have ruined what should have been her greatest moment so far. Before her move into the closed training camps of South Africa, she was on the cover of a national magazine (right). Apparently, this proves she’s a woman. It’s all about make-up, hair and a nice gúna. Welcome to the Victorian age.

There are many worries in all of this: the larger question of gender; how it is “assessed” as percieved and the woman at the centre of it all. She is already becoming dangerously close to a joke in her home. Recently, Teazers lapdancing club had to pay her 20,000 Rand for using her picture in an ad with the tagline “No need for gender testing“.

I just hope that this gender-question doesn’t dog Caster for the rest of her career. In the Olympics she should be introduced as world champion, and only that.

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