Gender, Inclusion, Community, Health, Sport and Empowerment
Caster reveals her agony over sex test
BONGANI MDAKANE | 09 July, 2011 23:53
An emotional and depressed Caster Semenya has revealed the humiliation and anguish she endured when doubt was cast on her gender.
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Published July, 2011
PLAY THE GAME 2011 Programme Committee confirms today, Inclusion First Foundation presentation “Little Difference, Huge Impact: The Gender Challenge to Sport” – October 3-6th. Cologne Germany.
This could not have been received at a better time. I received confirmation early this morning from the organizers from Play The Game in Denmark, that I have been approved by the Programme Committee to present on behalf of our new foundation.
Play The Game Conference 2011 - “Bringing change to the heart of sport.”
For the seventh time Play the Game will gather stakeholders in sport to join the discussion on essential issues in world sport at the world communication conference Play the Game 2011 – bringing change to the heart of sport.
The conference offers a unique forum for dialogue on sport. Over 13 years and six world conferences, Play the Game has become the only international forum where leading stakeholders meet face-to-face in free and fact-based debates about the most important challenges to modern sport.
For Further Details about Play the Game: “Click Here”
For Further Details about Inclusion First Foundation: “Click Here”
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Published June 10th, 1011
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This article is a reflection of Canada’s commitment and leadership to diversity, social ethics and inclusion. In April, we convened in Ottawa as a select panel, hosted by the Canadian Centre of Ethics in Sport. Unanimously condemning gender testing and the Stockholm Consensus despite the sorry history of which they were designed too medicalize women and the definition of womanhood, taking expression of embodied gender identity out of the very hands of the very humans involved , and setting up many other young people for the devastating treatment that Caster Semenya experienced. Moreover, it flies in the face of the overwhelming evidence of the tremendous homonal variability among humans.
NY Times ESSAY – Sports
Redefining the Sexes in Unequal Terms
April 23, 2011
The good news is that the International Olympic Committee and the International Association of Athletics Federations, the governing body for track and field, have worked hard to come up with a new policy to deal with athletes whose sex development is unusual.
Although sports officials contend that this reworking is not a specific response to the fiasco surrounding the South African runner Caster Semenya, what happened to Semenya constitutes reason enough to seek reform. Surely no athlete should learn from watching television, as Semenya did, that her sex has been called in question on the international stage. And no athletes should have to face the previous patchwork policy on sex testing, wondering what will happen if their particular condition is not clearly explained in the rules.
The new policy no longer allows any room for a simplistic “I know it when I see it” approach to who counts as a female athlete. Women who test in the male range for functional testosterone will have to have their levels chemically squashed in order to play. (Functional testosterone means not just the amount the body makes, but also how the body responds to it, because some people’s cells lack receptors to respond.)
The bad news is that the new policy seems sexist in its philosophy. Indeed, it is so sexist that it may even count as a violation of Title IX, which will matter because the international policies will undoubtedly trickle down to school-based sports.
The hormones in question are not naturally exclusive to men. Women and men naturally make androgens — sometimes called strength-building hormones — including testosterone.
Yet despite the fact that testosterone belongs to women, too, the I.O.C. and the I.A.A.F. are basically saying it is really a manly thing: “You can have functional testosterone, but if you make too much, you’re out of the game because you’re not a real woman.”
To my knowledge, there is no equivalent of this biochemical policing in men’s sports. If a man has a mutation that gives him a big advantage — say he makes lots of testosterone — he can count that as a natural advantage. Indeed, at least now, men and women are allowed all other advantageous biochemical mutations.
The idea behind this policy is to make a move toward creating the mythical level playing field. But what is really being leveled here is the bodies of female athletes. Thus the game being played seems to be a kind of controlling who will count as a sexually appropriate woman: submit to being made sexually “normal” through hormone treatments or you cannot compete.
The I.O.C. and the track federation would probably say that the typical man’s functional testosterone level is orders of magnitude higher than the typical woman’s. True enough, but the same large variations could be true for other naturally occurring differences between classes of athletes, and yet it is only women who are being limited in terms of natural biochemical advantage.
At a meeting hosted by the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport last week in Ottawa, a group of us mulled over this problem. We were all sympathetic to the I.O.C. and I.A.A.F.’s struggle. Sports has surely grown up past the age of sexual innocence, but it has not found its way. There is no perfect solution, one that is reasonably objective, universally applicable and universally satisfying.
Yet this newly proposed biological reduction of women to a hormonally disadvantaged class of people — one medically made disadvantaged, if necessary — struck many of us as regressive from the standpoint of women’s rights. Indeed, it reminds me of those itty-bitty shorts that college women’s volleyball players must wear. They each sexualize the bodies of female athletes as a requirement of play. They each insist that a woman never be manly.
In Ottawa, I met the former Olympian Bruce Kidd, a leader in international sports policy who served for nearly two decades as the dean of the faculty of physical education and health at the University of Toronto.
In a follow-up e-mail correspondence, he wrote: “How can the I.O.C. and I.A.A.F. claim that they support the full inclusion of women when they reimpose a medical test for their very identity? It’s a huge setback for human rights and the integrity of the Olympic movement.”
Alice Dreger is a professor of clinical medical humanities and bioethics at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University.
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Published April 26, 2011
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Immediate Response to IAAF approving the adoption of new rules and regulations governing the eligibility of females with hyperandrogenism to take part in women’s competition:
The Guardian “IAAF approves new rules on hyperandrogenism”
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Press Association
An approach to the biological, historical and psychological repercussions of gender verification in top level competitions
Martínez-Patiño et al. / Gender verification in top level competitions JOURNAL OF HUMAN SPORT & EXERCISE – VOLUME 5 | ISSUE 3 | 2010 |
Download Complete Review “Click Here”
Published March 22nd, 2011
The University of Western Ontario Medical Journal
Gender verification testing: Necessary for the integrity of international athletics, or inexcusable breach of personal privacy?
Colin Meyer Macaulay (Meds 2012), Moska Hamidi (Meds 2013),
and Karline Treurnicht-Naylor (Meds 2013)
Faculty reviewer: Dr. Cheril Clarson, Department of Medicine, UWO
Download Full PDF Review – “Click Here”
Volume 79, Number 2 – Endocrinology
Published Spring 2010
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Published March 18th, 2011
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CBC’s The Passionate Eye – Too Fast to Be a Woman
Wednesday March 9 at 10 pm ET/PT & Saturday March 12 at 7 pm ET on CBC News Network
As Caster Semenya achieved her dream of winning the 800m World Championship in 2009, rumours of a failed gender test spread. A vicious and voyeuristic media storm erupted and Caster’s triumph was turned into public humiliation. With exclusive access, this film follows the shy teenager from a remote South African village as she struggles to come to terms with what has happened and fights to return to competition.
With the support of her family, and a top legal team, Caster takes the fight to the IAAF, the world’s leading body for the sport of athletics. As international lawyers and eminent scientists thrash out what it means to be a woman, the 19 year old at the centre of the storm wants only to run. A heart-rending and uplifting story of a young woman who overcame incredible odds to become the world’s best, only to find that her biggest challenge still lay ahead.
Produced and Directed by MAXX GINNANE, Rise Films Ltd., for the BBC.
For Full Online Review of Documentary – “Click Here”
As a personal note, the Canadian connection, and Canada’s commitment and engagement to stopping the horrible acts carried out by false developed policy against women leading to HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSE AND RAPE by the IOC/IAAF over several decades, touching on the extreme simple and vulnerability of the women, Caster, Santhi Soundarajan and other great women and athletes who lives have been devastated do to the “social ignorance” of the IOC/IAAF as it relates to gender. The women, coming from rural areas of their countries – and the viciousness and vulnerability to an athlete is massive, with little to no recoil with those who committed the harm in the first place. Now with the understanding, their policies and practices prove nothing other then great harm.
It is important to note with all the sensational reporting that created a hyperbole of hysteria of a global proportion in international sport never seen in our history. Experts and international sport those engaged behind the scenes for the 11 month period recognize the IOC/IAAF had committed tragically the worst human rights abuse and rape of young healthy women in international sport history.
We have ethical protocol, set standards and guidelines through our universal anti-doping program citing the highest standards, to protect the very identities of athletes who are using drugs and other techniques to cheat the sports system. In-fact, millions of dollars are paid to the World Anti-doping Agency (WADA) by governments around the world as part of the commitment to the Olympic family. But when it comes to a person(s) gender, the most private and very essence of a human being, we project globally – The IAAF goes even one step further Friday September 11th, 2009, STATEMENT ON CASTER SEMENYA, creating a Press Release of her very personal matter making it the worlds business. Where in-fact in the end, sadly none of it was true. Only to be seen as furthering the tragedy, moreover the incompetence, lacking ethics and accountability of the IAAF and IOC, and assuring Caster the athletes privacy and her protection.
The production touches on IOC/IAAF did not want to see this go to court, as it would open pandora’s box, regarding gender testing and the history and impact on dozens of women, over several decades. The hesitation of Caster’s reinstatement back into World Athletics had nothing in-fact to with Caster. But all to do with the IOC/IAAF concerns of the public awareness in-fact what they had done to her and women before her. Hence the (2) line press release by the IAAF the first week of Tuesday July 6th, 2010, releasing Caster into competition anywhere in the world, without any explanation from the IAAF.
Logistically for the IOC and IAAF, a public relations nightmare was about to unravel for them. Ironically, if there is any found humour in any of this, sadly they got caught up in their own policies and practices around gender, gender verification testing and Stockholm Consensus, committing the offenses themselves.
For Full Online Review of Documentary – “Click Here”
We society, sport leaders and media let it happen, thinking the IOC and IAAF new what they were doing. In-fact, we accepted and we felt we could punish the athletes and felt we even had a right to do it, for (their) normal human difference due to our own ignorance. In-fact like so many athletes, Caster being one of them deserved it!
It is the IOC and IAAF that need to be punished and held accountable now, not the athletes. This is a man-made issue at the highest level of international sport.
THAT’S ABOUT TO CHANGE… AND CANADA IS LEADING THE CHARGE! AWESOME!
This production put a smile on my face, and to know having such amazing effect and reaching those and making a difference for those around the world.
HUMAN DIVERSITY IN EACH ONE OF US IS TO BE CELEBRATED!
I don’t say this very often as there has been few well-done productions that articulate the issues accurately around gender in sport –
Bravo CBC and BBC! GO CANADA GO!
We will TOGETHER stop this, and assure safety and inclusion for all to participate in sport and in society, no matter ones individual diversity. This will only happen through a collective effort and education on how we understand NORMAL human development and what “diversity” really means.
Caster will be the last woman this will ever happen too!
For Full Online Review of Documentary – “Click Here”
Published March 13th, 2011
Congratulations to Michael Whan (Chair) LPGA, Athletes, Coaches and LET Touring Professional Mianne Bagger.
A huge thank-you to Michael for his leadership and the LPGA community for their courage and commitment to facilitate greater awareness and social change, that is dynamically occurring in international sport around the world on how we as a ONE society TOGETHER understanding our individual diversities, cultural, social and physical differences which embraces each one of us. Understanding as a global society, we have way more in common then we do difference. No matter the colour of ones skin, culture, sexuality, gender and or physical needs, that each one of us is unique and special. As today, was yet another example by many around the world in our global system taking steps to removing the boxes and stereotypes that divide us as a society and taking a moment to understand and appreciate each person(s) diversity – as each one of us has a story, no greater or less than anyone else as part of the greater NORMAL.
The LPGA recognizes they are not alone, but has become part of a greater family today within international sport, committed to sport and greater social inclusion. Moreover understanding the power of sport off the playing field, on how far reaching it can be to bring greater social awareness and change effecting millions of lives so positively around the world.
WELCOME LPGA TO THE GLOBAL TEAM!
One other comment I feel is fitting personally, as I would like to dedicate this moment to game of golf’s pioneer, Ms. Mianne Bagger. Who since 2002, courageously on her own stepped into the world of professional golf as the pioneer on her own with no support. With absolute grace, composure, professionalism and leadership, Mianne has brought great understanding and embrace, bring change to policy in (4) of the (5) professional tours since she became a professional. Through Mianne’s career, she has educated and created a language where athletes around the game of golf, other professional sports as well sport international leaders, embrace her for what she has done and given of herself to the game of golf and international sport, to drive social change on how we understand diversity.
There are few people I know or have met like her in my lifetime. A true champion in every respect, recognizing here accomplishments and legacy to the game of golf will one be her great game play on the course, but as well off the course, the lasting effects and greatest contribution will be the laying of the foundation for young athletes that come behind her, that their individual diversity will not prevent them from seeking their dreams and participating in the game of golf or any other sport.
Janice Moodie LPGA Tour player said in a Golf Digest Interview on December 1st, proceeding the vote;
“The girl on the Ladies European Tour [Mianne Bagger] is really nice, and I don’t think there seems to be an issue over there,”
Mianne, has been a courageous face and professional for the game of golf at every level around the world, carrying and respecting the game she so passionately loves and those within it, and continues to play as a touring professional.
I am honored to know her, and to work with her professionally and continue to bring greater education, language and universal awareness around diversity in international sport around the world.
Brilliants in sport occurs in many ways – and this is on of those moments. Congratulations and thank-you ALL for your courage, expertise and commitment to social ethics and inclusion, and a sports system that properly reflects our dynamic, diverse and ever changing global society.
Professional Regards,
Kristen Worley
Canadian High Performance Track Cyclist
Lawless’ Legal Case Against the LPGA “Appalling”. NOT a “transgender” issue, but one of Education, Language and Social Ethics.
I woke this morning, deeply disturbed by what I was reading in USA Today titled;
“Lana Lawless’ suit puts gender in sports in spotlight again”.
Sadly, what journalist Douglas Robson wrote is NOT factual and untrue. There is great work going on behind the scenes internationally. Saying this, since Mr. Robson felt he could use my name and Mianne Bagger’s and write about us which is also untrue (not thinking the impact on us to be presumed associated let alone how we felt about it – god forbid you actually ask the athletes), as neither of us are “transgendered”. Furthermore do NOT approve of Lana Lawless’ efforts to sue a private organization such as the LPGA because she wishes to play in women’s golf in the United States.
In the real world it does not work this way. We live in a world of give-and-take, of which Mianne and I have worked tirelessly over many years with sports leaders and experts around the world behind the scenes with the leaderships of Canada to drive universal change through research and language, of which diversity effect’s each person as EQUALS.
This is a continuum of a much greater social ethics issue, NOT a “transgender” issue as is being presented and great example yet again, of our societies inability to understand ‘NORMAL’ human difference because of lacking education, to appreciate each one of is diverse either it be cultural, social or physical, or a combination there of which effects each one of us universally around the world.
Working behind the scenes, with international leaders from around the world get this very clearly. But it is incidents and articles just like this that is a proven example of how hatred and violence towards those most vulnerable in society are portrayed, and that because of our societies lacking understanding impacts their lives greatly.
I want to make very clear;
“I do NOT support Lana Lawless, as you do not sue a private organization because you feel you deserve something and suggesting this is a “human right”. The world does not work that way – This is an education issue, NOT a human right issue. EFFECTIVE CHANGE comes through EDUCATION and GREATER LANGUAGE, bringing together expertise with a broader brush approach, as DIVERSITY effect’s each one of us EQUALLY –
You get a lot more bees with honey.
It is being presumed we are the “SAME” in the media because one has transitioned in their life. It is like saying because I was a breast cancer survivor as was another girlfriend of mine, one that our experience was the same dealing with it, and that our lives are the same as well too. That is just not so for anyone. Moreover, Ms. Lawless and Ms. Richard’s are (2) generations older than either me or Mianne. Our experiences are very very different in EVERY way.
Our goals are to create awareness and support of young people and their families to help empower and educate to create opportunities, education and language as equal participants through extensive leadership bringing global stakeholders together in and out sport to change the NORMAL of greater society which effects each one of us.
IT TAKES TEAM WORK BY EVERYONE.”
Breaking the Silence – IOC/IAAF the Biggest Threat to Women’s Participation and Growth in International Sport – Gender, Diversity and Social Ethics in International Sport.
This in response to Stephen Wilson’s of the Associated Press [AP] on November 19th, 2010 titled; IOC, IAAF finalizing rules on gender cases.
*This made my heart ache to read this article, and to hear from athletes around the world of what Ljungqvist has said and presented in the AP. Hearing from Sports and Legal experts just aghast and lost for words by what he has done after so many warnings.
In response direct to Mr. Wilson’s article, it is unrepresentative of the truth of the issues around gender in sport and gender testing. Though consistent in the last year of the International Olympic Committee [IOC] and International Association of Athletics Federation [IAAF] around these issues, moreover consistent over several decades of the miss handling of gender in sport, thus (25) years of Arne Ljungqvist failure en-fact, decades of human right abuse and psychological and physical rape of high performance female athletes, most recently as it was determined with young Caster Semenya by the IOC and IAAF, August 2009. Of which it was determined, Caster gender in-fact was never and question, and that in-fact the she had been raped, leading to human rights abuse by the IAAF of which they have been trying to cover up ever since.
The Toronto Star – Complaints against Caster Semenya ‘total sour grapes
The Toronto Star
By Randy Starkman – Olympic Sports Reporter
A transgender Toronto cyclist who helped South African runner Caster Semenya get reinstated lashed out Monday at complaints against her return — including a remark by Canadian Diane Cummins that it was like “running against a man.”
Kristen Worley, who attempted to become the first transgender Olympian at the 2008 Beijing Games, was responding to remarks made by Cummins and other athletes after Semenya won Sunday in the women’s 800 metres in 1:59.90 at a major meet in Berlin.
Published August 23rd, 2010
For Full Article – “Click” Here
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Keynote Panelist
Gender Issues in Sport Summit – September 6th and & 7th, 2010.
Gender identification, intersex types, inclusion, discrimination, gender testing science and health, legal and policy impact, and future directions.
For Further Conference Details “Click Here”
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The Times of India - Semenya backer now takes up Santhi’s case
Nandita Sengupta, TNN, Jul 31, 2010, 03.35am IST
NEW DELHI: There is hope yet for athlete Santhi Soundarajan. The Tamil Nadu athlete was barred from racing and stripped of the silver medal she won at Doha’s Asian Games in 2006 after failing gender tests.
But now Canada-based elite cyclist Kristen Worley, who successfully fought for South African athlete Caster Semenya, has taken up her case.
Published – July 31, 2010
For Full Article – “CLICK HERE”
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 25, 2010
Sport leaders request that random gender verification testing of female athletes at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver be prohibited
Toronto, Canada: The Coalition of Athletes for Inclusion in Sport requests that the organizing committee of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games prohibit random gender verification testing of female athletes at the Games, in the best interest of all international female athletes.
“The statements from the IOC following its Gender Summit in Miami in January 2010 do not demonstrate any intent by the IOC to eliminate the inequities and discriminatory impact of gender testing in sport. By classifying gender ambiguities as disorders requiring treatment, the IOC is pathologizing a normal spectrum of humanity. By assuming that the only relevant gender issue is in women’s events, the IOC ignores the potential advantage of physical characteristics associated with the female form (flexibility, for example) to men in certain sports. In addition, the IOC policy is excessively discretionary and subjective in that the IOC does not state what criteria are relevant to a determination of “male” or “female”. By subjecting only certain women to the policy, the IOC also leaves women open to witch hunts and being requested to undergo body modification. By any standard, the IOC’s approach is a violation of international laws prohibiting gender discrimination and the IOC’s own commitment to equality and the right to play. We continue to urge the IOC to adopt the proposed gender policy alternative of the Coalition of Athletes for Inclusion. ”
Gender verification testing is a violation of human rights, specifically the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It also violates the Olympic Movement’s stated commitments to equality and the right to play.
To Read Entire Press Release Document – “Click Here” to Download
Published – January 2010
Key References
The Coalition of Athletes for Inclusion in Sport – Position Statement
The Guiding Principles for Inclusion in Sport
* Presented to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) January 7th, 2010
Goto Online Petition and let the IOC here your Athletes Voice “Click Here”
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