Last week a South African runner named Caster Semenya was the headline story for newspapers around the world. The controversy that called her into the for front of every newsstand was that she had both male and female sexual characteristics and since that was the case her recent championship win was in question. She recently competed in the IAAF World Track and Field Championships and completed the race with a stunning time that put all the women on the field out of contention for first place. This win brought up the question was it possible that she was actually a male. In other words they ended up giving her a gender test and the results determined that she does have internal testes and no uterus or ovaries.(Fox News, 2009)This brings up the ideas of what type of measures are we using to differentiate between sex and gender? Clearly there is a fine line between categorizing a person as either male or female since biological factors come into play. For example, lets say that I was raised a woman from birth, yet I had a hormonal imbalance which caused me to have much more testosterone that the average woman, what may society call me a woman since I was raised as one or a male because I look like one? These matters of gender and sex are delicate and should be handed in a respectful way. Overall, in this particular case I believe that it should have been handled behind curtains and not so disrespectfully towards the runner. So, next time there is a matter like this that comes up in the news just think to yourself how you would like to be treated if that you were you ?
Idea taken from fox news cited in the 9-11-09 fox news report
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,549021,00.html?loomia_ow=t0:s0:a16:g4:r2:c0.000000:b-2:z0
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