Turns out that defining gender is pretty tough.
What the IOC has struggled with all these years exposes something that many of us might find difficult to process: between M and F exists a tremendous swath of gray...As Fausto-Sterling says, “The reason sports federations can’t get this right is because there is no right.”
Men who excel at, say, ice dancing or synchronized swimming, where success has more to do with grace and rhythm than brute strength or speed, simply aren’t questioned in the same way women are. In 2010, after two French-Canadian sports commentators snickered over the flamboyant skating champion Johnny Weir and suggested that he should compete with the women, they were immediately and vociferously condemned for what was widely perceived as homophobic, despicable language. (This was, keep in mind, precisely the moment that Semenya was living in virtual exile after the subject of her gender had made international news.)
What the IOC has struggled with all these years exposes something that many of us might find difficult to process: between M and F exists a tremendous swath of gray...As Fausto-Sterling says, “The reason sports federations can’t get this right is because there is no right.”
Men who excel at, say, ice dancing or synchronized swimming, where success has more to do with grace and rhythm than brute strength or speed, simply aren’t questioned in the same way women are. In 2010, after two French-Canadian sports commentators snickered over the flamboyant skating champion Johnny Weir and suggested that he should compete with the women, they were immediately and vociferously condemned for what was widely perceived as homophobic, despicable language. (This was, keep in mind, precisely the moment that Semenya was living in virtual exile after the subject of her gender had made international news.)
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