From Divinity to Demonization

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090911/ap_on_sc/us_sci_gender_confusion

So, in the link at the top of this blog entry, Caster Semenya, a South African athlete, was accused of not being female, and tested for XY genes. She also showed no signs of ovaries, and therefore doesn't have periods. She was raised, however, as a girl by her family. So she is a hermaphrodite, named after Hermaphroditus.

In mythology, Hermaphroditus was the son of Hermes and Aphrodite, whom the Naiad Salmacis desired so greatly that she prayed she might become one with him. Although this wish was granted, Hermaphroditus cursed the pool of Salmacis so that any who bathed in it would suffer the same condition. So in this case, it is a curse. A different tradition, however, found in Plato, propose that the human race originally consisted of hermaphrodites and that the desire to be one flesh once more motivated human courtship. According to this line of thought, hermaphrodites reflect the primordial union of man and woman and therefore partake more fully of the Good.

The term "hermaphrodite" has been replaced by newer, "more sensitive", and certainly more transient ones such as "intersex", whose exterior appears as a very mannish female. The only fiction I know of which features intersexuality,Middlesex by Geoffrey Eugenides, does a little to remove the perception of monstrosity, but nonetheless credits the character's condition to the sins of the fathers.

She must be suffering severe psychological trauma from this revelation, and the cruelest blow is this: if she had not competed and won, the testing never would have occurred, and she could have lived her life as a very butch female. Now she's banned from her sport and known to the world as a genetic freak. The reason given for such tests (beyond the obvious physical check) is that male testosterone gives a competitor an advantage, but with the mix of doping, legitimate enhancements, rigorous training, and natural ability in track & field, the successful competitor have already removed themselves from ordinary human beings. I doubt she would be allowed to compete in the men's competition without complaint, yet she is barred from the women's competition; this is a clear case of black-and-white thinking failing to reflect reality. Outside of the world of sports, gender is assigned usually on external features, not genetic tests, and it seems grossly unfair to ruin someone's life in this manner.