How To Prove Someone Is Female?

krou writes "Caster Semenya won the 800m at the World Athletics Championship in blistering style, leaving her competitors in the dust, but she has been thrown into the midst of a scandal amidst claims that she's not really a woman. According to the many press reports, she's believed to shave, is flat chested, has a very masculine physique, previously preferred playing physical games with boys, and shunned traditional female activities and clothing. Questions about her gender have dogged her entire career. Previously, acceptance that she is a women relied on simple inspection of female genitals. But now the IAAF claim that they want to conduct further tests to see if 'she may have a rare medical condition that gives her an unfair advantage.' An IAAF spokesmen noted that 'The [testing] process was started after Semenya made her startling breakthroughs — a 25-second improvement at 1500m and eight seconds at 800m, just some weeks ago.' I'm curious what the Slashdot community thinks: what can be considered proof of someone being male or female? Is it simply a case of having the right genitals, or are there other criteria that should be used? Is the IAAF right in claiming that someone should be prevented from competing because they have a rare medical or genetic advantage?"

Comments

Ask her to report...

[Deadstick]

...to a nonexistent address and see if she asks for directions.

rj

Re:Gender isn't sex.

[noidentity]

A female is an organism that can produce an ova to create young during its lifespan. A male is an organism that can create sperm to fertilize said Ova during its lfiespan. This is not arbitrary -- this is the scientific definition from biology. Any organism that can do neither of those two during its lifespan is neuter, and any that can do both is hemaphroditic (sic). ANY OTHER DEFINITION is cultural, subjective, non-scientific crap.

So once a woman enters menopause and cannot create any more viable ova, she is not a female anymore? If a man has a vasectomy, he's not a male anymore, but wait, if it's reversed, he's male again? Or if an organism appears male/female in every respect, but you later find that it was sterile, it wasn't a male/female after all?

The point is that there isn't a single dimension for measuring gender. In science, your definition may be most appropriate, since the most relevant aspect is the ability to reproduce, and which role the organism plays. In the case of the olympics, they should choose a measure that fits in with their somewhat arbitrary system of two different groups of people that cannot compete with each other (men and women). They'll have to more carefully consider why they have those groupings. Sooner or later they'll encounter someone who just does not fit in either category, and have to make a tough decision. This could be one.

Re:I vote we settle this 4chan style...

[w00d]

It's a trap.

LOL

[Lost Penguin]

It is not that hard to tell, what equipment were they born with?