Report: Running Champ a 'Hermaphrodite'

(CBS/AP)  A test has confirmed that South African teenage running champion Caster Semenya is a hermaphrodite - having both male and female organs, according to the New York Daily News and other media outlets.

The 18-year-old South African champ has no womb or ovaries and her testosterone levels are more than three times higher than those of a normal female, according to reports.

Semenya has been dogged by questions about her gender since easily winning the 800-meter gold medal last month in Berlin at the world championships.

Semenya could be stripped of the gold medal she won and her competitive future is in limbo, according to Australia's Daily Telegraph.

Her dominating run came on the same day track and field's ruling body said she was undergoing a gender test because of concerns she did not meet requirements to compete as a woman.

In the race, Semenya took the lead at the halfway mark and opened a commanding lead in the last 400 meters to win by a massive 2.45 seconds in a world-leading 1 minute, 55.45 seconds. Defending champion Janeth Jepkosgei was second and Jennifer Meadows of Britain was third in 1:57.93.

A gender test was ordered, officials say, not because Semenya was suspected of cheating by having had a sex change operation, reports CBS News correspondent Mark Phillips, but to determine whether she has what's being called "a medical condition."

"I don't know who said it... I don't give a damn about it," Semenya told a television crew after the race in August.

Her dramatic improvement in times, muscular build and deep voice sparked speculation about her gender. Ideally, any dispute surrounding an athlete is dealt with before a major competition. But Semenya's stunning rise from unknown teenage runner to the favorite in the 800 happened almost overnight.

[Blank90]

DSD?s are basically disorders that affect your sexual development. I will be discussing turner and Klienfelters syndrome. I will talk about these because they are some of the main DSD?s. Turner?s syndrome only affects the girls. The symptoms for turners are swollen feet and hands when you are young, some symptoms of when you are going thru puberty a flat chest shaped like a shield, no periods, vaginal dryness, etc.. The cause of this is that the girl is born with only 1 X chromosome, or has two of them and one is incomplete, there is also a possibility that you can have one cell that has two x chromosomes and the rest only have one. Turner syndrome occurs in about 1 out of 2,000 live births. Possible treatments are growing hormones that help the girl get taller. Estrogen therapy is also used to help the girls grow breast, pubic hair, etc. this treatment is usually preformed when a girl is twelve or thirteen years old. If the girl wants to get pregnant they have to rely on a donor egg. Klienfelters syndrome affects both boys and girls. The causes of Klienfelters syndrome are that males have an extra x chromosome and they sex chromosomes are written as (XXY). One out of five hundred males are born with Klienfelters and if a woman has kids when they are over thirty five years old and with the syndrome they have a higher chance of their off spring carrying the syndrome. Some symptoms are tall height, small *****, small firm testicles, sexual problems, and little amount of pubic hair. Possible treatments grow body hair, increase strength, improve concentration, improve muscular appearance and finally increase energy and sex drive. Gender Identity disorder is a disorder that a person can say he is a boy but talks and acts like a girl. Some symptoms for children are growing up thinking that they are the opposite sex. Symptoms for adults are them dressing like the opposite sex. The cause of this is that the person with the disease claims to be of the opposite sex. Some treatment for this is therapy for little kids on why they think they are of the opposite sex and for adult?s couple therapy where they decide who they want to be in a relationship with either boy or girls. Down Syndrome is a syndrome that a person has 47 chromosomes instead of 46 like a regular person. Some symptoms are small ears, small mouth, and upward slanting eyes theses symptoms can be found only at birth. The cause of this is when there is an extras copy of chromosomes 21. The extra chromosomes cause?s problems with the way the body and brain develops. There is no treatment for down syndrome the only thing that they can do Is surgery on the person?s body. In conclusion theses are some disorders that you can use to detect if a person is intersex or not

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In the 1950s, a team of medical specialists at Johns Hopkins University developed ?optimum gender of rearing? system for treating children with intersex. The notion was that all you had to do in cases of intersex was to get the gender assignment settled early, so kids could grow up to be good (believable and straight) boys and girls. Under the leadership of psychologist John Money, the Hopkins team believed that gender was all about nurture?that you could make any child which was intersex into a ?real? girl or boy if you made their bodies look right early, and made them and their parents believe the gender assignment. Though the Hopkins team wrote early on that children should be told the truth about their intersex histories when the person is old enough to learn and understand what went on when he or she was young. Medical textbooks gave doctors advice on how to lie to patients with intersex. As the Hopkins model spread throughout the developed world, surgeons performed cosmetic genital surgeries on intersex children without them knowing, believing this was necessary and efficacious. Endocrinologists, meanwhile, manipulated patients? hormones to try to get the bodies of patients to do what they thought was necessary not just for physical health, but for psycho-social health (i.e., getting the body to look sexually ?normal?). People deal with this socially by the parents telling their off-springs that had or were intersex about what was wrong with them when they were young. They usually did this when the person was old and mature enough to understand the problem. They also deal with it by keeping it low key meaning secretly between each other only the doctor and parents knew. The medical trends are the same that have been done many.
What it means to be genderized is separation of sex. Genderized is the gender of a person either male or female. The separation of genders like male or females when doing something or the way they look.
The parts of our society that are genderized is the bathrooms as males have their own and females have their own. The clothes someone wears such a females with skirts, blouses, high heels, bows for their hair while males wear jeans, shorts, ties, t-shirts. Sports are also genderalized because there are women leagues and male leagues. Locker rooms are also genderalized because female and males have their own to dress up in. Females give birth while males do not give birth. Also other things that are genderized are relation ships since mostly people with intersex will not know who to date.
Well intersexed people will fit in on were they think they belong in. If a person is intersexed then they could be either a male or female depending on the gender they want to be. Some intersexed people may not fit in because of they will not know what gender to be.
The definition of gender should include people with DSD?S because they are human beings but with both genders. The gender should be all the same for people with DSDS because it won?t matter what sex they are or should be. The meaning of gender should be change in order to include people with DSDS since it really doesn?t matter on what sex people are but what matters is how people In conclusion the world should not be genderized because people should be look on the outside. People should not be genderized because they will not know what type of clothes to wear or the type of sex to date.
In conclusion to all of this we say that Caster should keep her medal because it?s not her fault that she is intersex. Caster feels and she was raised as a girls so people should consider her according to how she feels. Caster should be able to run with the girls in the female division because if she joins the male division she wouldn?t even stand a chance. If she continues to run in the girl division that?s a waist of her talent because she is too fast in the female division. If she joins the male division there is a chance that she can run at the speeds of the guys. If she does manage to beat the guys it would make her feel very proud because she was running in the girls division and she was too fast and now she is in the male division and she is good. Casters situation can be avoided by taking a medical exam before they even start the race. Also they can also create a other division but then again not that many people would want to compete because they don?t want to be known as intersex. The only logical solution and the easiest solution would have to be that caster should just quit racing because in life sometimes you have to give up on what you love.

[scarfacetakeover]

There are two DSD?s that we found. One of the syndromes is tuners syndromes. Another syndrome is Kleinfelters syndrome. For Turners syndrome the symptoms are only for girls. One of the symptoms is that there height doesn?t go past four feet seven. Another is that they don?t have a period. The third on is that they get a waved neck. The cure for the height disorder is that they can get hormones injected.

For Kleinfelters syndrome some symptoms are for men it?s not very noticeable. The have or get wide lips. They also get girl Brest .The ***** does not reach the size of an adult size. The testis stays small but the have a normal sex life. Some of the causes are when a man carries and extra X chromosomes. Some treatments are that the doctors give them a testosterone. So they can develop a normal body development. When something is genetic it is passed down from your mom or dad. When something is development it means that you mutated something in your DNA and your kids won?t inherit that trait.
In Turners syndrome the body of a female is born with an extra X chromosome. In Kleinfelters syndrome the body of a male +develops an extra X chromosome. Meiosis is the creation of gametes and non-disjunction is the failure of chromosomes to separate during cell division.
There developmental because they occur as a result of an abnormality in the chromosome.

[scarfacetakeover]

In the end these disorders are developmental because they occur as a result of a mutation in the chromosomes.
In the time around the year of 1950 a team of medical specialists at Johns Hopkins University developed the ?optimum gender of rearing? this system was created for treating children with intersex.
The most important thing you hade to do if u were intersex was to get the gender settled early, so kids would grow up to be normal like straight.
In conclusion you can either get operation or just live with it. Also the parents have to choose whether they are boy or girl but they have to be straight and notice able.
When something is genderized it means that they get judge by there appearance and not by what they say they are. The parts of our society that get genderized are bathroom, malls and lockers. Intersex individuals fit in where there are intersex sex restrooms, intersex clothes. The definition should change to you are what you were raised as no matter what your appearance is.

My opinion on caster semenya is that she should keep her medal because whether she?s a girl or not she still worked hard to earn that medal. I think they should open an intersex event so girls that way it doesn?t look to uneven

[smellydelly]

1. what is a "normal" female? and should that NOT be up to the discretion of the individual?
2. now we have to prove ourselves and gender to others?
3. it needs to be up to her to claim her gender and it is clear that she self-identifies as a female. who gives a **** if she has 3x the testosterone as a biological female. and to make this story public is a complete violation of her rights, privacy, and agency.

[Orlandojon]

The fact there are no ovaries or womb with testicals present make it rather clear that this is a man. You really only have to take one look at his body and those tests should have been run years ago. Facts are facts and the female runners he beat don't deserve to have to compete against a man

[unlresources]

Can this person bear children? Without a womb and ovaries the answer is no. I would lean towards this person being an effeminate male, this comes close to describing this situation. Allegedly having feminine qualities untypical of a man, not manly in appearance or manner. A man in drag raised as a woman with undescended testicles.

[Judge722]

If it looks like a Duck.....Smells like Fish

[capry1]

If "women" such as this, with a Y chromosome and testes but no ovaries, are allowed to compete in women's track and field events, what will this mean to those genuine female athletes with ovaries and a uterus? China or other nations may seek out these rare intersex people among their population and groom them to compete in the womens track and field events. The medal stands may end up populated by intersex "women".
Some think its enough just to "live as a woman", but if one has XY genetics, they should compete with others who are XY, not XX.

[Chej]

If Semenya is genetically XY then she is a male. If she has undescended testicles and no uterus or ovaries that confirms it all the more. If this is true her body will make and respond more readily to testosterone than a female body. Her brain and muscles will react differently.

Females will build up more testosterone with exercise and training - they brought us through history practically alone - fatherhood was neither understood nor a social institution until about 200 BC - and it was not by wiles alone but also strength, speed and endurance. They are very responsive to androgens - the female embryo actually turns into a male when washed with testosterone, and a female can become more masculine at any age in the presence of increased androgens. However due to their most important role in nature, giving birth, women have a greater mix of hormones then men and no matter how spirited and competitive a woman is, the fastest women is usually slower than the fastest man.

I don't know yet if Semenya really is an XY person with no uterus or ovaries and undescended testicles, but if she is, she is not a 'female with a birth defect,' but a 'male with a birth defect,' or in more progressive terms - a male with intersex genitals. it's fine for any male to choose to live as a female, but not to compete in sports with females where weight, age and gender class are the ways a fair playing field is created.