colloquium

I am a bit fed up with this now.

Here is my thoughts on it.

I do acknowledge that it must be an extremely humiliating process to be gender tested (even though some websites suggest that the science is good enough not to be parading naked).

Why is this turning out to be a racial row in South Africa? No one ever had it against her because she’s black. And how can they? Doesn’t Africa absolutely dominate middle and long distances in world athletics?

Why is the ANC taking it personally? Would they have stood by a South African athlete if the athlete was white (and for those who don’t know – yes, there are white people in South Africa). Come see us at next year’s FIFA World Cup.

How many gold medals did we won at the Beijing Olympics? None. And a year later we have an 18-year old athlete from almost out of the blue convincingly winning the 800m at a World Championship? Even if it was a male race, wouldn’t it have been a tad odd? Wouldn’t it have raised an eyebrow or two? If it was a white male, wouldn’t he be investigated for drug use? Even so, who of us can honestly say that we didn’t wonder how Bolt can break the world records left, right and centre, and not by one or two hundredths of a second…? Did we not in some way suspect him of some unfair advantage like maybe banned substances?

What I’m saying is that suspicion is natural. It might not be right but is human to be suspicious. I’m sure it plays a large role in our survival instinct. Research CANNOT rule out that genetic disorders (e.g. where a person develops as a women but has X and Y chromosomes) DO NOT give athletes an unfair advantage.

Yes, it would be extremely unfair and traumatic for an athlete to find out that they might have a genetic disorder disqualifying them from competing as a woman, but is it not just as unfair against her competitors?

Let’s do a thought experiment. Let’s say a black South African athlete competes in the 800 metres at the World Championship. She runs extremely well and make us all proud to be African. But she comes second nevertheless. Soon afterwards there is major media eruption about the winner – a white athlete who appeared from out of nowhere?

Wouldn’t our fair and just government be all over the IAAF to investigate and disqualify the white woman in favour of our daughter of Africa?

If YOUR daughter loses to an athlete who might have an unfair advantage, on which side would you be?

Let say for argument sake that it is proven that the athlete in question does have some sort of unfair advantage – genetically, not based on gender. Will dressing her up silence critics? Does male transvestites become women when they dress up, do their hair, wear nail polish and gold jewellery and be photographed for a magazine? I thought the whole point is not to judge or discriminate based on appearance and here we go and try to convince the world that she is genuinely a she because she looks like a she?

On the other hand, aren’t we playing Slumdog Millionaire? Thinking that it cannot be possible for an unknown athlete such as she to become an overnight sensation?

Do we not associate poverty with failure and money with success?

And that is all I have to say about that.