Sylvia
TBD
- Messages
- 80,501
“I am a woman and I am fast”: what Caster Semenya’s story says about gender and race in sports: https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/5/3/18526723/caster-semenya-800-gender-race-intersex-athletes
Semenya has never publicly identified as intersex, a term that, according to the Intersex Society of North America, refers to a person born with “a reproductive or sexual anatomy that doesn’t seem to fit the typical definitions of female or male.”
No matter what her personal medical history is, her story illustrates the way people, especially people of color, can be scrutinized when they seem to fall outside gender norms.
Being intersex is not the same as being trans, but society at large tends to conflate the two, Pagonis said. “And a lot of people hate trans people.”
Meanwhile, “I see a lot of intersex phobia that is heightened because she’s a black woman,” Pagonis added. “Had Caster been a gender-conforming, straight-identified white girl who just was faster than the other people, they would have never invaded her body” by demanding testing, they said.
Last edited: