As a lifelong champion of progress, I welcome any new expansion of old and tired concepts. Unfortunately, some fossilised dyed-in-the-wool reactionaries still cling to their outdated notions.
Just ask them to define the sex (gender?) of a person who has a man’s testosterone count, testes, deep voice and general appearance, while lacking such old-fashioned attributes of womanhood as ovaries and a womb. They’ll reveal their rotten core by saying that such a person is a man, dread word.
Then they look at the South African Olympic gold medallist Caster Semenya, who answers the description above, and hiss (reactionaries always hiss, they don’t just say) it’s unfair that she should compete against persons who do possess a womb, ovaries and a third of Caster’s testosterone count.
And that’s not all! Wait a minute, I need some time to compose myself, I’m so enraged… Because Miss Semenya is black, these troglodyte yahoos are guilty not only of sexism (genderism?) but also of racism. Should a white man crash a women’s competition, they wouldn’t bat an eyelid. But just because Caster is black… well, you get my point even if I myself don’t.
It’s time those cavemen learned that sex or, as champions of progress now call it, gender is neither absolute nor objective. It’s relative and subjective, meaning that every person is whatever sex he/she/it says he/she/it is.
Not only that, but no one can contest such a self-definition without being branded a sexist (genderist?), racist, homophobe, agist, misogynist, misandrist, fascist, xenophobe, Brexiteer and all other things progressive people like me condemn.
Such people deplore the blatant violations of her human rights that Miss Semenya has had to suffer throughout her distinguished running career. To name one, after her well-deserved triumph at the 2009 world championships Caster was brutally subjected to a sex (gender?) test, which found the abnormalities…
There, see what I mean? That’s what brainwashing over many centuries does. Even a lifelong champion of progress like me has let slip this revolting word. There’s no such thing as abnormalities because there’s no such thing as norms. Repeat after me: There’s no such thing…
After Caster’s human rights were so egregiously stamped into the dirt, she degradingly was made to take tablets to get her testosterone down to the level normally encountered among women, which she claims to be and therefore is.
To the delight of all lifelong champions of progress, in 2015 the IAAF reversed its shameful policy on what in the medical parlance is called hyperandrogenism (a woman being too much like a man, putting it in the language even we can understand). The new ruling states that there’s insufficient evidence that testosterone increases athletic performance.
Actually, androgens include not only testosterone but also anabolic steroids, which – as any lifelong champion of progress must now accept – don’t increase athletic performance either. All those athletes who pop them like Smarties do so simply because they like the taste.
Androgens also increase the body’s muscle mass and reduce its capacity to produce fat, making men look different from women much to the delight of sexist homophobic fossils who, for old times’ sake, still enjoy some of the more jutting fat deposits of a woman’s body.
However, we must deny on pain of richly merited ostracism or even, in the near future, criminal prosecution that men’s higher muscle mass, lower fat content and greater aggressiveness (another androgen function) make them stronger, faster and more competitive. It’s a pure coincidence that men outperform women in every sport (they also outperform women in chess, but let’s not go there).
In defending her case, Miss Semenya invoked the deified memory of Nelson Mandela. History’s greatest man once told her something of superhuman profundity: “sport is meant to make people feel united”.
I couldn’t agree more, even though my modest intellect can’t plumb such demiurgic depths. In any case, like many scriptural sayings, this one can work on many different levels.
Perhaps people should feel so united that they abandon sex (gender?) divisions in sports altogether and let men, women and any intermediate specimens compete against one another. After all, if men and women can use one another’s lavatories, why should they run separate races? No, not a good idea?
Fine. Then I’d like to quote another godlike champion of progress, Vladimir Lenin: “Before we unite we must firmly and decisively separate”. Applying this wisdom to the task at hand, perhaps the world’s governing sports bodies should introduce a third sex (gender?) category: Other. That would obviate the need for any testing and shut up reactionaries for good.
For the time being, all lifelong champions of progress should unite in offering Miss Semenya heartfelt congratulations on her 800m triumph. In conclusion I’d like to ask a question that’ll no doubt betray my naivety, nay ignorance, in matters hyperandrogenic:
Can Miss Semenya actually marry herself?
I’ve never been interested in people who want to run or faster between to points, leap higher or farther, throw sticks or balls farther, or show-offs in general, unless in a balletic soccer team, such as played by Barcelona – or even Real Madrid on a good day.. So the existence of this creature had escaped me until your essay. Naturally enough, I therefore thought you had made the whole thing up as a parody on the whole Olympiad jamboree, which now seems to be a good way for perverts to recruit conquests. Thought the name for he/she/it was cleverly devised, until I checked it out with Wiki only to find that really is its name. One question remains, its testes are full of semen-ya? No womb for anything else, one supposes?
apologies, should read ‘run or swim faster’.
Well unfortunately this is a totally different time that we live in since the women of today are nothing at all like the good old fashioned women of years ago which most of them were the very best of all. Quite a change today which is very sad.