Caster Semenya & Bio Males in Women's Sport

submitted by dandeliondynasty from (self.GenderCritical)

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[–]MarkTwainiac 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

I try not to perceive discrimination in everything but doesn’t it feel weird that a black lesbian’s dignity was so disregarded in >the name of protecting the fairness of women’s sports

It's bad enough that Semenya is being used as a model of "strong black African womanhood," but it's doubly insulting when Semenya is made out to be a representative of black lesbians.

Semenya loves telling of how Semenya's wife, Violet Raseboya, thought Semenya was a male when they first met; to this day, Raseboya apparently does not consider herself a lesbian.

Prior to and during their wedding, Semenya enthusiastically partook of all the traditional male roles in his and Raseboya's tribes' betrothal and marriage customs. Semenya asked Raseboya's male elders for permission to marry Raseboya, and even paid a "bride price" for Raseboya. Raseboya did not reciprocate in doing the same for Semenya.

I follow Semenya closely and try to listen to/read every public statement Semenya makes. Semenya has gotten lots of attention and awards for being a woman, and brags about being a woman all the time, but Semenya's politics are not focused on either women's rights or lesbians rights.

Semenya speaks only about "human rights" - and Semenya's main focus seems to be advancing the "scrotum rights" of males with DSDs - as well as with trans identities - to participate in women's sports and to dicktate to the world that the only thing that makes a person a woman is identifying as one and having identity documents that say "female."

Perhaps I've missed something, but when it comes to lesbian rights and matters pertaining to lesbians and homosexuals more generally, Semenya is silent - and always has been. SA long has had a huge problem with the custom of black men individually and in gangs subjecting "sporty girls" and those perceived to be lesbians or bi to "corrective rape." The constant harassment, discrimination and violence that black lesbians - particularly ones seen as butch, masculine and "mannish" - routinely endure in SA Semenya has been in the headlines for as long as Semenya has been a public figure. To my knowledge Semenya has never uttered a word about this.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/dec/05/south-africa-lesbians-human-rights

[–]ZeWombat 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I follow Semenya closely and try to listen to/read every public statement Semenya makes.

Thank you for your detailed, and easily understood explanations of everything Semenya. I really appreciate you taking the time to address each of the points made by OP.

Has there ever been any real discussion of stripping the medals from Semenya?

[–]MarkTwainiac 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Thank you for the thank you. I feel like a broken record when it comes to Semenya, an individual I really don't wish to pick on. But so much disinformation about Semenya is out there, and it really sticks in my craw when it gets presented on feminist sites as the gospel truth. Aargh.

I keep correcting the record because I think it's really important to the get the truth out due to the shameful way the Semenya saga - and Semenya's legal team and Semenya himself - have been allowed to get away with telling big fat lies for 11 years now in their efforts to destroy female sports as a category with coherent, clear borders.

The lies Semenya and team Semenya have told go far beyond Semenya's own case. People constantly say that Semenya and the incursion of TIMs into female sports are two entirely separate issues, but I think that's a grave error. All the arguments that Semenya and Semenya's legal team have used in Semenya's long legal battle against the IAAF - and in the court of public opinion more generally - are precisely the same arguments TRAs like Ragehell McKinnon, CeCe Telfer and the CT boys use to make the case that any boy or man who claims to "identify as a girl/woman" automatically has a "human right" to participate in female sports.

The TIM editor of Outsports in the USA has even gone so far as to claim that requiring Semenya and any other males - be they DSD males or trans-identified males - to lower their testosterone somewhat in order to compete in female sports as the IAAF, IOC, NCAA and other sports governing bodies currently do is nothing less than new form of "female genital mutilation" meant to oppress, discriminate and penalize "women with testicles." I kid you not.

What's more, I am incandescent with anger about and how Semenya and Semenya's reps have always responded when they been pressed for the truth during the whole fraud: for 11 years now, they've fobbed off questions by pretending to be coy, bashful and demure, taking the position that inquiring about Semenya's physiology is invasive, demeaning, disrespectful, sensationalistic, sexist, misogynistic, racist, prying and very bad manners. They say Semenya's sex is nobody's business but Semenya's, and only "genital fetishists" and racist sexists would be curious about what's really going on.

I also think it's important to speak the truth about Semenya because of the injustice done to all the female runners forced to compete against Semenya since 2009. And because of the way so many adults of all races with eyeballs over the past 11 years have been shamed and castigated as sexist white supremacists with colonial mindsets intent on "policing black women's bodies" simply for recognizing that Semenya is a fucking male! FFS, saying Semenya is typical of what "strong black African women" look like is so insulting to black women from Africa and everywhere else on the planet. All the black women I know regardless of country of origin and residence are outraged by Semenya being held up as a model of "black womanhood" because it insults their intelligence and basic powers of perception as much as it does everyone else's.

Finally, I try to get the facts about Semenya out because it really bugs me that Semenya, a male with a male-only DSD, fully functioning testes and no female reproductive organs, has the audacity to serve as the public face and spokesperson for a South African brand of menstrual cups:

http://www.lionessesofafrica.com/blog/startup-story-of-shamila-ramjawan

https://twitter.com/caster800m/status/829011501012893696

Has there ever been any real discussion of stripping the medals from Semenya?

If you mean from sports governing bodies and officials, not that I know of.

[–]ZeWombat 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

God Damn You!! 🙂 I thought I was pissed off about them claiming that I (a female person post-hysterectomy) am exactly the same as a trans woman. Now you tell me that Semenya is the spokesman for menstrual cups. I'm tempted to respond to the twitter announcement and ask if he can personally recommend the product.

Please don't let yourself feel like a broken record. Semenya is, for many people, the foot wedged in the door for the rest of the TIMs in women's sport. This info needs to get out there. Even among us GC ones, there's still lots of misinformation.