Gender Testing in Sport: Ethics, cases and controversies 9781138308657, 9781138852914

Table of contents :
1. From Apartheid to Segregation in Sports: the transgressive body of Caster Mokgadi Semenya

[Philippe Liotard]

2. Gender Verifications vs. Anti-Doping Policies: sexed controls

[Anaïs Bohuon and Eva Rodriguez]

3. Unfair Advantage and the Myth of the Level Playing Field in IAAF and IOC Policies on Hyperandrogenism: when is it fair to be a woman?

[Sylvia Camporesi and Paolo Maugeri]

4. Categorizing and Attributing the Sex of Individuals: history of the science, law and ethics

[Laurence Brunet and Muriel Salle]

5. Caster Semenya and the Intersex Hypothesis: on gender as the visual evidence of sex

[Fabien Rose]

6. From the Implicit to Aporia: the specificities of the Caster Semenya case as a "discursive moment"

[Aurélie Olivesi]

7. From Sports to Science, Rhetorical and Power Issues in the Media Coverage of Caster Semenya

[Sandy Montañola]

8. "Caster Semenya - the ncients would have called her god." The International Re-Imagining and Remaking of Sex and the Art of Silence

[Elaine Salo]

9. Gender, Silence, and a Queer New World: Caster Semenya and unfixed ambiguity

[John M. Sloop]

10. Afterword

[Silvia Camporesi]

Citation preview

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Gender Testing in Sport

After the young South African athlete Caster Semenya won the 800m title at the 2009 World Championships she was obliged to undergo gender testing and was withdrawn, for a time, from international competition. The way that the different stakeholders embraced this controversy represents a rich, multi-layered example of the construction of gender in wider society and the interrelationships between sport, culture and the media. This is the first book to explore the case in depth, from socio-cultural, ethical and legal perspectives. Analysing what came to be called “the Caster Semenya Case” in a comprehensive and multi-disciplinary fashion, and covering issues from media discourses and the rhetoric and regulations of the sport’s governing bodies to the reaction of the athlete herself to this harsh experience, the book explores in depth, beyond her own circumstances, the ethics of how gender norms in sport, and in society more generally, are constructed through appearance, behaviour and sporting performance. This 2009 controversy can be taken as an indicator of the tensions of her time, and served as a link beetween medical sciences, society and gender. Including discussion of key concepts such as “intersex”, “body norms” and “fairness”, Gender Testing in Sport is fascinating and important reading for anybody with an interest in sport studies, gender studies or biomedical ethics. Sandy Montañola is a Senior Lecturer in Communication and Media Studies at the University of Rennes 1 (Centre for Research on Political Action in Europe) and supervisor of a journalism degree (IUT, Lannion, France). She has a special interest in the connection between medicine, gender and media coverage from social representation to their impact in the public arena. She currently works on two projects about the media coverage of scientists’ discourse and bodily norms (especially in intersex and childbirth), and the place of journalists in the representation of diversity. Aurélie Olivesi is a Senior Lecturer in Communication and Media Studies at Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1. Her research fields are the analysis of media discourse (in printed press and internet forums) and the study of how gender in the political field is represented in the media. She has published a monograph about the 2007 French presidential election: Implicitement Sexiste? Genre, politique et discours journalistique. She has a special interest in the representation of gender perturbation in the media, and in the lay discourse about gender issues published in the media.

Ethics and Sport

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Series editors Mike McNamee University of Wales, Swansea Jim Parry University of Leeds The Ethics and Sport series aims to encourage critical reflection on the practice of sport, and to stimulate professional evaluation and development. Each volume explores new work relating to philosophical ethics and the social and cultural study of ethical issues. Each is different in scope, appeal, focus and treatment but a balance is sought between local and international focus, perennial and contemporary issues, level of audience, teaching and research application, and variety of practical concerns. Also available in this series:

Ethics and Sport Edited by Mike McNamee and Jim Parry Values in Sport Elitism, nationalism, gender equality and the scientific manufacture of winners Edited by Torbjörn Tännsjö and Claudio Tamburrini

Genetically Modified Athletes Biomedical ethics, gene doping and sport Andy Miah Human Rights in Youth Sport A critical review of children’s rights in competitive sports Paulo David

Spoilsports Understanding and preventing sexual exploitation in sport Celia Brackenridge

Genetic Technology and Sport Ethical questions Edited by Claudio Tamburrini and Torbjörn Tännsjö

Fair Play in Sport A moral norm system Sigmund Loland

Pain and Injury in Sport Social and ethical analysis Edited by Sigmund Loland, Berit Skirstad and Ivan Waddington

Sport, Rules and Values Philosophical investigations into the nature of sport Graham McFee

Ethics, Money and Sport This sporting Mammon Adrian Walsh and Richard Giulianotti

Sport, Professionalism and Pain Ethnographies of injury and risk David Howe

Ethics, Dis/Ability and Sports Edited by Ejgil Jespersen and Michael McNamee

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The Ethics of Doping and Anti-Doping Redeeming the Soul of Sport? Verner Møller

Phenomenological Approaches to Sport Edited by Irena Martinková and Jim Parry

The Ethics of Sport Medicine Edited by Claudio Tamburrini and Torbjörn Tännsjö

Olympic Legacies Edited by Mike McNamee and Jim Parry

Bodily Democracy Towards a Philosophy of Sport for All Henning Eichberg Ethics, Knowledge and Truth in Sports Research An Epistemology of Sport Graham McFee Exercise and Eating Disorders An Ethical and Legal Analysis Simona Giordano The Ethics of Sports Coaching Edited by Alun Hardman and Carwyn Jones Athletics and Philosophy in the Ancient World Contests of Virtue Heather L. Reid Doping and Anti-Doping Policy in Sport Ethical, Legal and Social Perspectives Edited by Mike McNamee and Verner Møller Watching Sport: Aesthetics, Ethics and Emotion for the Spectator Stephen Mumford

Sport and Art An Essay in the Hermeneutics of Sport Andrew Edgar Dispute Resolution in Sport Athletes, Law and Arbitration David McArdle Philosophy and the Martial Arts Engagement Edited by Graham Priest and Damon Young Talent Development, Existential Philosophy and Sport On Becoming an Elite Athlete Kenneth Aggerholm On Sport and the Philosophy of Sport A Wittgensteinian Approach Graham McFee Phenomenology and Pedagogy in Physical Education Knowledge, Experience and Ethics Øyvind Standal Gender Testing in Sport Ethics, Cases and Controversies Edited by Sandy Montañola and Aurélie Olivesi

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Gender Testing in Sport Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 00:26 16 May 2017

Ethics, cases and controversies

Edited by Sandy Montañola and Aurélie Olivesi

First published 2016 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

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© 2016 S. Montañola and A. Olivesi The right of S. Montañola and A. Olivesi to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataNames: Montaänola, Sandy.Title: Gender, sport and ethics : the case of Caster Semenya / edited by Sandy Montanola and Aurelie Olivesi.Description: New York : Routledge, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index.Identifiers: LCCN 2015033992| ISBN 9781138852914 (Hardback) | ISBN 9781315723150 (eBook)Subjects: LCSH: Sports--Sociological aspects. | Gender identity. | Intersexuality. | Sports--Moral and ethical aspects. | Semenya, Caster, 1991- | Women track and field athletes--South Africa.Classification: LCC GV706.5 . G494 2016 | DDC 306.4/83--dc23LC record available at http://lccn.loc. gov/2015033992 ISBN: 978-1-138-85291-4 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-72315-0 (ebk) Typeset in Times by GreenGate Publishing Services, Tonbridge, Kent

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Contents

Acknowledgements List of contributors

ix x

Introduction

1

SANDY MONTAÑOLA AND AURÉLIE OLIVESI

1 From Apartheid to segregation in sports: the transgressive body of Caster Mokgadi Semenya

13

PHILIPPE LIOTARD

2 Gender verifications vs. anti-doping policies: sexed controls

27

ANAÏS BOHUON AND EVA RODRIGUEZ

3 Unfair advantage and the myth of the level playing field in IAAF and IOC policies on hyperandrogenism: when is it fair to be a woman?

46

SILVIA CAMPORESI AND PAOLO MAUGERI

4 Categorizing and attributing the sex of individuals: history of the science, law and ethics

60

LAURENCE BRUNET AND MURIEL SALLE

5 From the implicit to aporia: the specificities of the Caster Semenya case as a “discursive moment”

89

AURÉLIE OLIVESI

6 Caster Semenya and the intersex hypothesis: on gender as the visual evidence of sex FABIEN ROSE

101

7 From sports to science, rhetorical and power issues in the media coverage of Caster Semenya

118

SANDY MONTAÑOLA

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8 “Caster Semenya – the ancients would have called her god” the international re-imagining and remaking of sex and the art of silence

150

ELAINE SALO

9 Gender, silence, and a queer new world: Caster Semenya and unfixed ambiguity

168

JOHN SLOOP

Afterword

181

SILVIA CAMPORESI

Index

190

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Acknowledgements

We would first like to thank our fellow contributors for the quality of this collective, international and interdisciplinary body of work both during our study days in Lyon and while we were editing the manuscript, as we were all scattered in different places. Each participant complied with specific demands, thus bringing a sense of unity and complementarity to each one’s expertise. We are especially grateful to Silvia Camporesi who supported us throughout the publication process and who agreed to bring some perspective to this collective work by signing the afterword and by proofreading our writing. We thank our research laboratories, CRAPE (the Centre for Research on Political Action in Europe, Rennes 1) and ELICO (the Research Team in Information and Communication Science, Lyon) for their support. We are also extremely grateful to the French National Olympic Academy. By giving us a grant, they allowed us to have genuine scientific freedom when organizing study days. We also thank Arnaud Richard, who was involved in organizing these meetings. Thanks to all who agreed to answer our interview requests. We extend our thanks to our colleagues from Lannion and Lyon who listened to us discuss the project extensively, who supported us and complemented our work with their precious comments. We would like to thank Mike McNamee, editor of the Ethics and Sports Series and Simon Whitmore, Publisher for Sport and Leisure, for their advice, their faith in the project and their unfaltering support. Our gratitude goes to William Bailey, Editorial Assistant for the Sport and Leisure collection, who provided us with constant help and advice and who showed incredible amounts of patience throughout the editing process of the manuscript. We would like to thank Carrie Baker, Production Editor at GreenGate Publishing, for her support throughout the production process. Many thanks also to Catriona Robb who read and made extensive comments on the manuscript, providing invaluable assistance. Our gratitude goes to both of our translators, Anne Losq and Sylvie Vert, who followed this project from the beginning, and worked to tight deadlines with flawless professionalism. Finally, we both thank our families and, especially, Bertrand, Charles, Antoine and Calypso, for their patience and support.

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Contributors

Anaïs Bohuon is a Senior Lecturer in Sport Studies at the University of Paris Sud (Faculty of Sport Sciences), France. She teaches sociology and history of sport and gender studies. Her research specializes in sport and gender, class and race discriminations. Following her doctoral work on medical discourse and women’s physical and sporting activities (1880–1922), she focuses on social and political history of “femininity controls”. She has published Le test de féminité dans les competitions sportives: une histoire classée X? (editions iXe, 2012). Laurence Brunet is a legal scholar and associate researcher at the Center for Research on Law, Sciences, and Techniques at Université Paris I-La Sorbonne. She also holds a position as a lecturer on Fundamental Rights and Personal Law at the Institut d’Etudes Judiciaires of Université Paris XI. She is a consultant at the Centre for Clinical Ethics at Cochin Hospital, Paris. She has a special interest in the impact of advances in scientific and medical research on Personal and Family Law. She was the leading author of the EU report “A Comparative Study on the Regime of Surrogacy in EU Member States,” Directorate General for Internal Policies, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, 2013. She is the author of several articles on legal issues related to transsexuals, gender identity, and how official documents address changes in sex marker (“Stérilisation et changement de sexe à l’état civil” in La parenté transgenre, L. Hérault (ed.), Presses Universitaires de Provence, 2014, pp.127–142). Silvia Camporesi is a bioethicist with training in biotechnology, philosophy of medicine and medical humanities. Silvia is Lecturer in Bioethics & Society in the Department of Social Science, Health & Medicine at King’s College London, where she directs the Master’s Programme in Bioethics & Society. Previously Silvia was at the Centre for the Humanities and Health at King’s College London and at the Department of Anthropology, History and Social Medicine at University of California, San Francisco. Silvia adopts a critical bioethical approach to questions of genetics, reproduction, eugenics, gender, and elite sport.

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xi

Philippe Liotard is a Senior Lecturer in Sports Science at Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, and director of the Laboratory of History and Socio-anthropology of Sports. His current research interests focus on contemporary transformations of the body, changes in appearance (piercing, tattooing, scarifications), and the construction of gender and gender relations through sex education in adolescence. He is also working on sexual violence, sexism and homophobia, discrimination, abuse and wider vulnerabilities. On these topics, he crosses anthropology of the body with sociology of sport. He was the co-founder of Quasimodo review. Paolo Maugeri has a PhD in Ethics and Foundations of Life Sciences from the European School of Molecular Medicine and University of Milan. He is currently Research Fellow in Biomedical Humanities at the European Institute of Oncology in Milan, and Adjunct Professor of Bioethics at the Faculty of Sciences and Technologies, University of Milan. His research explores issues of gender justice in public health policies as well as normative questions arising at the interface of biomedicine and society, with a particular focus on the ethics of elite sports. He also has an interest in ethical/epistemological issues arising from experiments on non-human animals, and models of explanation in molecular oncology. Sandy Montañola is a Senior Lecturer in Communication and Media Studies at the University of Rennes 1 (Centre for Research on Political Action in Europe) and supervisor of a journalism degree (IUT, Lannion, France). She has a special interest in the connection between medicine, gender and media coverage from social representation to their impact in the public arena. She currently works on two projects about the media coverage of scientists’ discourse and bodily norms (especially in intersex and childbirth), and the place of journalists in the representation of diversity. She published “The complex media coverage of high level female athletes. The case of the Athletics World Championship” (Sciences de la Société) and edited L’assignation de genre dans les medias (PUF, 2014). Aurélie Olivesi is a Senior Lecturer in Communication and Media Studies at Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 (ELICO). Her research fields are the analysis of media discourse (in printed press and internet forums) and the study of how gender in the political field is represented in the media. She has published a monograph about the 2007 French presidential election: Implicitement sexiste? Genre, politique et discours journalistique (2012). She has a special interest in the representation of gender perturbation in the media, in the construction of gender in media discourse and in the lay discourse about gender issues published in the media – especially through the analysis of comments on online articles. Eva Rodriguez is a PhD candidate in Political Science at Paris 8 University. Her research focuses on the scientific production of the female body in

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France under the Third Republic. She has recently co-edited Thinking with Donna Haraway (PUF, 2012) and the Issue “Sexonomie” of the journal Genre, sexualité & société, 2014. Fabien Rose has a PhD in Communication Studies from Concordia University. He has been a part time member of the faculty in communication at Université de Montréal, where he taught classes on Media, Sex and Gender and on Power and Communication. His researches are at the crossroad between gender, queer and trans studies, and focus on the epistemological, methodological and political challenges of media representations and knowledge productions about sex and gender. He is particularly interested by the relationship commonly established between vision and knowledge when it comes to sex and gender, and by the way this common relationship plays out in representations and discourses on trans and intersex persons. Muriel Salle is a Senior Lecturer in Contemporary History at Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1. Following her doctoral work on Alexandre Lacassagne, French founder of anthropological criminology, she is currently preparing a biography of the doctor. The analysis of his thought reveals an ongoing anguish, that of alterity. Lacassagne serves as a peephole to examine the “biopolitical” stakes of the ongoing exclusion of certain categories of populations rejected below the Republican “Universel”: criminals, women, madmen, homosexuals, hermaphrodites, “primitives” whose troubling figures challenge the norms. She lectures and writes about gender and health, and is the author of articles on hermaphroditism in the medical thought of the XIXth (Ethnologie française Vol. 40 (2010), 123–130). Elaine Salo is an associate professor in Dept of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Delaware, Delaware, USA. Prior to this position she was Director of Institute for Women’s and Gender Studies, University of Pretoria, South Africa between 2009 and 2013. She is the editor of the book, Thirsty for access. Gender and Water Governance in Africa (2015, Water Research Commission Pretoria, SA). Other recent publications include an issue of the journal Agenda about “Biology, Bodies and Human Rights” co-edited with Benita Moolman (Vol. 98 (27) December 2013) and a chapter with F. Liersch, L. Mohlakoana-Matopi and M. Maree: “Carrots or Sticks? A study on incentives to attract and retain women in science, engineering and technology in South Africa”, in Britta Thege et al. (eds), Paths to Career and Success for Women in Science, 2013. John M. Sloop is Professor of University. He is the author and several books, including Identity in Contemporary U.S.

Communication Studies at Vanderbilt and editor of several scholarly essays Disciplining Gender: Rhetorics of Sex Culture, for which he was awarded the

Contributors

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Winans-Wichelns Memorial Award for Distinguished Scholarship. He has also been awarded the Ellen Gregg Ingalls Award for Classroom Teaching, the Karl Wallace Award for scholarship in public address studies, and the Charles H. Woolbert Research Award. Sloop is former editor of Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies.

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Introduction

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Sandy Montañola and Aurélie Olivesi1

On 19th August 2009, the South African athlete Caster Semenya won the gold medal for the 800 metres race at the World Championships in Berlin (she broke the 2009 world record with a time of 1:55: 45). This date was also the start of a well publicized controversy over Caster Semenya’s gender. The controversy was made public when the IAAF (International Association of Athletics Federations) requested gender tests, without giving any details on the test protocols. While Caster Semenya’s sexual identity was questioned, the underlying reasons were not explicitly communicated. Depending on the sources, we could see that her physical appearance, her clothes and her behaviour didn’t appear to comply with the standard norms of femininity. She was considered too muscular, too flat chested and too hairy. Her Adam’s apple was too bulky, her pelvis too narrow. Her outfit was unfeminine since, unlike the other athletes, she had chosen to wear shorts. When she celebrated her victory, her behaviour was described as being masculine. Her sporting performance was also called into question: she had finished the race well ahead of her competitors, her performance had improved too quickly and she was unknown to the general public. The hidden implication consisted in saying that, since she had failed to comply with standards of femininity, she was necessarily a man and had therefore cheated, with the implicit assumption that men are physically superior to women. Either Caster Semenya had benefitted from an easy victory as a man in a woman’s race, or she was an Intersex. Intersex (known as “Disorders of Sex Development”, or DSD, in the medical terminology) is a generic term used to describe a variety of conditions present in sexual characteristics (such as chromosomes, gonads or genitals) that prevent individuals from being distinctly identified as ‘male’ or ‘female’ according to the typical definitions.While people with DSD were historically reassigned a sex by physicians, key associations and many researchers have more recently supported the right to self-determination and even indeterminacy. This position challenges the role of physicians, as well as the norms that medical decisions are based upon (Karkazis, 2008). Traditional representations base themselves on the commonly perceived differences between sexes and on their complementarity, going as far as having an impact on our

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scientific knowledge. Our aim is to highlight the difficulty of defining what a woman is and, consequently, defining what a man is – encompassing the biological, sociological, cultural, medical and sporting aspects of those definitions. In this book, we choose to use the more recent term “intersexuation” (choosen by the OII, the Organisation Intersex International, rather than the more common “intersexuality”) to approach sexuation – known as a set of biological and symbolical phenomena leading a person to recognize him/herself as belonging to one sex or the other – and not sexuality (see Chapter 2 by Bohuon and Rodriguez). Intersexuation challenges the strict binary differentiation between sexes and the relationship between sex and gender. Gender is understood here as a social construct that produces various social criteria, such as representation and self-representation. More widely, it opens up the question of fixed standards and the links between medicine and society. Caster Semenya was finally allowed to keep her medal on 19th November 2009, and to compete against women on 6th July 2010, after having gone through 11 months of medical tests – which have remained confidential – and legal and judicial procedures within the sporting sphere2 (see the chronology below). Caster Semenya is not the first athlete whose gender was questioned. Several similar cases in various sports across a number of countries have raised similar controversies. These sportswomen were accused of cheating, were deprived of their medals and barred from competitions. In some cases, their departures went unnoticed and weren’t publicized when they were preceded by a maternity leave, an injury or early retirement. Caster Semenya’s case falls within the scope of controversies concerning the “genuine” identity of female athletes. However, her case is a milestone within this history. First, it lasted several months, when sport instances usually deal with such cases very quickly. Second, Caster Semenya herself has always claimed to be a “genuine” woman. Third, she was finally authorized to run with female athletes. Fourth, the case was highly publicized. Fifth, Caster Semenya raises the question of race, youth and postcolonialism. Finally, the case ended without asserting a real purpose or declaration. This volume aims to enhance the conversation by bringing these various points together. By providing an analysis of what came to be called “the Caster Semenya Case” we are determined to consider the harshness of Semenya’s experience and to avoid stigmatizing her in any way by complying with her desire to communicate very little, if at all, and by taking into account the discrimination she suffered3 (see Chapter 8 by Salo). All contributors of this book agree in saying that the controversy following her victory and the case’s outcome surpassed her personal circumstances. This event acted as an indicator of the tensions of her time, and served as a link between science, society and gender. We offer an analysis of the discursive rationale present in the public sphere in order to identify implied ethical questions. Our goal is to capture what made sense at the turn of 2010, to understand and analyze the positions of the various protagonists through their discourses, the latter shedding light on social, political, economic, legal and, especially, symbolic values. It seems seminal

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Introduction

3

to us that Academia should take into account the political dimensions of these questions. As a matter of fact, this book is not about intersexuation in itself and isn’t meant to replace the voice of intersex people.4 Instead, it explores the social and political phenomena that surround sex determination questions. This book focuses mostly on social representations. It intends on addressing all of the themes as they appeared in the discourses of the various protagonists, but it steers clear from making any form of conjecture concerning Caster Semenya’s medical reports. The results of those reports, whatever they were, are finally of no importance. Several scientific challenges emerged when we jointly studied such a worldwide “occurrence” (understood here as something that happens without reaching the status of an event, Delforce, 1999). The first challenge was to bring together researchers in human and social sciences from the most varied cultural backgrounds. Some of the co-authors are from Europe, France and Italy; others are from the United States, Canada and South Africa. This variety of backgrounds has allowed us to access a wide variety of sources as well as different academic traditions. The second challenge was to address these ethical interrogations while focusing on the social representations that led Caster Semenya to become, as noted by Fabien Rose, “an object of discourse”. Social representations are understood here as a set of naive knowledge that is socially shared and that can provide the necessary framework to understand and interpret reality and the relationship between those social representations to serve as a guideline in future actions.5 The third challenge was to shed light on the same subject from the perspective of different academic disciplines, thus allowing for feedback between the disciplines, while also embracing the complexity of the case as it manifested itself in the discourse (medical discourse, the evolution of gender tests and their place, legal perspectives, authorized speakers in the public space, relationships between Northern and Southern Countries, sporting rules and socio-cultural context …), from a synchronic and diachronic perspective. The fourth and final challenge was to address the diversity of the values expressed by the different protagonists who were sometimes insiders, sometimes outsiders in groups such as associations, sports institutions and political organizations. Arguments would revolve around the definition of femininity standards, sports, nationality, and the legitimacy to voice an opinion within the constraints of the media. In order to reconstruct the complexity of the subject, the authors of this book have conducted a cross study of different viewpoints based on common events, using such material as the statements of the athlete Elisa Cusma Piccione, the release of You magazine or the Dutee Chand case. While it did not have a clearcut outcome, Caster Semenya’s case represents a special episode in the historical tensions between sport, medicine, and gender. This became especially obvious in August 2015, when the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) sent a media release declaring it had suspended the 2010 IAAF hyperandrogenism regulations6 after being seized by the Indian sprinter Dutee Chand in 2014. The CAS’s decision is significant of the

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issues around the use of categories (of sport and of sex), of the links between culture, representations and body… Moreover, it reveals the importance of each of those moments in the history of gender, sports and ethics. Following a conference and the publishing of a collective work based on the notion of gender assignment in the media (Damian-Gaillard et al., 2014), we wanted to initiate interdisciplinary work on social and media representations of gender. Because we were motivated by the challenge of conducting cumulative scientific research, we identified researchers from different disciplines and different countries and interacted with them on the topic of social norms and the human body (issues related to gender, and sport or gender tests). We organized two work days in Lyon, France, on 11th and 12th April 2013. We wished to focus our work on social representations and how they were linked to the various protagonists who came from scientific, sports, political, academic and activist backgrounds. The study was to combine the capital questions of sports, economy, cultural differences and physical norms. This collective work is the result of discussions that occurred on this occasion. The “Semenya case” occurrence leads to more general questioning about gender, sports and ethics. It reflects an explicit social evolution, brings to light tensions that had remained implicit and it leaves a number of questions unanswered. It therefore seemed particularly worthwhile to study a present discourse in the public sphere at a specific time, and to see how it operated (questions surrounding genders and the relationship between Africa and Europe). This occurrence is at the crossroads of a number of questions that are typically considered separately and therefore do not usually clash. We were fortunate to develop this collective work over a long period of time (2011 to 2015). It is organized around the two parts of social representations.7 In the first part (Chapters 1–4), we question how the bodily norms are built and defined by sport institutions, law and by medicine. In the second part (Chapters 5–9), we question how those norms are mediatized. This leads us to examine issues linked to intersectionality and post-colonial ethical tensions.

Building sex, gender and values in sport The first part of this book analyzes the impact of standards in sports. Caster Semenya’s case highlights more widely the ideology that is present in the values of sports and competition. A fair competition is indeed based on ensuring that the competitors are in the same class so as to compare comparable performances. Thus, sporting fairness is based on a distinction between different physical categories, gender being the first one (Foddy and Savulescu, 2011). The IAAF established gender tests to examine whether women corresponded to its criteria of gender, which is defined as a regulatory sports category. Those tests evolved from initial anatomical visual control tests to swab tests and chromosome tests (Bohuon, 2012). They disappeared, as they were deemed humiliating and scientifically unreliable. This raises the

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Introduction

5

question of the role of sporting institutions and of their own regulations in the definition of the sexual identity of individuals. The very notion of legitimacy must be examined, as tests were demanded and rulings given over what defines men and women, going as far as using biological arguments. This also raises the issue of doping (McNamee and Møller, 2011). Philippe Liotard, a sociologist who specializes in the representation of the human body in sport, shows how categories such as gender, age, sexuality and “race” are organized to ensure that a competition is sufficiently fair to award a medal to the best athlete around the notion of “economy of bodily differences” (Chapter 1). The following two chapters are two ways of challenging the IAAF’s legitimating discourse. Anaïs Bohuon and Eva Rodriguez, a sociologist and a sport historian, question the evolution of gender verification in athletics in relation to sporting values and the fight against doping, through examples like Maria Patiño’s. This chapter focuses on the ways in which tests were historically used as a means to legitimize fairness as a sporting value (raising notions of what is natural, of what is artificial, but also what are the real effects of testosterone) (Chapter 2). Silvia Camporesi and Paolo Maugeri, bioethicists, wonder how these standards, with the progress of bioethics, influence the scientific criteria put forward by the IAAF. The authors ask themselves whether the definitions surrounding Caster Semenya’s case should be based on medical standards or on ethics. They tackle the regulation rules around hyperandrogenism and draw parallels with other genetic variations that aren’t regulated by the IAAF and with the fact that elite athletes are endowed with exceptional physical characteristics (Chapter 3). Muriel Salle, a historian, and Laurence Brunet, a jurist, show that the perception of the intersex has evolved amongst doctors and jurists. They demonstrate that the two outlooks do not go together, raising once more the question of the IAAF’s legitimacy in questioning the sexual identity of an athlete. Meanwhile, the influence of these sporting standards goes beyond the sporting field or the medical and legal communities. The emphasis on the selfperception of individuals with regards to the official determination of their sexual identity in 2009 appears in a context in which the law has started to consider self-determination (e.g. Argentina and Australia), following several centuries of unchallenged medical assignments (Foucault, 1987), where those whose sex was difficult to determine were seen as monsters (Chapter 4).

The balance of power between protagonists through mediatized social representations The Caster Semenya case can be seen as a key moment, as it made public the evocation of doubt over sexual identity, standards of femininity / manliness and intersexuation, be it real or perceived. The case, although not front page material, brought to light a theme that was generally unknown to the general public. Caster Semenya hardly ever expressed herself (see Salo’s chapter),

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and the medical tests remained confidential. Access to information about this controversy was therefore essentially provided through the media and institutional channels. These various sources quoted each other abundantly. The second part of the book is devoted to studying discourses in the media and seeing the representations the media contributed to shape a context of social change, namely the evolution of the relationship between genders. Caster Semenya was either described as a transvestite, or as intersex with a terminology that was widely inaccurate: “hermaphrodite”, “not 100% female”. The issues of intersectionality8 and postcolonial ethical tensions are also essential. Caster Semenya, 18 on the day of her victory, is black, from the African continent and from one of the poorest regions in South Africa. Caster Semenya won the World Championships in Berlin, a European city, while she was virtually unknown internationally. Reactions on the African continent show that all these representations have a postcolonial bias. Africans have sought to promote an alternative vision of femininity and masculinity (Swarr, 2012; Nyeck and Epprecht, 2013; Lewis and Marshall, 2012). Some African media compared her fate to that of Saartjie (or Sarah) Baartman, also known as the “Hottentot Venus”.9 How are Caster Semenya’s African identity, youth and skin colour meaningful in the way that she was viewed? The discourse in the media is by essence polyphonic (Krieg, 2000). Its diversity reflects the complexity of the original question, the judicial battles and the different reactions during the media hype. Examples range from the reaction of the sport institutions, of law experts, of politicians or of Caster Semenya herself, her family, her competitors and even the spectators. Chapters cover the case’s media coverage (Canadian, Australian, African, American and European corpus). Fabien Rose, researcher in communication studies, describes how the Canadian media implicitly adopted the Intersex hypothesis without ever questioning it, thus revealing the links between sex, gender, biology and social norms and their consequences. From there, Rose interprets “the Intersex hypothesis” as a solution to “normalize the challenge posed by Caster Semenya’s gender” and to respect naturalization (Chapter 5). Aurélie Olivesi, researcher in media studies, analyzes this case as a “moment of discourse” that shows that the case has left a trace in the collective memory. This point in time opposed axiological regimes that usually converge and, in so doing, raised new interrogations for the public at large on such as questions on intersex, fair competition and post-colonial representations – without providing any stable answer however (Chapter  6). Through the discourses of the different protagonists, Sandy Montañola, researcher in media studies, explores the existence of a transnational media discourse that surrounds the construction of this public issue and that generates conflicts about norms, values and the legitimacy of people to voice opinions. She raises the question of how the media operate, how they relate to their sources, how much they value communication and science (and of course truth and objectivity as the underlying values) (Chapter 7). Elaine Salo, researcher in gender studies, suggests different key ideas to understand a post-colonial context in which,

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rather than being a victim, Caster Semenya became the essence of Africans. She therefore observes Caster Semenya through the representations of her silence and the strategies surrounding it. She also takes into account the domestic tensions between cities and villages and between the local politicians in power and the opposition (Chapter  8). John Sloop, researcher in communication studies, enhances the silence that surrounded Caster Semenya’s victory and her return (her own silence and the silence of the IAAF), to examine the discursive effects of an unexplained legal decision. As a cultural critic, he wonders if Caster Semenya’s case isn’t an opportunity to introduce the general public to the idea of the construction of gender (Chapter 9). By providing an overall perspective on the ethical and cultural issues at stake from Caster Semenya’s victory in August 2009 to the CAS’ media release in August 2015, Silvia Camporesi’s afterword lets us think how Caster Semenya’s case is a milestone in a long history of regulations on women’s bodies in sport competition. This book’s specificity lies in the fact that it provides an opportunity for the various disciplines involved to collaborate on a very specific case, thus bringing the different narratives of the case together. Because Caster Semenya’s case is so complex, the different academic disciplines were decompartmentalized in order to feed into each other. By focusing on socio-cultural and media representations, we could integrate the expertise of each field of study, using all of the variables that had been identified in our previous works. By unifying the different disciplinary approaches under the aegis of socio-cultural and media representations of gender, we aim to highlight how Caster Semenya’s own story is an epitome of the ideology that lies behind discourses on sports, fairness and gender. We make the assumption that, beyond Caster Semenya’s own private experience, this “case”, and its further developments, are a genuine epitome of gender construction. This book offers a reflection on gender relations in sports in medicine, and, beyond that, in society.

Chronology (2008–2010) We wanted to provide the reader with a chronology to facilitate the reading of certain chapters. The aim of this chronology isn’t to present a “reality” but rather stems from the analysis of the articles surrounding the case and published in mainstream international media. We started the chronology in 2008, since this year’s results were used several times to compare Semenya’s running times. 2008 July: Caster Semenya participated in the 2008 World Junior Championships (Bydgoszcz, Poland) October: She won the gold medal in the 800-metre race at the 2008 Commonwealth Youth Games (Pune, India) with a time of 2’04”23.

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2009 31st July: Caster Semenya won the African Junior Championships (Bambous, Mauritius) with a time of 1’56”72.

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7th August: The first tests were carried out by Athletics South Africa (ASA) in Pretoria. 16th August: Following the selection races at the World Athletics Championships in Berlin, the IAAF required some tests. Partial results should have been communicated on 19th  August, the day of the final. Rumours began to spread then. 19th August: Caster Semenya won the gold medal in the 800 metres with a time of 1’55”45, the world’s best performance of the year. She did not attend the press conference. Pierre Weiss, the secretary general of the IAAF explained: I am replacing the winner here tonight … We know you want to talk to her, but she is young, she is inexperienced and she is not able to reply properly to all your questions. I will answer for her. The decision not to put her up was taken by the IAAF and the South African federation … A double investigation is being conducted – one in South Africa, one in Berlin … I am not a doctor, but all the doctors who conducted investigations tell me this sort of thing takes weeks or months … If at the end of the investigation we find out she is not a woman, we will withdraw the medal and redistribute it. But there is nothing which would have stopped her from running today.10 25th August: Caster Semenya returned to South Africa. The media reported that she was greeted as a heroine by thousands of people at the Johannesburg airport and was received by President Jacob Zuma, who denounced the “humiliation” she was subjected to by the IAAF. This meeting has been criticized by his political opponents as artificial. 8th September: South African media reported that Wilfred Daniels – the coach of the national athletics team – had resigned. He told The Star newspaper: We have not acted appropriately towards Caster. The treatment of this case was atrocious. Caster was put in the unenviable position where she had to endure what she endured because we have not sufficiently informed her, we did not explain … what was to be expected in Berlin. 9th September: Caster Semenya was interviewed, made over, by You, a South African glossy magazine. 11th September: The Sydney Daily Telegraph stated that “tests conducted during the world athletics championships … revealed evidence that she is a

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hermaphrodite, someone with both male and female sexual characteristics”. This was then relayed by the media all over the world.

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19th September: The ASA ordered its president, Leonard Chuene, to resume his seat on the board of the IAAF, which he had resigned the previous week in protest against the femininity tests to which the IAAF had subjected Caster Semenya. Noluthando  Mayende-Sibiya, the South-African Minister for Women, Children and People with Disabilities, filed a complaint with the New Yorkbased UN division for the advancement of women: “There has been the blatant disregard for Miss Semenya’s human dignity … The questioning of her gender is based on a stereotypic view of the physical features and abilities attributable to women,” she said. She added that “such stereotypes demonstrate the extent of patriarchy within the world’s sporting community.” 9th October: The South African Olympic Committee began hearings on the Semenya case. Pierre Weiss believed that the decision regarding the future of the athlete should be taken in late November at the IAAF Council in Monaco. 24th October: Lamine Diack, president of the IAAF, postponed his visit to South Africa where he was to discuss the case of Caster Semenya. Meanwhile, Makhenkesi Stofile, the South African ministry of sports, still demanded an apology. 29th October: The IAAF officially announced that an investigation was underway. 31st October: The ANC (African National Congress) demanded that the gender tests carried out by the IAAF on Caster Semenya be invalidated. 5th November: Leonard Chuene and his team were suspended by the Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee of South Africa (SASCOC). Submitted to a disciplinary investigation “pending further action”, the “individuals suspended … will have to answer charges of discrediting ASA, athletics, the SASCOC and sport in general”. 19th November: The IAAF held council in Monaco. The South African department of sport announced that the IAAF had accepted that the South African athlete Caster Semenya should keep her title of world champion in the 800-metre race. 11th December: Michael Seme, Caster Semenya’s coach, announced that she had resumed training, although it was not yet known whether she would be allowed to compete. 2010 January: the International Olympic Committee held a symposium in Miami to offer policy recommendations to define gender – without any reference to Caster Semenya.

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14th January: Michael Seme announced that Caster Semenya was free to compete internationally. This announcement was followed by several months of negotiations, mediated by Caster Semenya’s lawyers: Caster Semenya and Michael Seme banked on a quick return to competition, while sports bodies were still awaiting the outcome of the tests.

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31st March: A spokesman for the ASA stated that they would not receive the test results before the month of June. 21st April: Caster Semenya inaugurated a sports academy that bears her name in Pretoria. 5th July: The IAAF announced that it was allowing her to reenter competition as a woman.

Further developments mentioned in this book (2010–2015) 2011 5th April: The medical commission of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced measures on hyperandrogenism (in the wake of the Caster Semenya case) to be effective in 2012 (Olympic Games). 2012 11th August: Olympic Games (London, UK): Caster Semenya won the silver medal in the 800 metres with a time of 1’57”23. 2014 Summer: The Indian sprinter Dutee Chand has been denied the right to participate because of hyperandrogenism. She seized the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). A support committee has been founded. 2015 19th May: Ben Smith interviewed Caster Semenya for the BBC. 28th July: CAS suspended the IAAF hyperandrogenism regulations. Female sprinters with naturally high testosterone levels have been allowed to compete.

Notes 1 Translated from the French by Sylvie Vert and Anne Losq. 2 She then won the Silver Medal at the London Olympic Games in 2012. This medal position was interpreted at the time in two ways. Some commentators analyzed it as being due to the effects of the hormones, and others thought that she wanted to escape the media spotlight by not finishing first (see Chapter 9 by John Sloop). In

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3

4

5 6 7 8 9 10

11

November 2015, an independent commission headed by Dick Pound, the former president of the World Anti-Doping Agency, aroused suspicion that the Russian winner could have been doped. At the time of this book’s publication, Caster Semenya’s latest interview was with Ben Smith for the BBC on 19th May 2015 (www.bbc.com/sport/0/athletics/32809982). Ben Smith says that “It is difficult to link the engaging 24-year-old who has granted the BBC a rare interview with the haunted athlete whose gender was questioned in front of the world”(www.bbc.com/sport/0/athletics/32805695). We both tried to interview her or Jean Verster, her coach, without success. See Koyama, Emi, Intersex Initiative ‘Conseils à l’endroit des personnes nonintersexes écrivant au sujet de l’intersexualité et des personnes intersexes’, http:// oiifrancophonie.org/nos-reflexions-sur-lintersexualite/message-aux-personnesqui-desirent-faire-des-recherches-sur-nous/, octobre 2015. Inspired by Hale, Jacob, ‘Suggested Rules for Non-Transsexuals Writing about Transsexuals, Transsexuality, Transsexualism, or Trans’, http://sandystone.com/hale.rules.html (first edition of Hale, 1997). Moscovici, 1961; Jodelet, 1989. www.tas-cas.org/fileadmin/user_upload/Media_Release_3759_FINAL.pdf These issues can be organized using three paradigms: “I”, “you” and “he” (or, in the case at hand, “she”) which form, according to Paul Ricoeur, “the triangular basis of ethics” (Ricoeur, 1990). Intersectionality studies the intersections between different forms or systems of oppression, domination or discrimination. This theory was coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw (1991). www.tas-cas.org/fileadmin/user_upload/award_internet.pdf Transcription from the press conference quoted in several newspapers.

Bibliography Amy-Chinn D., 2011, ‘Doing epistemic (in)justice to Semenya’, International Journal of Media & Cultural Politics, 6, p. 311–326. Bohuon, A., 2012, Le test de féminité dans les compétitions sportives. Une histoire classée X?, Paris, éditions ixe. Butler J., 1999, Gender Trouble, New York and London, Routledge. Buzuvis E., 2010, ‘Caster Semenya and the myth of a level playing field’, The Modern American, 6, p. 36. Crenshaw K., 1991, ‘Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color’, Stanford Law Review, 43(6), pp. 1241–1299. Crincoli S. M., 2010, ‘You Can Only Race if You Can’t Win – The Curious Cases of Oscar Pistorius & Caster Semenya’, Tex. Rev. Ent. & Sports L., 12, p. 133. Damian-Gaillard B., Montañola S. and Olivesi A., 2014, L’assignation de genre dans les médias, Rennes, Presses Universitaires de Rennes. De Lauretis T., 1987, Technologies of Gender. Essays on Theory, Film, and Fiction, Indiana University Press. Delforce B., 1999, Pour une approche interdisciplinaire des phénomènes de médiatisation. La dimension discursive: implications et applications, HDR dissertation, Université Lille 3. Diamond M., 2002, ‘Sex and gender are different: Sexual identity and gender identity are different’, Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 7, p. 320–334. Foddy B. and Savulescu J., 2011, ‘Time to re-evaluate gender segregation in athletics?’ British Journal of Sports Medicine, 45, p. 1184–1188.

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Foucault M., 1987, The body of the condemned, New York, Arbor House. Jodelet D. 1989, Les représentations sociales, Paris, PUF. Karkazis K., 2008, Fixing Sex: Intersex, Medical Authority, and Lived Experience, Durham, NC, Duke University Press. Krieg Alice, 2000, ‘Analyser le discours de presse. Mises au point sur le “discours de presse” comme objet de recherche.’ Communication 20: 75–97. Lewis M. K. and Marshall I., 2012, ‘Gender and Black Communities’, LGBT Psychology: Research Perspectives and People of African Descent, New York, Springer, p. 21–36. Loland S., 2001, Fair Play in Sport: A Moral Norm System, New York and London, Routledge. McNamee M. And Møller V. (eds) 2011, Doping and Anti-Doping Policy in Sport: Ethical, Legal and Social Perspectives, New York, Routledge. Montañola S. and Olivesi A., 2016a, ‘Quels locuteurs pour quelles définitions de l’identité sexuée dans les médias ? Le cas de Caster Semenya’, Le Discours et la langue, 8(2), forthcoming. Montañola S. and Olivesi A., 2016b, ‘Caster Semenya dans les forums sportifs : les normes corporelles au cœur de l’identité sexuée’, Corps, femmes, contraintes sociales, Rennes, Presses Universitaires de Rennes, forthcoming. Moscovici S., 1961, La psychanalyse, son image et son public, Paris, PUF. Munro B., 2010, ‘Caster Semenya: Gods and Monsters’, Safundi, 11, p. 383–396. Nyeck S. N. and Epprecht M., 2013, Sexual Diversity in Africa: Politics, Theory, and Citizenship, McGill-Queen’s Press-MQUP. Pettersson S. and Chen S. S., 2013, ‘Gender verification in sports: Does fair play really exist?’, Kentucky Association of Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (KAHPERD) Journal, 50(2), p. 225. Ricoeur, P. 1990, Soi-même comme un autre, Paris, Le Seuil. Schultz J., 2012a, ‘The accidental celebritisation of Caster Semenya’, Celebrity Studies, 3, p. 283–296. Schultz J., 2012b, ‘New standards, same refrain: the IAAF’s regulations on hyperandrogenism, The American Journal of Bioethics, 12, p. 32–33. Swarr A. L., 2012, Sex in transition: Remaking gender and race in South Africa, Albany, NY, Suny Press. Wiesemann C., 2011, ‘Is there a right not to know one’s sex? The ethics of gender verification in women’s sports competition’, Journal of Medical Ethics, 37, p. 216–220.

1

From Apartheid to segregation in sports

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The transgressive body of Caster Mokgadi1 Semenya Philippe Liotard 2

This text provides an analysis of Caster Semenya’s case based on what I call the “sportive economy of bodily differences”.3 All competitive sports use this economy of the body, given that their purpose is to establish a ranking based on results from competitions. From local championships to the Olympics, from school races to the world championships, segregation is increasingly strict and exclusive. It separates men and women, young people and adults, able-bodied and disabled people, and even creates weight categories in some sports… Built on segregation, the sportive economy of bodily differences organizes federal sports. Such segregation is combined with the separation of game levels: beginners play together while experts compete in the main field (Messner, 2002). How has the internalization of this sportive economy of bodily differences produced the Semenya case? How has its internalization – by sportsmen and sportswomen, by federal authorities as by journalists, by commentators and spectators – contributed to publicly humiliate a person who violated bodily norms? Caster Semenya’s case indicates how our societies fear transgressions and, more specifically, the transgression of gender norms. Before we start, a point needs to be made about what has made Caster Semenya’s case possible. It is the result of a succession of historical transgressions. The first one consists in the opportunity for women to take part in sports, especially in international competitions (Cahn, 1994). The second refers to the fact that Africans are now allowed to participate in these competitions (Stoddart, 1988; Bancel and Gayman, 2002). The third one is the consequence of the abolition of apartheid in South Africa. Following a number of boycotts and exclusions, South African athletes have since been allowed to participate in all international competitions (Black and Nauright, 1998; Booth, 1998; Booth, 2003). Finally, Caster Semenya encapsulates many of the observable transgressions in competitive federal sports: historical and collective transgressions, but also individual ones. She shows us what should be the norms and how those who violate them are treated. She points out that sporting ethics is primarily an ethics of submission to the sport’s order itself.

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South Africa: from Apartheid to inclusion? In the late 2000s, two South African athletes came to break the boundaries of sport categories and upset “the law of sports.” A man in the 400-meter race. A woman in the 800-meter race. Both performed at a high level. Both stirred up worldwide controversies. First, Oscar Pistorius – described by Nico Bougas as “the fastest thing on no legs”4 – spurred a controversy in 2007 at the Golden Gala in Rome by running the 400-meter sprint among able-bodied athletes. Double-leg amputee, Pistorius ran with prosthetics and finished second. This triggered the wrath of the IAAF which asked Italian television not to convey the race. Then the IAAF initiated an exceptional procedure to exclude Pistorius from any involvement with able-bodied athletes. He was initially excluded for not having respected the principle of segregation, which is the basis of sports categories. But later, the exclusion was rejected by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, thus allowing him to run. The elite of adult males is considered as the default category from which the hierarchical category system is organized. As a disabled person, Oscar Pistorius should have only competed in the “Paralympic” category.5 And the good results he achieved in able-bodied meetings produced an excessive transgression. Thus the adaptations he made to compensate for his disability were perceived as an advantage over able-bodied athletes. Following Pistorius, a South African black female athlete created another worldwide controversy. Caster Semenya won the 800 meters at the World Championships in Berlin in 2009 and she had to face “sex-determination testing to confirm her eligibility to race as a woman”.6 The question was whether she was “biologically” an “authentic” woman. At the end of the 2000s, Caster Semenya and Oscar Pistorius were suspected of violating the regulatory classifications dividing individuals based on their physical characteristics. They both challenged the strict sense of the law of sports. They had to be “allowed” to run in the categories in which they chose to compete and had to follow specific procedures that called for scientific experts. Pistorius had to get permission to run in the star category: adult able-bodied men. And Caster Semenya had to be allowed to compete in “her” category, that of women, after having been subjected to a number of tests and clinical observations that led to a long and publicized controversy. It is ironic to think that these two athletes, who come from South Africa – which imposed racial segregation in the social norm from 1948 to 1991 – specifically blurred the borders of segregation that stemmed from federal sports regulations. The IAAF’s decisions remind us of the reality of federal sports as based on regulatory segregation. The organization of competitions presupposes a strict classification. Caster Semenya and Oscar Pistorius jostled it. Both illustrate this logic remarkably7 as they exposed the foundations of standardization developed in the sportive economics of bodily difference. All federal sports are indeed structured with a single purpose in mind: to designate a winner at the end of a competition. In this sense, sports proceed

From Apartheid to segregation in sports 15 to the concrete assessment of the value of a body: a powerful and efficient body within a strictly codified environment. This classificatory logic – and its logical basis – has to be kept in mind to understand what (and who) was disturbed by Caster Semenya’s victory.

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The federal logic: body norms and suspicion The sport’s arena stages body norms. In sports, bodily differences are managed and organized by body economics and categorized within a range of values. The male elite class stands at the top of the hierarchy. The lowest tier in sporting classification is composed of younger, older, disabled or less experienced people. In the name of equal opportunities and at the start of any race, anatomies are sorted to neutralize differences (see Chapters 2 and 3 written by Camporesi and Maugeri, and Bohuon and Rodriguez). Therefore, the “sportive economy of bodily differences” organizes the segregation of individuals statutorily depending on anatomical categories (age, gender, weight), or motor skills (level, rank, sport class…). Clearly, men and women, young and old, able-bodied and disabled people, the weak and the strong, are all separated from each other and placed in the specific categories in which they play. Each sport has its own categories (of weight or of age for example) but federal competitive sports are all structured around the management of differences that serves to homogenize performances and to provide a form of equality between participants in the same class. The range of these categories is in reference to “the standard of the stadiums”: male adult sport records serve as a reference for all other performances (Liotard, 1993). In all sports, women and men are commonly segregated in meetings or rankings. Sporting rules produce a series of apartheids between bodies. Of course, it is not a separation based on race, but is a systematic process in both senses of the term: first, it is linked to the system; then, it is done systematically, that is to say, automatically and regularly (see Chapter 5 by Olivesi). The arrangement separating men from women reveals that a confrontation of the sexes is unimaginable. And yet, Caster Semenya’s case emphasized the porosity between these – usually clearly separated – two categories. In fact, Caster Semenya appeared to be non-standard on many levels. But the first divider related to her age and to her level of practice. She clearly ran too fast too early, running the Women’s 800 meter final in 1 minute 55 seconds 45 at 18 years and seven months old. Just one year before (in Bydgoszcz, Poland, July 8 2008), for the IAAF World Junior Championships, she ran the Women’s 800 meter race in 2 minutes 11 seconds 98, finishing only seventh of the First Round. In Berlin, she ran more than 15 seconds less and therefore went up in rank, going from being an anonymous junior athlete to the best adult woman in the world. This was the first double transgression: a transgression of age and a transgression of performance. With her Berlin race, she was well above the best women athletes of the moment. None of them could reach her when she accelerated quickly in the

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last 200 meters. She won 2 seconds 45 ahead of the other athletes. She first surprised everyone from a sporting point of view before being stigmatized in terms of gender identity. This is what the French sports newspaper L’Equipe indicates: “Despite the controversy created by doubts about sex, Caster Semenya, 18, dominated the 800m race head and shoulders above everyone else, winning almost 30m ahead of the Kenyan Janeth Jepkosgei Busienei”.8 Ever since the semi-finals, doubts were expressed concerning Caster Semenya’s “true” sexual identity. Her victory only enhanced the controversy. On Youtube, different versions of the same video of her (interviewed after the semi-final) appeared online.9 A recurring question was asked, due to her voice: “South African runner Caster Semenya interview male or female”10 and the answers went in the same direction: “come on!! its a man!!!!.. she/ he has a deeper voice than rafael nadal !! lol (sic)” Consequently, “that’s a man!!!!” and even more, “Thats a manly man (sic)”.11 Of course, all comments didn’t say the same thing but the numerous statements affirming that she was a man indicated the beginnings of a controversy. Yet if one looks closer, her performance paled in comparison with those produced by men: it was almost 4 seconds slower than the first record set by a man… in 1912 (1 minute 51 seconds 9). She was very far from the regional records registered in France for male cadets, who are younger by more than two years.12 And she was still far from the women’s world record achieved by the Czech runner Kratochvílová (1 minute 53 seconds 28). However the combination of her excellent performance (best performance of the year 2009), her age and her appearance were presented as a form of cheating or fraud by observers. But most importantly, she looked too much like a man. As shown by Montañola and Olivesi (2016), Caster Semenya mainly transgressed norms of appearance. Contrary to what occurs in doping, suspicions didn’t focus on what she may have done but on what she really was (a woman). Her victory was seen as an offense to the “sportive economy of bodily differences” simply because she “looked like” a boy. She was questioned on her identity and not on the legitimacy of her preparation. The logic of federal sports – which is on display during major international meetings – is associated with widespread suspicion. According to the World Anti-Doping rules, each athlete is a potential cheater who must submit to the requirement of being tested at any given time (not only during competitions, but throughout the year, which implies a whereabouts rule and requirements).13 The combination of the two approaches – classification by sex and cheating suspicions – produced the controversy over Caster Semenya’s victory. But instead of using regular anti-doping tests, the IAAF imposed a series of medical tests to ensure that Caster Semenya was “a real woman”. She was therefore submitted to a panel of ad hoc experts even though gender tests had been excluded by the IAAF (Bohuon, 2008; Heggie, 2010; Ljungqvist et al. 2006).

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Questioning standards The classificatory logic of sports is relevant when there is a normal distribution of results (in a statistical sense). Statistically, men do in fact produce superior performances to women, adults to children and to senior citizens… But athletes such as Caster Semenya (or Pistorius and, more recently, Markus Rehm14) are problematic because they generate extra-ordinary performances that do not fall within the normal distribution of results. Their difference is then seen as an unfair advantage by other competitors, as is highlighted in this volume by Maugeri and Camporesi. In 2012, when Lindsey Vonn15 seized the International Ski Federation (FIS) for the right to compete with men, the federation argued using a regulatory aspect: “It’s very clear,” FIS secretary general Sarah Lewis told The Associated Press in a telephone interview: “It’s called the men’s World Cup and the ladies’ World Cup. The men race the men’s World Cup and the ladies race the ladies’ World Cup. FIS and World Cup points are not transferrable from one circuit to another.”16 The FIS statement suggested that Vonn “submit a request to the organizing committee and jury to be a forerunner” for the men’s races. In Caster Semenya’s case, the question was reversed. She arrived as a young woman and registered in the women’s category, but her appearance, combined with her performance, created suspicion. She had transgressed sports and body standards on many levels. She was a poor, young, black… and powerful woman. The ingredients were gathered for multiple stigma. This goes beyond sporting issues and centers on an ontological question related to sex. The question being “what is she” with, in the background, the idea that she is a “false woman”. Historically, the idea germinated in the 1960s and led to the establishment of “gender tests” at the Mexico Olympic Games in 1968 (Bohuon, 2008). The objective was to identify and punish cheaters who would deliberately represent themselves as female athletes. This is also what happened with Caster Semenya. A regulatory attitude was subsequently adopted due to a possible case of identity fraud. But this regulatory aspect – as violent as it was for Caster Semenya – was nothing compared to the public disgrace she had to face. During the controversy that followed her victory, all images of her and comments she had made were used retrospectively to account for her cheating or, at least, for her sexual ambiguity. Her voice made her into a man, as suggested by the following Youtube comments: “Caster, what a low voice you have”;17 “lol the voice is clearly man. this guy looks like a football player, Didier Drogba. XD (sic).”18 The way she dressed was also detailed. The fact that she didn’t wear the same outfits as the other athletes was used to prove her imposture. A single video summarizes it all. Entitled “Total proof that Caster Semenya is a MAN!! (sic)”,19 it lists difference after difference and draws new evidence from each difference: she wears racing shorts while the other athletes wear

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female running gear  ; she wears long clothes when the other runners wear short clothes, she has well developed and visible abdominal muscles (“What a six pack” the video adds)… Taken separately, each of these clothing differences are just details. Caster Semenya used sports clothes that had already been worn by other women. These arguments don’t hold up to scrutiny, but still express the opinion that “she’s A MAN!”20 Another video focused on her underarm hair, seen when she had raised her arms to lift the South African flag after winning: “did you see what he-she has under her-his arms… women don’t have it…”21 Her muscles, her short hair, but also her attitude following her victory (raising her clinched fists to her face like a boxer), the slight swaying of shoulders when she walked… all these elements were combined to fuel suspicion. Moreover, the fact that she was uncomfortable in front of cameras because of her young age and imperfect mastery of English further certified the idea that she was not acting in good faith. Suspicion was so strong that people forgot that she came from a poor and remote village in northern North Transvaal, north of South Africa. She did not have the cultural capital to be comfortable with the media (see Chapter 8 by Salo). Finally, Caster Semenya performed four (real or perceived) transgressions related to historical and social standards of competitive sports and to body, identity and sexual norms: transgression of age, racial transgression, gender transgression and sexual transgression. The ways in which these transgressions combined is neither clear nor always consistent. Nevertheless it reflects how doubt crept in to legitimate a gender test. What follows is an attempt to clarify these transgressions and their interactions.

Transgression of age and racial transgression Strictly speaking, Caster Semenya did not transgress age categories. She was 18 and a few months old when she became the world champion. She was therefore old enough to run in the senior class. The hierarchy of sports is established based on a properly calibrated learning curve. The time required to become a champion is pretty well known despite some exceptions in terms of precocity. As we saw previously, the fact that Caster Semenya smashed her personal record in the races preceding the final made her into a real phenomenon who was, until then, unknown to the general public. After the semi-finals, journalists asked her what she thought about the fact that she had beaten her personal best performance. Because she was seen as a sports phenomenon, she was also treated as a freak. Furthermore, from a Western point of view, one can only speculate on such a trajectory by associating it with racial connotations. Racial segregation no longer exists in sport. However, we must not forget that many indigenous people had access to sports at a historically later date and that this access was sometimes made more challenging. For a long time, the practice of sports by Africans, West Indians, North Africans and Pacific people was conditioned by colonizing countries and their own search for new talents.22

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From Apartheid to segregation in sports 19 We must keep in mind that while the history of sports is linked to national identities, it is also connected with a history or a sociology of racism (Liotard, 1997), the Caster Semenya case being full of racist comments and judgments. Not only were suspicions reinforced because of Caster Semenya’s African origin, but some comments were clearly racist. First, there was perplexity: “I don’t know what to think. She’s very masculine but then again most African woman athletes that I have seen are”.23 Sometimes the discussion explicitly addressed the transgression of gender norms linked to a racial vision. For example CheAshBri commented: You guys are ignorant idiots. She’s from Africa. unless you haven’t noticed they have like super human abilities… even the women who sometimes look manlier then most. I love how nobody questioned her until after she won the medal now all of a sudden its (sic) unfair. Maybe she took testosterone and if so they should disqualify her based on that not because they think she looks like a man. An answer was made by solarlolax: “ey,i’m from africa and we women don’t sometimes look manly… rephrase that insulting comment (sic)”. And CheAshBri answered in turn: I never said anything to offend your ppl reread before you yell at me. I meant that she looks manlier. not because she is african but perhaps due to testosterone and what I meant by super human abilities is a lot of africans are really good in sports. That was a compliment (sic).24 As we can see here, Caster Semenya’s differences are understood through the lens of a racial vision. But there were also explicitly racist comments, such as the following: “not really surprised everyone thinks she is a man, the majority of black women are ugly as fuck”25 ; “she is lika a fucking gorilla running”26 or even “Disgusting Trannie NIGGER”27. Adding the terms ‘gorilla’ or ‘trannie’ (for transvestite or transgender) reinforces the belittling and the insulting dimension of these racist comments,28 as if Caster Semenya were even less of a human being. The verbal violence stemmed from what was perceived as more of a transgression than a form of cheating. Above all, Caster Semenya wasn’t like the others, and this is what was unbearable. She was perceived as being too young, too fast and too black to be honest. Her difference seemed to allow verbal abuse. But of course, the central point is that she was perceived as being too mannish.

Gender transgression Historically, sexism in sports was formed on the idea of female inferiority. Maurice Boigey, a French doctor and Staff Physician at the Joinville Military

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School (France) and a theorist of physical education, stated: “Women are not built to fight, but to procreate” (Boigey, 1939, p.203). The historical resistance to the idea that women could practice a sport first started with arguments of supposed weakness and body fragility. It was also rooted in the perceived risk of masculinization which could lead women to become “butch”. The enemies of bodily culture for women have always predicted that women would become “manly” by engaging in physical activities. This view is completely misguided [as Georges Hébert, the “Natural Method” creator, writes in 1925] ‘But it does unfortunately hold some truth when good measure is exceeded. We can see young female athletes gradually take on the gait, the manners, the poses, the language and all the defects of their male counterparts.’ (Erard and Liotard, 2013) We can see that misconceptions and stereotypes are rooted in a history of representations of gender in sport, in which women are exposed to the risk of transformation and the least desirable transgression: “becoming manly”. What Georges Hébert said in 1925 corresponds to what was said about Caster Semenya in 2009. It is not about being a man or becoming a man, but looking like a man: wearing norms of masculinity instead of being confined to a socially acceptable form of femininity – that is to say, a femininity that mobilizes the codes of a studied appearance (hair, makeup, jewelry, painted nails, etc.). With the advent of doping via male hormones, derogatory judgments about gender identity have increased when women athletes are judged as being too masculine. But as doping control enforcers hunt women whose bodies are distorted by the use of steroids, Caster Semenya brings back the specter of the “false woman”.29 These distorted women would appear to be those whose bodies are altered by the use of steroids, and who could consequently develop muscles close to that of men. In the case of Caster Semenya, comments didn’t miss that point: “she could just be on steroids. she’s got all the symptoms of steroid use…”30 ; “Or is a man, or is full of steroids”31 Such a classificatory thought process structures representations; it instills norms and values related to performance requirement. It is implicated in sports education and socialization. We are therefore led to find it natural to organize sports through segregation. This internalized normality leads to the denial of another normality: Caster Semenya is a woman because she was raised as a girl, considered as a daughter, loved as a girl by her parents and her family. At any rate, Caster Semenya transgresses gender norms. Her body seems to say the opposite of what it is. According to the binary logic of sports classification, she cannot be in a category and look like the athletes of another category. For that reason, discredit fell on her, as she was excluded (in that race32) from the social norms of femininity. Comments denied her sexual

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From Apartheid to segregation in sports 21 identity long after she had been allowed to run in the women’s category: “He doesn’t even really have to train because he’s running against women,”33 “and why is he a champion of a female contest???????????”34 At the time of the race, in 2009, Caster Semenya’s race mates rejected her because of her morphological difference: “That kind of people should not run with us … for me it is not a woman. It is a man” said Elisa Cusma, who finished sixth. Mariya Savinova, who was fifth, didn’t bother with arguments: “just look at her”35. Other women maintained the stigma well after the facts: “if this is allowed once, all women sport will be competed by hermaphrodites! that leaves us women, without any sport events. women should only compete with women, not hermaphrodites (sic)”.36 These reactions are similar to those observed on the occasion of another transgression: when the French tennis player Amélie Mauresmo, then aged 19, came out as a lesbian at the Sidney tournament in 1999. She also had to endure homophobic taunts from fellow competitors. Martina Hingis said for example: “she’s here with her girlfriend. In fact, she’s half a man”.37 For Caster Semenya, the same slanderous allusions were used: “I bet ‘she’ has bigger balls than me :D”38 When gender models are disturbed, violence, discrimination and stigmatization become possible. This allows us to continue with the last level of transgression which also reveals the symbolic aspect of the sportive economy of body differences. Sports categories produce social norms, referring to the most common stereotypes of gender. Thus, gender identity should be linked to sexual orientation. And the transgression of gender stereotypes places the question of sexuality at the heart of the discussion.

Transgression of sexuality In sports as elsewhere, the transgression of gender norms goes hand-inhand with the suspicion of homosexuality. The first rumours around Caster Semenya’s homosexuality appeared at the very beginning of Berlin 2009, even before the media made headlines with her supposed homosexuality. The first comments included suspicions about her sexual orientation combined with her gender identity: “ITS A MANNNNN..or just one ugly ass deep voiced freakish strong lesbian (sic)”;39 “SHE IS A WOMAN JUST BUTCH/STUD PROBABLY LESBIAN TOO”;40 “It wouldn’t surprise me if she is lesbian and wants to be a man”.41 Knowing whether or not she is a lesbian seems absolutely necessary in order to radicalize her difference, as if her sexual orientation was linked to her look. Within standard or intuitive representations, a real woman is heterosexual and must be feminine. Such statements on Caster Semenya’s sexual orientation highlight the logic that has historically led us to suspect transgressive sporting women (Hargreaves, 1994; Caudwell, 1999). Like all women who are considered masculine or engaged in traditionally male sports, Semenya was subjected to the lesbian label. For Pat Griffin, “the

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lesbian label is used to define the boundaries of acceptable female behavior in a patriarchal culture: When a woman is called a lesbian, she knows she is out of bounds” (Griffin, 1992). So Semenya, like others (and much more than others) had to face this possible social judgment. With Caster Semenya, sexism and homophobia merged to produce a sort of interidentityphobia. Moreover, all that has been said about Caster Semenya’s sexual orientation, coupled with her look, perceived as a butch lesbian look (Abelove et al., 1993; Munt, 1997; Lemoine and Renaud, 2001; Bard, 2010) only reinforces the stigmatization of women who are the victims of so-called gang “corrective rape” (Hames, 2011; Brown, 2012). In South Africa, lesbians (real or perceived) are particularly vulnerable to rape in which the authors of these rapes argue that they can “straighten” their victims. Caster Semenya’s case is a matter of norms, beliefs and ideals, at least as far as sporting regulations. Its implications in terms of exclusion, violence and discrimination go beyond the sporting spectacle of strong and powerful bodies… but it stems from such a performance. The IAAF and its regulatory segregation logic were led to ask Caster Semenya to prove that she was what she is. Such an injunction is nothing short of cruel and unfair, even if it was done in the name of fair play. When one knows how education constructs gender, it’s easy to understand the deep psychological injury that occurred with Caster Semenya’s gender testing. She had to demonstrate what she had never doubted. The obsession to categorize the body by sex in sports is the cause of it all. The standard of the sporting body is a measurable standard, reducing the body to its measurements and to its biological characteristics.

Conclusion The classificatory logic in sports has been internalized to such an extent that people can even imagine another category for the so-called “hermaphrodites”: “if this is allowed once, all women sport will be competed by hermaphrodites! that leaves us women, without any sport events. women should only compete with women, not hermaphrodites.”42 Creating another category would be nonsensical. But, since 2011, the sports governing bodies (IAAF, IOC) have legislated and formalized gender regulation. According to the IAAF, it was forbidden for a woman whose testosterone level is higher than ten nanomoles per liter of blood to compete in the female category. For its part, the IOC produced a consensus statement: Nothing in these regulations is intended to make any determination of sex. Instead these regulations are designed to identify circumstances in which a particular athlete will not be eligible (by reason of hormonal characteristics) to participate in the 2012 Olympic Games in the female category.43

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The IAAF and IOC policies on the eligibility of women with hyperandrogenism to compete in the female category were in force until August 2015. The sportive economy of the physical difference requires strict partitions between categories. No matter who you are, you have to possess a standardized body. For her part, Caster Semenya knows who she is. And she wants to share this conviction when she encourages her followers on Twitter in those terms: “Be true to yourself…” (March 27, 2015).

Notes 1 In South Africa Mokgadi means “a girl among boys”, as in a name that could be given to a daughter born after several sons (www.behindthename.com/submit/name/mokgadi). In Semenya’s case this surname is quite important because it gives full meaning to the gender identity that her parents gave to her. 2 Translation from French proofread by Anne Losq. 3 On the concept of the “sportive economy of bodily differences”, see Liotard, 2004. 4 Bougas, N., 2012 ‘Enabled Not Disabled. Oscar Pistorius: “The Fastest thing on no legs”’, Assistnews.net. 5 On the history of the Paralympic movement, see Ruffié, S. and Ferez, S. (eds) 2013. 6 Clarey, C. 2009 ‘Gender Test After a Gold-Medal Finish’, The New York Times, August 19. 7 For a comparison between Pistorius and Semenya’s controversies, see Chapter 4 of Issanchou, 2014. 8 ‘Semenya assomme le 800’, L’Equipe online September 19, 2009. 9 For example ‘Caster Semenya after her Semis at Worlds’ www.youtube.com/ watch?v=G-bqET22vEU. 10 Comments on www.youtube.com/watch?v=693bw9mwxn0. 11 Comments on www.youtube.com/watch?v=693bw9mwxn0. 12 4 seconds slower than the best time for the French regional level and 5 seconds below the French national record for a male cadet (less than 17 years old). 13 See the World Anti-Doping Code (in its various versions, annually updated). 14 Markus Rehm, a single-leg amputee Paralympic athlete, became the 2014 German able-bodied champion of long jump. 15 Lindsey Vonn is an American woman skier then considered as the best skier in the world. 16 ‘Skier Lindsey Vonn can’t race against men in WCup’, Associated Press, November 3, 2012. 17 SteelVelocity, www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-bqET22vEU, 2010. 18 DDD100005, www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-bqET22vEU. 19 ‘Total proof that Caster Semenya is a MAN!!’, www.youtube.com/watch?v= Q2YABD0YugE. 20 ‘She’s A MAN!! Caster Semenya South African 800m Runner… ‘www.youtube. com/watch?v=LAsuSqQr-Qc. 21 ZaDaleko, ‘She’s A MAN!! Caster Semenya South African 800m Runner…’ www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAsuSqQr-Qc. 22 Guttmann, 1994; MacClancy, 1996; Dumont, 2002; Bale and Cronin, 2003 Sport and postcolonialism, Berg, Oxford; Singaravélou, P. and Sorez, J. 2010, L’empire des sports. Une histoire de la mondialisation culturelle, Belin, 2010 23 Comment on www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgCe3zZyDtw. 24 CheAshBri responds to solarlolax, www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgCe3zZyDtw 25 redzer06, www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-bqET22vEU

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26 27 28 29

30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43

Philippe Liotard alan gutierrez, www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgCe3zZyDtw OrionSentry www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgCe3zZyDtw Billig, 2001; Carrington and McDonald, 2001; Parks and Heard, 2009. Erard, C. and Liotard, P., 2013 “L’(in)vulnérabilité sportive des femmes de l’Est: des ‘fausses’ femmes aux femmes ‘faussées’ (1968–1978)”, in Terret, T. et al. Sport, genre et vulnérabilités au XXIème siècle, Presses Universitaires de Rennes, Rennes, pp. 495–510. MoleSnyper, www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgCe3zZyDtw. XenogearsTheFifthFN, www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgCe3zZyDtw. In the following races, Caster Semenya built a much more feminine appearance, by her hair, her makeup… best496, www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-bqET22vEU, 2013. DiabloMercy, www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-bqET22vEU, 2012. Levy, A., 2009 ‘Either/Or. Sports, sex, and the case of Caster Semenya’, The New Yorker, November 30. Sweetcleopatraa, www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-bqET22vEU, 2012. Clarey, C., 1999 “Homosexuality ‘is part of my life’ she says: A Tranquil Mauresmo is Hoping for ‘Respect’”, The New York Times. Borislav tgfan, www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-bqET22vEU, 2012. TheShiningHero, www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-bqET22vEU, 2009. TheLvglam26, www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-bqET22vEU, 2009. munchiesu, www.youtube.com/all_comments?v=CJfbSUquSXc. Sweetcleopatraa, www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-bqET22vEU, 2012. IOC, ‘IOC Regulations on Female Hyperandrogenism’, Lausanne, 22 June 2012.

References Abelove, H., Barale, M. and Halperin, D. (1993) Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader, Routledge, New York. Bale, J. and Cronin M. (2003) Sport and Postcolonialism, Berg, Oxford. Bancel N. and Gayman J-M. (2002) Du guerrier à l’athlète: éléments d’histoire des pratiques corporelles, PUF, Paris. Bard, C. (2010) Une histoire politique du pantalon, Seuil, Paris. Billig, M. (2001) “Humour and Hatred: The Racist Jokes of the Ku Klux Klan”, Discourse and Society, Vol. 12, No. 3, pp. 267–289. Black, D. and Nauright, J. (1998) Rugby and the South African Nation: Sport, Cultures, Politics, and Power in the Old and New South Africas, Manchester University Press. Bohuon, A. (2008) “Sport et bicatégorisation par sexe: test de féminité et ambiguïtés du discours médical” Nouvelles Questions Féministes, Vol. 27, No. 1, pp. 80–91. Boigey, M. (1939) Manuel scientifique d’éducation physique, Masson, Paris. Booth, D. (1998) The Race Game: Sport and Politics in South Africa, Frank Cass, London and Portland (OR). Booth, D. (2003) “Hitting Apartheid for Six? The Politics of the South African Sports Boycott” Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 38, No. 3, pp. 477–493. Bougas, N. (2012) “Enabled Not Disabled. Oscar Pistorius: ‘The Fastest thing on no legs’”, Assistnews.net. www.sloppynoodle.com/wp/enabled-not-disabled (accessed June 10, 2012). Brown, R. (2012) “Corrective Rape in South Africa: A Continuing Plight Despite an International Human Rights Response” Annual Survey of International & Comparative Law, Vol. 18, No. 1, Art. 5.

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From Apartheid to segregation in sports 25 Cahn, S. (1994) Coming on Strong: Gender and Sexuality in Twentieth-century Women’s Sport, Free Press, New York. Carrington, B. and McDonald, I. (2001) “Race”, Sport and British Society, Routledge, London. Caudwell, J. (1999) “Women’s Football in the United Kingdom Theorizing Gender and Unpacking the Butch Lesbian Image”, Journal of Sport and Social Issues, Vol. 23, No. 4, pp. 390–402. Clarey, C. (1999) “Homosexuality ‘is part of my life’ she says: A Tranquil Mauresmo is Hoping for ‘Respect’”, The New York Times, February 1. Clarey, C. (2009) “Gender Test After a Gold-Medal Finish”, The New York Times, August 19. Dumont, J. (2002) Sport et assimilation à la Guadeloupe: les enjeux du corps performant de la colonie au département, 1914–1965, L’Harmattan, Paris. Erard, C. and Liotard, P. (2013) “L’(in)vulnérabilité sportive des femmes de l’Est : des ‘fausses’ femmes aux femmes ‘faussées’ (1968–1978)”, in Terret, T., Robène, L., Charroin, P., Héas, S. and Liotard, P. Sport, genre et vulnérabilités au XXIème siècle, Presses Universitaires de Rennes, Rennes, pp. 495–510. Griffin, P. (1992) “Changing the Game: Homophobia, Sexism, and Lesbians in Sport”, Quest, 44, pp. 252–252. Guttmann, A. (1994) Games and Empires: Modern Sports and Cultural Imperialism, New York, Columbia University Press. Hames, M. (2011) “Violence against Black Lesbians: Minding our Language”, Agenda: Empowering Women for Gender Equity, Vol. 25, No. 4, pp. 87–91. Hargreaves, J. (1994) Sporting Females. Critical Issues in the History and Sociology of Women’s Sports, Routledge, London. Heggie, V. (2010) “Testing Sex And Gender In Sports  ; Reinventing, Reimagining And Reconstructing Histories”, Endeavour, Vol. 34, No. 4, pp. 157–163. Issanchou, D. (2014) Une indicible monstruosité. Etude de cas de la controverse médiatique autour d’Oscar Pistorius (2007–2012 en France), PhD, Paris Ouest Nanterre. Lemoine, C. and Renaud, I. (2001) Attirances. Lesbiennes butch, lesbiennes fems, Éditions gaies et lesbiennes, Paris. Liotard, P. (1993) L’étalon des stades, mémoire de sociologie, Université Montpellier3. Liotard, P. (1997) “Le sport au secours des imaginaires nationaux”, Quasimodo, No. 3–4, p. 9–31. Liotard, P. (2004) “L’éthique sportive, une morale de la soumission?”, in Attali, M., ed., Le sport et ses valeurs, La Dispute, Paris, pp.117–156. Ljungqvist A., Martinez-Patino, M-J., Martinez-Vidal, A., Zagalaz, L., Diaz, P. and Mateos, C. (2006) “The History and Current Policies on Gender Testing in Elite Athletes: Review article”, International SportMed Journal: Genetics and Sport, Vol 7, No. 3, pp. 225–230. MacClancy, J. (ed.) (1996) Sport, Identity and Ethnicity, Berg, Oxford. Messner, M. (2002) Taking the Field: Women, Men, and Sports, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN. Montañola, S. and Olivesi, A. (2016) “Caster Semenya dans les forums sportifs: de la transgression à l’évolution des normes corporelles de genre”, PUR, to be published. Munt, S. (1997) Butch/Femme Inside Lesbian Gender, Cassel, London. Parks, G. and Heard, D. (2009) “‘Assassinate the Nigger Apes’: Obama, Implicit Imagery and the Dire Consequences of Racist Jokes”, Social Science Research Network.

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Ruffié, S., and Ferez, S. (eds) (2013) Corps, Sport, Handicaps: L’institutionnalisation du mouvement handisport (1954–2008), Téraèdre, Paris. Singaravélou, P., and Sorez, J. (2010) L’empire des sports. Une histoire de la mondialisation culturelle, Belin, Paris. Stoddart, B. (1988) “Sport, Cultural Imperialism, and Colonial Response in the British Empire”, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 30, pp. 649–673.

2

Gender verifications vs. anti-doping policies Sexed controls

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Anaïs Bohuon and Eva Rodriguez1

High-performance sports, as codified physical practices, involve rules aimed at the proper functioning of athletic competitions, and are supposed to preserve what would be the values of athletics in general. From the “chivalrous spirit,”2 by way of the “love of fair-play”3 of various Olympic charters, and up to the “play true” mantra encouraged by the World Anti-Doping Code (henceforth indicated as WADC),4 the Olympic movement is presented as a true “philosophy of life” of which the “pure essence” would be the “spirit of athleticism.” In order to guarantee this “intrinsic value of athletics,” both national and international athletic competitions have equipped themselves with numerous codes, regulations, and charters which establish the rules relative to their organizations, so as to guarantee “fairness and equality for Athletes worldwide,”5 or, in other words, the equality of chances at the starting line, so that the best truly does win (see Chapter 3 by Camporesi and Maugeri). One of these principal constitutive rules is that of categorization: of handicapped individuals (the Paralympic Games come to mind), of weight (in the majority of combat sports: judo, boxing, freestyle wrestling, etc., or even in weightlifting), but, especially, in terms of sex. In sports, the category of sex affects all disciplines, with the exception of a few, which are assumed to not place too great an importance on the quality of strength, such as shooting, sailing and equestrianism. Defined by international athletic institutions as a governing criterion in the organization of competitions, sexual difference establishes a mode of classification of athletes, which imposes the organization of sporting events separated by way of “their sexes” (see Chapter  1 by Liotard). Whether in competitions of the most elite athletes or amateur sporting activities, sport is a domain in which single-sex practicing is the norm. Women and men compete in distinct categories: each one with its own rules, codes, chronometers, and scales… Moreover, this sexual categorization is based on the idea according to which men are “naturally” stronger; thus, the presence of male athletes in feminine athletic competitions would introduce an unacceptable bias in these sorts of sporting events. Presented as an attempt to prevent men from competing with women and to maintain sexual categorization by way of certifying the sex of competitors,

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“gender verifications,”6 in the form of medical examinations, were introduced in 1966 to high-level athletic competitions, along with drug testing. This simultaneity has thus generated an imbalance in the apprehension of gendered bodies, placing upon each and every female athlete, whose body does not exactly correspond to the norms of femininity, the suspicion of cheating. These “gender verifications” will have as a consequence the ratification of the idea as well as the existence of an insuperable frontier between men and women. However, the need to test the sex of an individual confirms that such a distinction is all but obvious and that it cannot be reduced to a binary partition (Elsas et al., 2000; Fausto-Sterling, 2000). Moreover, the different conceptualizations of sex (humoral sex, anatomic sex, gonadic sex, hormonal sex, chromosomal sex, psychological sex…) far from achieving once and for all their story have, every time, brought the sexual bi-categorization of bodies to crisis (Dorlin, 2012). Caster Semenya, in 2009, was suspected by some of her adversaries, as well as by athletic authorities, of not being a “real” woman; and thus, that this would disrupt the equilibrium of the competition, by way of a hidden physical advantage. This “physical advantage” is supposedly attributed to a level of androgens higher than the threshold authorized in the female category, thus reaching the threshold considered as “masculine,” without having resorted to the use of exogenous hormones. Caster Semenya is far from being an isolated case in the history of athletics and “gender verification” (Bohuon, 2012). Nevertheless, the media wave surrounding her case (see Chapters 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 by Olivesi, Montañola, Rose, Sloop and Salo), and the decisions made by organizations such as the International Association of Athletics Federations (henceforth indicated as IAAF) and the International Olympic Committee (henceforth IOC) which followed, provide evidence for the burning topicality surrounding the nonresolved question concerning the determination “of the sex of athletes” and of the mode of male/female categorization in competitions. All of this came to the surface at the same moment in which revelations on the doping practices of athletes worldwide began to flourish, with no end in sight. Said revelations profoundly challenge the boundary between natural and artificial methods and lawful and illicit ways to use biological knowledge, medical and pharmaceutical means, which have the capacity to improve athletic performance. These various problematics were found to be mixed up, confused, and sometimes superimposed in Caster Semenya’s case, revealing the arbitrary character of the arguments which drive sporting events. These arguments are, on one hand, the question of the delimitation of what constitutes (or not) a physical (dis)advantage; and on the other hand, how to make the decision to authorize it, tolerate it, prohibit it or correct it, in a field in which the fundamental rule is the competition of all against all, with the goal, precisely, being to capitalize on one’s “innate” or “acquired” advantages. In this chapter, with our point of departure being the history of the establishment of “gender verification” in athletics, which we will analyze in regard

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to the politics of modern combats against doping, we wish to interrogate the treatment of Caster Semenya’s case by the medical commissions of sporting events such as the IAAF, the IOC, or by the WADA,7 and analyze its consequences in the “definition” of sex. Starting from the various athletic regulations concerning the production and administration of endogenous and exogenous androgens, we will see how, in regards to the stated objective to guarantee sporting competitions fair, this process of defining sex appears to be what one could call a doggedness directed towards the maintaining of the now obsolete categories of male/female. Finally, this article aims to show that the leading sporting events consider today that it is hormones, and notably, androgens, that must be the criteria that define the two-fold division in terms of gender. Moreover, the judgment that beyond a certain threshold,8 these hormones are the exclusive purview of men, clearly elucidates what one could call a process of substantialization of social and economic privileges, symbolic of masculinity in the domain of athletic performance.

Gender verifications or the impossible marker of the capacity to be a “real woman” In light of the presented objective of preventing men competing in women’s sporting events and to put an end to the suspicions raised concerning the subject of the sex of certain athletes, the IAAF put in place a test, practiced under the aegis of doctors, destined to identify the “real women,” and, simultaneously, to exclude the athletes who do not conform to the criteria defined by the athletic governing bodies in the determination of their belonging to a certain sex (Bohuon, 2012). The first test of femininity, introduced at the time of the 1966 European Championships of Athleticism in Budapest, and imposed upon the competitors, who were chosen at random, was a gynecological and morphological examination (dynamometer and spirometer) in which the visible genitals (anatomical), as well as muscular strength and respiratory capacity, had to remain below the capacities deemed as masculine, were taken into account. Judged as too humiliating for the athletes, this examination was replaced in 1968, at the time of the Olympic Games in Mexico, by Barr’s body test, established by the IOC and imposed, this time, upon all of the athletes. The examination consisted in taking a sample of oral mucus, which permitted the revealing of a second X chromosome (Ljungqvist, 2000). Those who passed the examination successfully received a certificate of femininity.9 The reliability of this test having been called in to question, in 1991, the Olympic by-laws decreed the adoption of a new procedure for sexual determination. Said procedure, called the PCR/SRY10 method, consists in locating the presence of a Y chromosome, contrary to the former test which consisted in looking for a second X chromosome. Designed by the IOC’s medical commission, the Frenchman Bernard Dingeon was the

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doctor responsible for the implementation of this new test. The “pilot test” took place in 1991, at the time of the Worldwide University Games in Japan. On the Olympic level, the new method was used for the first time in 1992, in Albertville and in Barcelona (Serrat and Garcia de Herrero, 1996); it would be next used in Lillehammer in 1994, in Atlanta in 1996, and in Nagano in 1998. However, controversy concerning said examination broke out quite quickly. Based not only on who is evaluated but also upon the ethical dimensions of the test, often coming from doctors whose work is essentially in the publication of scientific articles, said controversy also fed upon more visible oppositions which appeared, beginning in 1992, at the moment of the implementation of the new test for the Olympic Games in Albertville (Bohuon, 2012). The criticism principally came from the sporting world. Although the gender test was strongly defended by the IOC and other federations, such as the International Ski Federation, the IAAF called the test into question straightaway, near the beginning of the 1990s. Amongst the arguments invoked by the IAAF, the doctors from this organization highlighted the fact that the gender examination defined sex exclusively in terms of chromosomes, thus excluding the majority of XY women possessing chromosomal differentiations without benefitting from physical advantages, and permitting “XX men” to be accepted as women. Consequentially, the IAAF advocated that a great number of individuals should undergo the examination, so as to verify its reliability (Serrat and Garcia de Herrero, 1996). For this institution, the new PCR method was not a suitable solution. Even if the governing body of its implementation esteemed it as dependable 99 percent of the time, the one percent chance of error was deemed as unacceptable. The PCR test’s sensitivity would be such as the individual who administered the test or simply found himself in proximity to it could falsify the results. In early 1992, opposition emanated from specialists on the outside of the sporting world as well. Also, contrarily to the IOC, which demanded that gender examinations would systematically continue up until 2000, the IAAF decided in 1992 to renounce these sorts of tests. These different changes in the criteria for the femininity test (genital organs, the presence of a second X chromosome and then the presence of a Y chromosome) show the multiple dimensions of biological sex and the great difficulty, or even impossibility, in determining the “true” sex of a given individual. From this point of view, sex has always posed a problem rather than provided certitude, as the various written works on this question demonstrate (see Chapter 4 by Brunet and Salle).11 However, the complexity of the determination of sex finds itself completely evacuated in favor of the supposed alignment between all of the components of sex: the chromosomal formula, thus chosen in 1992 as the sole marker of the capacity to be a “real woman,” eludes the complexity of questions such as that of intersexuation,12 and bans a good number of people in rendering their bodies unreadable or indefinable.

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Gender verifications vs. anti-doping policies 31 These medical practices could also be questioned, just as much as the presupposed ideology that they provide glimpses of: this being a normative and exclusive definition of the “real woman,” which has finally become the decisive criterion of eligibility, a guarantee for permission to participate in the competition, but also for femininity in general. In effect, in biology, sex designates a mechanism of genetic recombination coming from different sources, working together to produce another individual (Margulis and Sagan, 1997) – which doesn’t have much to do with the fact of identifying oneself as, or being identified as, a man, a woman, or “other”. However, when biology is viewed from a medical point of view, which is the case in athletics, sex becomes a pathological affair, as well as a questioning of “normality” (Canguilhem, 1966). The practice of femininity tests supposes the affixing of a definition of the “real woman,” which finds itself incarnated in bodies which are delineated as either qualified or not, according to norms. Historically, in these sorts of examinations, a single criterion of sexual determination – the chromosomal criterion, for example – thus monopolizes the truth of sex. The existence of individuals who could potentially fail these tests without the conjecture of fraud (such as XX or XXY athletes) allows light to be shed upon the inadequacy of these tests in relation to their objectives (such individuals are not frauds; but in fact, intersex athletes) along with the binary categorizations of male/female, which are, in reality, quite complex due to the numerous variations of sexual conformations that exist. In order to illustrate all of these problematics, one could mention the female Spanish hurdler Maria José Martinez-Patiño, whose case has gone down in history. At the time of the 1985 World University Games in Kobe, her negative results on the sexual chromatin test excluded her from the competition. Even more frustrating is the fact that she had passed the exact same test two years prior to that, at the World Championships in Helsinki. Having forgotten her certificate of femininity, she was obliged to take the test once again, which, this time, declared her as officially “unfit” to compete alongside the other women. Maria Patiño thus became involved in a lengthy struggle, at the end of which she reclaimed her status as a “real woman” (Martinez-Patiño, 2005). In Kobe, three athletes (out of 523) were excluded: two of them, one being Maria Patiño, presented a complete insensitivity to androgens (Simpson et  al., 1993), long defined as the syndrome of testicular feminization. These individuals possess, in effect, “feminine” secondary sexual characteristics and muscle structure, associated with chromosomal sexual characteristics (XY), along with gonadic and hormonal characteristics defined as “masculine.” Rather than giving up, Maria Patiño solicited the help of specialists, and, in 1998, she submitted herself to a range of analyses that confirmed her insensitivity to androgens (Ritchie, 2003). This “discovery” allowed her to be reintegrated into the Spanish national team. Although she had been excluded for too long a time to recover her previous level of performance; her story galvanized the

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opposition aimed at these sorts of examinations and played a role in informing the public regarding the dubious reliability of these imposed examinations. Maria Patiño’s story, just as the changes in the criteria of the femininity tests, reveal the complexity inherent to the identification and definition of what would be an individual’s sex. The test examines the sex said to be biological (external genitalia, gonads, chromosomes) (Bohuon, 2008), thus participating in the system of thought which desires that identities and sexual roles be founded in nature, a naturalization being denounced by a plethora of research: “Sex is traditionally considered as biological data which dichotomizes the human gender into two, biologically distinct categories, with psychological and social attributes naturally ensuing from said difference. These attributes find themselves dichotomized within the objective to delimit the spheres of masculine and feminine” (Hurtig et al., 1991). Sexual categorizations (female/male and femininity/masculinity) call to mind the socially established link between, on one hand, biological data relative to sex, and on the other hand, the psychological and social constructions of the division between masculine and feminine. Let us remember that many works of research concerning gender (for example Butler, 1990; Haraway, 1991) endeavored precisely to show how the process of the naturalization of sex operates. For Judith Butler, it is gender as a device of power13 that produces the normative categories of masculine and feminine and the categories of male and female, as if they were natural categories (retroactively naturalized). Gender thus designates the relation of power that has produced these differentiated and hierarchical categories, as well as the stereotypes that characterize them, and the social repartition of the roles, tasks, and attributes which confirm them. In other words, gender produces gendered subjects: masculine and feminine behaviours, physical identifications, but also gendered bodies.14 Indeed, gender produces “sex” in itself (Butler, 1993), in the sense in which sex is the naturalized and/or biological expression of gender; it is its corporal materialization. This naturalization of sex is not unique to the world of athletics, but for reasons both historical and cultural, it is particularly evident in this domain. First and foremost, here more than in any other domain, “physicality is omnipresent and physical performance is adulated” (Laberge, 2004: p. 9). The labels and judgments are, in effect, founded on the articulation between the materiality of the body and socially expected comportments: thus, the fact to be seen as a tomboy or to be considered as too masculine prevented or hindered many women from participating in many athletic disciplines.15 The specter of virility, a constant obstacle to the women’s athletic activity, raises questions about the compatibility of intensive physical exercise with “feminine” morphologies. In participating too intensely in their discipline, female athletes encounter difficulties in defining themselves in terms of their sexual identity. The question of whether or not sports masculinize those who take part in them is a recurring question; and the athletes who appropriate techniques deemed as masculine must, thus, “conserve” and “prove” their femininity.

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Finally, after numerous polemics and hesitations, at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, the IOC decided to “symbolically” eliminate the test. However, just as for the IAAF, this decision was announced as non-definitive; it was presented as an experiment, subject to change. This gives evidence for the reluctance of the sporting world, divided between, on one hand, the preservation of a very controversial examination, concerning both its modalities as well as what it claims to guarantee, and, on the other hand, the conviction of athletic governing bodies of the necessity of the biological sex of athletes to be scientifically founded, so as to guarantee a supposed equality in competitions. Not having found any other medical solutions besides the PCR/SRY, the IOC announced that medical personnel would be authorized to intervene in cases of doubt concerning the sex of certain athletes, doubts which could be based, from that point forward, only on an aesthetic appreciation of the body of the athlete which conforms to dominant gender norms. Thus, suspicions raised by any certain individual are based on social judgment (morphology, aesthetics, femininity). Facing the insufficiency and the plurality of the criteria proposed to define sex, of which the multiple dimensions cannot be the object of an “examination,” however reliable it seems to appear, doctors now take shelter behind a definition of “athletic” sex so as to respond to problems deemed as specific with respect to “fairness” in athletic competitions. Thus, today it is now acceptable to detect “hormonal” sex, which directly influences muscular mass, according to the IOC: “In general, the performances of male and female athletes may differ mainly due to the fact that men produce significantly more androgenic hormones than women and, therefore, are under stronger influence of such hormones. Androgenic hormones have performance-enhancing effects, particularly on strength, power and speed, which may provide a competitive advantage in sports.”16 This is why, in 2009, at the time of the World Championships of Athleticism in Berlin, following the suspicions raised concerning her sex, regarding her performances deemed “too spectacular” to have been executed by a woman, her morphology judged as too masculine, and her outfits believed to be not feminine enough, Caster Semenya had to undergo gender verifications, in the form of hormonal examinations, before finally being suspended from the competition until a committee of experts gave a ruling on her case. The test sought to know, so it seems, if she possessed “feminine hyperandrogenism syndrome,” (a production of androgens “abnormally” superior to the average of that of women), presumed to provide her with an advantage over other competitors of “her” sex. Due to medical confidentiality, no information concerning the results of her tests has been publicized; nevertheless, this hypothesis is more than plausible, taking into account the publications by the IAAF and the IOC, providing regulations which define the conditions of admissibility for female athletes possessing hyperandrogenism, shortly following her examinations.

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Regulation of physical advantages: a sexual medicalization of performance The idea that sex is a physical property that provides men with an innate physical advantage over women justifies the fact that it should be established as the preliminary category of classification for each and every athletic competition. Sex constitutes a classificatory marker, and at the same time could be characterized by properties which procure innate capabilities, inalterable and unequally distributed. In this specific case, in essence, men would have an advantage over women; and, in athleticism, for example, the organization of competitions as separated by sex or using different scales have as their goal giving an equitable chance to women: because a mixed competition would be unequal by definition, and thus unfair concerning the women who would have to measure up against “physically” advantaged men. This principle of separation thus exists to allow feminine and masculine athletes to compete not on an equal foot but on two equals foots, re-establishing equity by way of the regulation of physical advantages: creating two categories for two sexes, two measures. We have understood, in the regulations concerning the “hyperandrogenism” of female athletes, that it is the androgens that are supposed to incarnate, or “substantialize,” this advantage that men have over women. The regulation of androgens thus essentializes masculine privilege – the etymology of androgen being to “make the man” is eloquent in this regard – and the sporting world could remain, as in the times of the charters drawn up by Pierre de Coubertin, a bastion reserved only for men, in which performance rhymes with masculine, a terrain onto which women are authorized to enter under the condition that they remain in the place attributed to them, that of another competition. However, one could just as well consider – speculatively – that size could be considered as a corporal property which could offer a “physical” advantage in many disciplines, and imagine the categories of athletes authorized to compete amongst themselves – independently of the sex attributed to them – in terms of different scales of size. This is, obviously, a speculation; nevertheless, it highlights the relatively arbitrary character of androgens as the criteria of categorization. Moreover, the question of the authorization (or not) of a physical advantage (see Chapter 3 by Camporesi and Maugeri) has been found to be problematic time and time again in the history of athletics up until the present day; still, this question remains unresolved, as the contradictions in this concerning this matter show. Numerous athletes possess proven advantages; authorized “natural” advantages, likened to cheating and thus, forbidden. This distinction, which rests upon the dichotomy of natural/artificial, is illustrated, for example, by the controversial and unstable regulations surrounding the elevated hematocrit of certain athletes – which procures an advantage in endurance sports: authorized as long as it is judged to be natural, and forbidden once it

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is judged as artificial, with the notion of “artificiality” varying on a regular basis. Thus, certain athletes possessing an elevated hematocrit17 due to the practicing of their sport in high altitude (which is authorized by the authorities) – which allows for an augmentation of the hematocrit, or, for others, who possess a genetic mutation which results in the modification of a erythropoietin (EPO)18 receptor – thus, non-artificial – are authorized to “profit” from this “natural” or “naturally acquired” advantage. However, these athletes are not protected in the occurrence of a change in the rules, as in the cases of blood auto-transfusion or the hypobaric chamber technique,19 which have not always been forbidden. On the other hand, athletes having used EPO synthesis are punished as soon as their usage is discovered.20 Since the 1950s, the increasingly significant place allotted for biomedicine and pharmacology in the physical preparation of athletes has, indeed, provoked progressive confusion between methods of care and methods of enhancement, legal and illegal methods, that the various anti-doping controls and codes have been trying to regulate since the 1960s.21 First, the intervention of sports physicians was essentially expected to be therapeutic: that is, to take care of the health of athletes – to prevent, to maintain, and to heal. Today, however, the relations between medicine and sport have profoundly changed.22 On one hand, being subject to the influence of the logical need to make economic profit and punctuated by the – lucrative – constraints of marketing, sporting calendars have become more and more demanding, using and exhausting the bodies of athletes. On the other hand, the important progress in the fields of biomedicine and pharmacology have driven sports medicine to turn towards what is now known as enhancement medicine, rather than therapeutic medicine, aiming at, above all, and by all means, to maximize and improve the physical capacities of athletes by limited definitions. Examined, calibrated, and manipulated, in order to optimize their output and to break records, to perform spectacularly and exceptionally, one can witness the medicalization of athletic performance, in which “doping” appears simultaneously as a logical extension, and an unclear path. If the hunt for doped athletes was officially declared in 1999 by way of the creation of the WADA, the question of the definition of doping itself remains problematic23 and subject to the arbitrariness of the WADA, as the definition that it provides attests: “Doping is defined as the occurrence of one or more of the anti-doping rule violations set forth in Article 2.1 through Article 2.10 of the Code” (WADC, 2015: 5). It is thus at the discretion of the “List of Prohibited Substances and Methods,” published and updated each year as a complement to the code, that doping is defined today in athletics. As an official authority, the WADA – which has for its logo an “equal sign,” which expresses “equity and fairness,” and for its slogan “play true,” – claims as its mission the preservation of the intrinsic values of sports, or “the spirit of sport,” mentioned in the introduction. Doping is defined in the WADA’s code as “fundamentally contrary to the spirit of sport” (WADC, 2015: 3). It is exclusively to this “spirit of sport” that the code refers in updating its list of

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prohibited substances and methods.24 Its key activities include, among others, scientific research, education, and development of anti-doping capacities. Edwin Moses,25 president of the WADA’s Committee of Education, explained in a brief interview, published on the WADA’s website, how he discovered doping: The 1976 Olympics, here in Montreal. At that Games, I saw women competing that were more manly than me. I had never seen that before; the beards, the mustaches, the deep voices. The American team, especially the women, just got completely shut out during that Olympics, there was no contest. That’s when it became apparent that if you took substances you could definitely win. Something had to be done.26 This account of disenchantment and of the loss of innocence illustrates the way in which this myth has been constructed, which still today propagates confusion between doping, masculinization of female athletes, suspicion, and proven cheating, reinforced by recent regulations concerning hyperandrogenism.

Endogenous testosterone vs. exogenous testosterone: two sexes, two rules? The focus will now turn to the status of testosterone in the regulations concerning doping, because it is due to an overly elevated level of testosterone that female athletes would be responsible for perturbing the equality between them. Testosterone was first added to the IOC list of banned substances in 1982 and it is now listed today in the section S.I.1.b: “Anabolic agents: Anabolic Androgenic Steroids (AAS) Endogenous when administered exogenously,” (our emphasis) of the List of Prohibited Substances and Methods.27 As a first step, to detect testosterone, the value of the rapport of the concentrations of testosterone/epitestosterone (TE ratio, henceforth) was tested. With a ratio superior to 6:1, the athlete was said to be positive. A certain number of athletes, who presented “atypical” results, had a TE ratio superior to 6:1: the ratio was thus raised to 10:1, then being lowered back down to 6:1, and, in 2005, the WADA finally decided to reduce it to 4:1 (see Colman et al., 2011). To cope with the numerous manipulations developed so as to equilibrate this ratio, and especially, following the cases of “false positives”28 which caused these tests to be questioned – certain athletes presenting a TE ratio greatly superior to the authorized ratio for various reasons29 – this analysis was supplemented by new techniques of urinary analyses, aiming to distinguish the exogenous origin/the endogenous origin of testosterone.30 One should also note that in the new, 2015, version of the code – whose explicit aim is not to forbid substances or methods – in the rubric 7.4, “Review of

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Atypical Findings,” which clarifies the modalities of investigation to be followed in the case of abnormal results considered as infractions of anti-doping rules, an important distinction is made between an abnormal result and an atypical result. Moreover, a comment, which is reproduced here, concerning the TE ratio, has been added: [Comment to Article 7.4: The “required investigation” described in this Article will depend on the situation. For example, if it has previously determined that an athlete has a naturally elevated testosterone/epitestosterone ratio, confirmation that an Atypical Finding is consistent with that prior ratio is a sufficient investigation.] As this paragraph shows, it seems acceptable that athletes (without particulars concerning their sex) could benefit from an exception in seeing their TE ratio qualified as atypical rather than abnormal. In these cases, a positive testosterone result is no longer due to a ratio superior to that which is authorized, but rather the detection of synthetic, or artificial, testosterone (and epitestosterone), which has not been produced by the organism in a “natural manner.” What is forbidden, and thus, looked for, as in the citation reproduced below, is an exogenous, and no longer an endogenous, origin of testosterone. Thus, one could read as early as in 2006 then in 2011, in the WADA’s “Guidelines for the Reporting and Management of Elevated TE Ratios and Endogenous Steroids”: When an anabolic androgenic steroid can be produced endogenously, a sample will be deemed to contain such prohibited substance and an abnormal analytical finding will be reported when the concentration of such prohibited substance or its metabolites or markers and/or the value of the relevant ratio in the sample athlete is so different from normal values identified in humans that it is unlikely that it corresponds to a normal endogenous production. A sample shall not be deemed to contain a prohibited substance when the athlete proves that the concentration of the prohibited substance or its metabolites or markers and/or the relevant report in the athlete sample can be attributed to a physiological or pathological condition.” 31 Thus, “in all cases, and at any concentration, the athlete’s sample will be deemed to contain a prohibited substance and the laboratory will report an adverse analytical finding if, based on any reliable analytical method (GC/C/ IRMS),32 the laboratory can show that the prohibited substance is of exogenous origin. In such a case, no further investigation is necessary.”33 As highlighted in the citation above, one can clearly see that the issue of the detection of doping with sexual steroids has been refocused around the question of “endogenous” vs. “exogenous.” The fact that certain men have an endogenous production of testosterone, possibly being greatly superior to the statistical average, has resulted in the modification of the techniques

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used to detect testosterone doping. The value is no longer controlled, but rather the quality: the origin of the sexual steroid, whether it be “natural” or “unnatural.” Natural testosterone can be found in unlimited quantities, and be acceptable; whereas synthetic testosterone is forbidden. How, thus, can one analyze the fact that today, there is regulation specific to women, which analyzes their levels of testosterone, and obliges them, in the cases in which they are defined as being hyperandrogenous – even if there has been no “artificial modification,” which is normally looked for in doping tests – to lower their testosterone levels in order to have the right to compete? Even if we cannot affirm here that this is what happened in Caster Semenya’s case, due to medical confidentiality, one can suppose that the suspicions (proven or not) of hyperandrogenism, of which she was the object, her provisory suspension and the new rules concerning hyperandrogenism which followed did not simply come out of nowhere. After a provisory suspension from all competition, Caster Semenya was once again authorized to run beginning in July 2010. Since May 2011, these new “gender controls/examinations” impose upon women deemed as hyperandrogenous that they correct their production of androgens, by artificially reducing their levels, claiming that androgens, especially testosterone, procure a physical advantage. The argument restated here is once again that of assuring and guaranteeing athletes the right to “fair” competition (see Chapter 9 by Sloop). However, it is difficult to not see these texts as a consequence of Caster Semenya’s case, as well as an occasion to reaffirm, via new regulations, that in terms of testosterone, men and women should keep their distance. In this sense, gender examinations and doping controls constitute, without a doubt, sexed examinations which generate an imbalance in the understanding of sexed bodies, notably regarding the understanding of hormonal levels, revealing great confusion between the “natural” masculinization and “artificial” masculinization of athletes. These tests relative to hyperandrogenism have become part of the history of gender-based examinations, which, too often, tend to exclude feminine athletes suspected not to be “real women,” or too masculine, linking that to dishonest cheating, although the goal was never to reveal women having taken anabolic steroids. In theory, these two questions – cheating by way of doping and mystification concerning sexual difference – should be objectively separated.

Conclusion Thus, the exogenous intake of testosterone seems to threaten the equality that athletic authorities deem as essential to the logic of competition. However, the athletes who define themselves as women or intersex can, at times, produce a level of testosterone higher than the average, and, consequently, potentially benefit from a physical superiority: but isn’t this “inequality” as natural as, for example, the slower cardiac rhythm of many exceptional athletes? In effect, there are advantages and disadvantages that cannot be leveled

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off by ranking by sex, by size, by age, etc. Why should testosterone, if it is considered as a potential advantage in the majority of athletic disciplines, be the prerogative of men and forbidden to women, beyond a quantity said to be insignificant? The production of testosterone by these athletes, women or intersexes, is endogenous and, in this context, it is an asset comparable to that provided by a heart which beats slower than the average. The interventions of the IOC and the IAAF in Caster Semenya’s life make one wonder how far, in fact, we are capable of going in order to perpetrate the idea of the physical inferiority of women – which serves to justify countless inequalities – as well as in order to confirm the difference between the two sexes. Although doping practices are becoming more and more numerous, technical sporting equipment more and more adapted to the performances required, the rationalization of training more and more medical, is it truly surprising that “natural” bodies are thus pushed beyond their limits by all possible means? It is rather the obsolete border between the “natural body” and the “artificial body” that should be rendered problematic. Anti-doping controls and femininity tests constitute sexed examinations which have as their objective the reestablishment of the – hidden – truth of bodies, by way of revealing those who cheat or try to fool their true nature: “artificially” for men, “naturally” for women? Definitively, athletic authorities, in the image of the frequently interviewed geneticist Eric Vilain,34 one of the scientists at the origin of the Olympic regulation on hyperandrogeny, admit to the imperfection of this “hormonal” solution, but explain the difficulty in finding better solutions for maintaining sexed bi-categorization and the “equality of opportunity.” However, Dutee Chand, an Indian sprinter, aged 18, prohibited from participating in the Glasgow Commonwealth Games of July 2014, due to hyperandrogeny, could significantly mark history in publicly contesting these rules and in calling upon the Court of Arbitration for sport. She explains that she refuses to submit to these rules, not understanding why she should have to undergo hormone therapy, as she has not cheated, and that these “advantages” are the result of an endogenous production, “natural” to her body. However, what many individuals – surely perturbed by a possible challenge of a sexed bi-categorization in the athletic world – tend to forget, is that this debate is based on a false problem, and in reality, should not even exist. First of all, whether in the case of Caster Semenya or that of Dutee Chand, their performances are still far from those of male athletes; and, finally, they are disrupting nothing in terms of the historically established sexed hierarchical order of records, and thus, the sexed bi-categorization upon which high-level sports are founded. Finally, in calling upon the CAS,35 Dutee Chand could help reveal many ways in which the judicial realm of sports is dysfunctional. The question concerning the respect of certain judicial principles, and more particularly, fundamental rights, by the IOC deserves to be raised. Indeed, what to think about the principle of the inviolability of the human body, when the choice

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left to these athletes is to either abandon their career or to submit to extreme medical procedures, of which the medical necessity is never confirmed? In the same sense, can one not envisage this injunction of normalization as a degrading and inhuman treatment, possibly even as torture, which is prohibited by European, as well as by international law? In this perspective, it seems to be pertinent to open the debate upon the principles to which the rules of the IOC respond, at the time when fundamental laws do not appear to be the bedrock. In conclusion, athletics, as a specific field in terms of the make up of the body, appears here as a normative domain, which has its own rules that guarantee the production and the reproduction of a border between natural and artificial and that make sure that the natural order of hierarchy between the sexes is not undermined. However, the sexed categories of men and women, supposed to incarnate natural categories, do not cease to be fabricated by all of the means and technical measures possible, thus revealing the necessarily artificial character of natural categories.

Notes 1 This article was translated from French by Katrina Ann Branon. 2 “Charte olympique, Statuts, Règlements et protocole de la célébration des olympiades modernes et des jeux olympiques quadriennaux,” published by the Comité International Olympique in 1921, p. 11 (in French: “esprit chevaleresque”). 3 See for example, The Olympic Charter – The International Olympic Committee and the Modern Olympic Games, 1933, p. 9. 4 See page 10 of the World Anti-Doping Code (WADC), published by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). 5 The Olympic Charter, written for the first time by Pierre de Coubertin in 1908, titled “Comité International Olympique – Annuaire,” and presently edited by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) which lays down the fundamental principles of Sport. Thus, one could already read, in 1920, in article 1, “They assemble the AMATEURS of all nations on an equal footing and under conditions as perfect as possible”. 6 “Terminology in this case can be confusing. “Gender verification”, “femininity controls”, “sex tests” and “gender tests” have been used interchangeably in academic and popular literature to refer to the same concept, even though the terms “gender”, “sex”, and “femininity” have different (if related) definitions. Additionally, these terms have been used to describe any method of sex verification, from visual and manual inspections to various laboratory-based tests. As “gender verification” is the term most recently used by the IOC and other international sports federations, [we] use this term … to refer to investigations into sex status of individual female athletes by any method …” (Wells 2010: 310). 7 World Anti-Doping Agency. 8 “Following evaluation, a female athlete can only compete if she meets the criteria specified in the policy, specifically, a testosterone level below 10 nmol/L for IAAF competitions (and whatever testosterone level medical examiners deem acceptable for Olympic competitions)” (Karkazis et al., 2012: 5). 9 We could also mention here the “sex passport“ (Vigneti et al., 1996: 239–240) or the “femininity card” (see Gina Kolata, “Ideas and trends: Who is female? Science can’t say”, The New York Times, 16 February 1992, cit. in Wackwitz (2003: 554).

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10 For “polymerase chain reaction/sex region Y chromosome”. 11 See also Laqueur (1990); Domurat-Dreger (1998); Fausto-Sterling (2000). 12 According to the definition that the OII (Organization Intersex International) provides, intersexuation can be defined as “congenital difference in anatomical sex. That is, physical differences in reproductive parts like the testicles, penis, vulva, clitoris, ovaries and so on. Intersex is also physical differences in secondary sexual characteristics such as muscle mass, hair distribution, breast development and stature”. 13 Her analysis of power is principally based off of one of these specific modalities: power as discourse (Butler, 1997), focusing on the re-reading by Derrida (1972) of Austin’s notion of the performative (1962), linking performance (as a process of regulated repetition) and performative (as the capacity to produce what is said), performativity being, thus, the reiterative power of discourse to produce the phenomena that it regulates and imposes (Butler, 1993). 14 “Gender … designate the very apparatus of production whereby the sexes themselves are established … gender is also the discursive/cultural means by which ‘sexed nature’ or ‘a natural sex’ is produced and established as ‘prediscursive,’ prior to culture, a politically neutral surface on which culture acts” (Butler, 1990, p. 10) or “Gender is the apparatus by which the production and normalization of masculine and feminine take place along with the interstitial forms of hormonal, chromosomal, psychic, and performative that gender assumes.” (Butler, 2004: p. 42). 15 We could mention here many written works on the history of females in athletics, notably Bohuon and Luciani (2009); Gems (1989); Guttmann (1992, 2001); Hargreaves (1994); Holt (1991); Lenskyj (1986); Mangan and Park (1987); Park (1987: p. 199); Vertinsky (1987). 16 IOC Regulations on Female Hyperandrogenism, Lausanne, 2012/06/22. 17 Hematocrit is the percentage of the volume of red globules in relation to the total volume of blood: it heightens the capacities of transfer of oxygen and thus one’s capacity for endurance. 18 For all these examples, see Missa (2011). 19 This is a method which artificially places athletes in conditions of high altitude, thus raising their hematocrit. 20 See Missa (2011: 108). 21 France, along with Belgium, was the first country to legislate (1 June 1965) concerning the repressing of the use of stimulants at sporting events. The IOC officially forbade doping in 1967. 22 See Quin and Bohuon (2015). 23 Unfortunately, we cannot deal with this fascinating issue. See, for example, Møller (2010); Dimeo (2007); McNamee and Møller (eds) (2011). 24 See the long commentary on Article 4.3.2, p. 33 of the 2009 version of the Code, which explains this point: “A substance shall be considered for inclusion on the Prohibited List if the substance is a masking agent or meets two of the following three criteria: (1) it has the potential to enhance or enhances sport performance; (2) it represents a potential or actual health risk; or (3) it is contrary to the spirit of sport. None of the three criteria alone is a sufficient basis for adding a substance to the Prohibited List. Using the potential to enhance performance as the sole criterion would include, for example, physical and mental training, red meat, carbohydrate loading and training at altitude. Risk of harm would include smoking. Requiring all three criteria would also be unsatisfactory. For example, the use of genetic transfer technology to dramatically enhance sport performance should be prohibited as contrary to the spirit of sport even if it is not harmful. Similarly, the potentially unhealthy abuse of certain substances without therapeutic justification based on the mistaken belief they enhance performance is certainly contrary to the

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Anaïs Bohuon and Eva Rodriguez spirit of sport regardless of whether the expectation of performance enhancement is realistic …” As we can see here, to consider the method or the substance prohibited, it must be, mostly, “contrary to the spirit of sport”. Two-time American 400m hurdles Olympic Gold medalist. www.wada-ama.org/en/media/news/2014-03/the-wada-interview-edwin-moses#. VFgGVvSG_2c. www.wada-ama.org/Documents/World_Anti-Doping_Program/WADPProhibited-list/2014/WADA-prohibited-list-2014-FR.pdf For example, in 1996, in a Swedish study, out of 8,946 samples of urine of athletes tested, 28 had a TE ratio superior to 6 (although an average of 1 had been determined). At the end of the more detailed analyses, it seemed that among these 28, doping was the case in only one situation. See Garle, M. et al. (1996: pp. 55–9). See Colman et al. (2011). These techniques were presented in the technical document “Guidelines For The Reporting And Management Of Elevated T/E Ratios And Endogenous Steroids” (expired in 01/2014). You can now find these instructions in the TD2014EAAS2.0 “Endogenous Anabolic Androgenic Steroids Measurement and Reporting” www. wada-ama.org/en/resources/science-medicine/td2014-eaas. World Anti-Doping Program, “Guidelines For The Reporting And Management Of Elevated T/E Ratios And Endogenous Steroids,” p. 6. Emphasis ours. Gas Chromatography/Combustion/Isotope Ratio Mass Spectrometry. This is a technique for measuring the amount of stable isotopes in a sample to determine its characteristics, including the composition and origin. World Anti-Doping Program, “Guidelines For The Reporting And Management Of Elevated T/E Ratios And Endogenous Steroids”, p. 6. Emphasis ours. www.nytimes.com/2014/10/07/sports/sprinter-dutee-chand-fights-ban-over-hertestosterone-level.html?_r=0. Court of Arbitration for Sport.

References Austin, J.L. (1962) How to do Things with Words: The William James Lectures delivered at Harvard University in 1955, (eds. J.O. Urmson and Marina Sbisà), Oxford, Clarendon Press. Bohuon, A. (2008) “Sport et bicatégorisation par sexe: test de féminité et ambiguïtés du discours médical”, Nouvelles questions féministes, Vol. 27, No. 1, pp. 80–91. Bohuon, A. (2012) Le test de féminité dans les compétitions sportives: une histoire classée X?, Donnemarie-Dontilly: éditions iXe. Bohuon, A. and Luciani, A. (2009) “Biomedical discourse on women’s physical education and sports in France (1880–1922)”, International Journal of the History of Sport, Vol. 25, No. 5, pp. 573–593. Bohuon, A. and Rodriguez, E. (2013) “Sport, sexe et hormones: le test de féminité ou l’illusion d’une égalité sportive?” in Quin G. and Bohuon A. (eds), De la thérapeutique à la performance. Eléments d’histoire de l’engagement des médecins autour des pratiques d’exercice corporel (XVIII–XXIe siècle), Paris: Editions Glyphe, pp. 205–224. Bricout, V. (2000) “Mode d’action et effets physiologiques de la testostérone, ou de l’inutilité d’un apport d’anabolisants chez le sportif”, Science & Sports, No. 15, pp. 3–9. Butler J. (1990) Gender Trouble. Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, New York and London: Routledge.

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Gender verifications vs. anti-doping policies 43 Butler, J. (1993) Bodies that matter. On the discursive limits of “sex”, New York and London: Routledge. Butler, J. (1997) Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative, New York, Routledge. Butler, J. (2004) Undoing Gender, New York and London: Routledge. Canguilhem, G. (1966) Le normal et le pathologique, Paris: PUF. Coleman, J.E., Levine Jr and Levine, J.M. (2011) “The Burden of Proof in Endogenous Substances Cases. A Masking Agent for Junk Science” in McNamee, M. and Møller, V. (eds), Doping and Anti-Doping Policy in Sport: Ethical, Legal and Social Perspectives, New York: Routledge. Dehennin, L. (1995) “Testostérone: l’androgène anabolisant endogène et le dépistage d’un apport exogène chez le sportif”, Science & Sports, No. 10, pp. 59–66. Derrida, J. (1972) “Signature, événement, contexte” in Aux marges de la philosophie, Paris, Edition de Minuit, p. 388–389. Dimeo, P. (2007) A History of Drug Use in Sport (1876–1976), London: Routledge. Domurat-Dreger, A.D. (1998) Hermaphrodites and the Medical Invention of Sex, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Dorlin, E. (2012) “Du sexe musculaire au genre de la testostérone”, in Bohuon, A. Le test de féminité dans les compétitions sportives: une histoire classée X ?, DonnemarieDontilly: éditions iXe. Elsas, L.J., Ljungqvist, A., Ferguson-Smith, M.A., Simpson, J.L., Genel, M., Carlson, A.S., Ferris, E., De La Chapelle, A., and Ehrhardt, A.A. (2000) “Gender verification of female athletes”, Genetics in medicine, Vol. 2, No. 4, pp. 249–254. Fausto-Sterling, A. (2000) Sexing the Body. Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality, New York: Basic Books. Garle, M., Ocka, R., Palonek, E. and Björkhem, I. (1996) “Increased urinary testosterone/epitestosterone ratios found in Swedish athletes in connection with a national control program. Evaluation of 28 cases”, Journal of Chromatography B: Biomedical Sciences and Applications, Vol. 687, No. 1, pp. 55–59. Gems J. (1989) The Emergence of Women in the Sporting Culture: Chicago, 1880– 1940, PhD dissertation: University of Maryland. Guttmann, A. (1992) Women’s Sports: A History, New York: Columbia University Press. Guttmann, A. (2001) “Olympics”, in Christensen K., Guttmann A. and Pfister G. (eds), International Encyclopedia of Women and Sports, New York: Macmillan Reference USA, Vol. 2, pp. 823. Haraway, D. (1991) “‘Gender’ for a Marxist Dictionary: The Sexual Politics of a Word”, Simians, Cyborg and Women, New York: Routledge, and London: Free Association Books. Hargreaves, J. (1994) Sporting Females, London: Routledge. Holt, R. (1991) “Women, Men and Sport in France, c. 1870–1914: An Introductory Survey”, Journal of Sport History, Vol. 18, No 1., pp. 121–134. Hurtig, M.C., Kail, M. and Rouch, H. (eds), (1991) Sexe et genre. De la hiérarchie entre les sexes, Paris: Éditions du CNRS. IAAF Regulations Governing Eligibility of Females with Hyperandrogenism to Compete in Women’s Competition (2011) www.iaaf.org/mm/Document/ AboutIAAF/Publications/05/98/78/20110430054216_httppostedfile_ HARegulations%28Final%29-Appendices-AMG-30.04.2011_24299.pdf (accessed, February 15, 2014).

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Jost, A. (1972) “A New Look at the Mechanisms Controlling Sex Differentiation in Mammals”, The John’s Hopkins Medical Journal, 130, pp. 38–53. Karkazis, K., Jordan-Young, R., Davis, G. and Camporesi, S. (2012) “Out of Bounds? A Critique of the New Policies on Hyperandrogenism in Elite Female Athletes”, The American Journal of Bioethics, Vol. 12, No. 7, pp. 3–16. Kraus, C. (2000) “La bi-catégorisation par sexe ‘à l’épreuve de la science’”, in Gardey, D. and Löwy, I. (eds), L’invention du naturel. Les sciences et la fabrication du féminin et du masculin, Paris: Éditions des Archives Contemporaines, pp. 187–213. Laberge, S. (2004) “Les rapports sociaux de sexe dans le domaine du sport: perspectives féministes marquantes des trois dernières décennies”, Recherches féministes, Vol. 17, No. 1 : Femmes et sport, pp. 9–38. Laqueur, T. (1990) Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Lenskyj, H. (1986) Out of Bounds: Women, Sport and Sexuality, Toronto: Women’s Press. Ljungqvist, A. (2000) “Gender verification”, in Drinkwater B.L. (ed.), Encyclopedia of Sports Medicine, Women in Sport, Oxford: Blackwell Science, Vol. VIII, pp. 183–191. Mangan, J. and Park, R.J. (eds), (1987) From Fair Sex to Feminism. Sport and the Socialization of Women in the Industrial and Post-Industrial Eras, London: Frank Cass. Margulis, L. and Sagan, D. (1997) What is Sex, New York: Simon & Schuster. Martinez-Patiño, M.J. (2005) ‘Personal account. A woman tried and tested’, Lancet, Vol. 366, pp. 38. McNamee, M.J. and Møller, V. (eds) (2011) Doping and Anti-Doping Policy: Legal, Ethical and Policy Perspectives, London: Routledge. Missa, J-N. (2011) “Chapitre 6. Dopage sportif et médecine d’amélioration”, Journal International de Bioéthique, Vol. 22, pp. 93–93. Møller, V. (2010) The Ethics of Doping and Anti-Doping, London: Routledge. Simpson, J.L., Ljungqvist, A. and de La Chapelle, A. (1993) “Gender verification in competitive sports”, Sports Medicine, Vol. 16, No. 5, pp. 305–315. Simpson, J.L., Ljungqvist, A., De la Chapelle, A., Ferguson-Smith, M.A., Genel, M., Carlson, A.S., Ehrhardt, A.A. and Ferris, E. (2000) “Gender verification in the Olympics”, JAmA, The Journal of American Medical Association, Vol. 284, No. 12, pp. 1568– 1569. Oudshoorn, N. (1994) Beyond the Natural Body: An Archeology of Sex hormones, New York: Routledge. Park, R. (1987) “Physiologists, Physicians, and Physical Educators: Nineteenth Century Biology and Exercise, Hygienic and Educative”, Journal of Sport History, Vol. 14, No. 1, pp. 28–60. Quin, G. and Bohuon, A. (eds) (2015), Les liaisons dangereuses de la médecine et du sport (1945–2015), Paris: Editions Glyphe. Ritchie, I. (2003) “Sex Tested, Gender Verified: Controlling Female Sexuality in the Age of Containment”, Sport History Review, Vol. 34, No. 1, pp. 80–98. Serrat, A. and Garcia de Herrero, A. (1996) “Gender verification in sports by PCR amplification of SRY and DYZ1 chromosome specific sequences: presences of DYZ1 repeat in female athletes”, British Journal of Sports Medicine, Vol. 30, No. 4, pp. 310–312.

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Gender verifications vs. anti-doping policies 45 Vertinsky, P. (1987) The Eternally Wounded Woman: Doctor, Women and Exercise in the Late Nineteenth Century, Manchester: Manchester University Press. Vignetti, P., Rizzuti, A., Bruni, L., Tozzi, M.C., Marcozzi, P. and Tarani, L. (1996) “‘Sex Passport’ Obligation for Female Athletes”, International Journal of Sports Medicine, Vol. 17, No. 3, pp. 239–240. Wackwitz, L. (2003) “Verifying the Myth: Olympic Sex Testing and the Category ‘Woman’”, Women’s Studies International Forum, Vol. 26, No 6., pp. 553–560. Wells, C. (2010) “Diagnosing Sex-Gender Verification and the IOC”, Academic journal article from Proceedings: International Symposium for Olympic Research. World Anti-Doping Code (2015) published by World Anti-Doping Agency. https:// wada-main-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/resources/files/wada-redline-2015-wadc-to2009-wadc-en.pdf (accessed, February 15, 2014). Yamaguchi, A., Fukushi, M., Kikuchi, Y., Aparicio, J. and Wakisaka, A. (1992) “A simple method for gender verification based on PCR detection of Y-chromosomal DNA and its application at the Winter universiade 1991 in Sapporo City, Japan”, International Journal of Sports medicine, no 13, pp. 304–307.

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Unfair advantage and the myth of the level playing field in IAAF and IOC policies on hyperandrogenism When is it fair to be a woman? Silvia Camporesi and Paolo Maugeri

The Caster Semenya case represents an interesting interaction between scientific descriptions of reality and value-laden social constructs. One that involves, at the same time, contested boundaries for gender attribution, potential for gender-based as well as individual discriminations, issues of fairness in sports and, on top of that, the use of biomedical knowledge as the allegedly ‘right’ tool for ontological and normative closure of the debate. In a paper written in the aftermath of the event, we spelled out what we believed were the most controversial issues at stake from a philosophy based bioethical perspective (Camporesi and Maugeri, 2010). In a nutshell, we argued that framing the Caster Semenya case from a medical perspective alone – as if biomedical knowledge could provide ready-made answers as to where to draw the line along a continuum of sex conditions – was largely unsatisfactory. We concluded that decisions concerning the eligibility of a female athlete with hyperandrogenism to compete in the female category needed to be taken, not found, and by this we meant that answers could not be found ‘ready-made’ in a scientific or biomedical result but had to be informed by ethical reasoning (something we referred to as the ‘creative’ role of ethics) (Camporesi and Maugeri, 2010). We concluded our argument by suggesting that the debate spurred by Caster Semenya’s ordeal would lead us to discuss not only gender categories in sports, but would also trigger a wider reflection on the value dimension of that ordering and, by extension, of sports in general. In this regard, the concept of ‘fairness’ appeared to us as one of the keys to read the debate, and possibly in need of further elucidation. In this chapter, we elaborate on these points in light of the developments which have occurred in the past few years, and discuss the argumentative strategy of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) policies itself, by using the 2011 IAAF Regulations Governing Eligibility of Females with Hyperandrogenism to Compete in Women’s Competition as a reference point. First we show the underlying interplay of scientific and value discourses, and how androgenic hormones gained prominence as the ‘right’ candidates for ontological, normative and regulatory closure. Second, we elaborate on the notion of ‘fairness’

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emerging from the IAAF regulation, and assess whether hyperandrogenism constitutes unfair advantage in sports competitions or, conversely, if it poses severe implications for gender-based and individual discrimination.

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The ‘androgenization’ of sex and fairness, the ‘pathologization’ of difference “These kind of people should not run with us. For me, she is not a woman. She’s a man.” This is what Elisa Cusma Piccione, a disappointed Italian runner who finished 6th, was reported saying about Caster Semenya’s victory in the 800-meter final of the Berlin World Athletic Championships in 2009. In Elisa Cusma Piccione’s words we find encapsulated the reasons that have long supported sex-segregation in sports competitions, as included in the IAAF regulation reported below. We also find encapsulated the link with women athletes’ bodily transformations and appearances: a woman in sport should look like a woman, according to the regulations, as Salle and Brunet in this volume correctly argue (Chapter 4). Therefore, if women want a fair chance to win, then they should compete with other women, and not with men. Elisa Cusma Piccione’s words, however, carry with them also the binary ontology of sex differences (male–female), and the (sometimes) discriminatory attitude towards bodily entities challenging such dichotomous order. Although decades of multi-disciplinary scholarship in psychology, medicine, humanities and social studies have convincingly shown that the anatomical–biological features of sex do not overlap with, and need to be distinguished from, gender as a psychological and socio-cultural construct (for more developments on this point, see Chapter  6 by Rose), the bodily dimension of sex has always been seen as the truly natural marker for establishing who counts as a woman for the purposes of sports. How to identify the marker/s, however, is recognizably no easy task. As Dreger (1998), among others, points out, for centuries scientists and clinicians have disagreed about what body parts or anatomical features should count as the natural master properties of ‘masculinity’ or ‘femininity’. Chromosomes, gonads, hormones, secondary sex characteristics, external and internal genitalia are all candidates, however, none of them – alone or in combination – offers clear cut solutions for sorting sex out into a nice dichotomy. In the case of sex differentiation, in fact, a broad spectrum of conditions lies between the two extremes ‘male’ and female’, and the number of deviations from statistically normal traits – often referred to with the medicalized term ‘disorders of sex differentiation’ – can be counted in the order of tens and can be classified as sex chromosome, gonadal, and sex hormone deviations (or abnormalities if we want to stick to the medical terminology). About 1.7% of people are affected by these conditions (Hull and Fausto-Sterling, 2003. See Chapter 4 by Brunet and Salle). Only some of these are apparent, and many individuals do not discover that they belong to this 1.7% until later in life when they find out that they are subfertile or sterile. For the

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sake of illustration, people with complete androgen insensitivity syndrome (CAIS) are genetically XY (males), have testes and testosterone levels in the normal range of the male population. Nevertheless, these individuals have a thoroughly feminine phenotype, with breast and female typical genitalia, because they are unable to metabolize androgens. If we take their genetics into account, these individuals would classify as males. Nevertheless, their metabolic levels of androgens are on the standard female range and they overwhelmingly identify, and are identified, as women. The same difficulties of categorization can be found in the case of ‘hyperandrogenism’ – the condition targeted by the IAAF policies – where genetically female individuals produce levels of androgens (testosterone) in the typical range of the genetically male population. This condition confers a number of phenotypic traits typically associated with masculinity like an increased muscle bulk, for instance1 (Yang et al., 2010). From this brief excursus it should already be clear how great human physical variance is, and how difficult it is to force such a variety into rigidly binary ontologies. As we would like to highlight here, however, the way in which humans group things is not merely a reading of an alleged ‘natural order’, rather it is a more complex social activity requiring negotiation and reflection upon the consequences and the purposes of such an ordering. Paraphrasing Sheila Jasanoff (2004), we could say that the way in which we know and represent the world is intimately connected with the ways in which we decide to live in it. These realizations call our attention to the fact that ontological efforts at classifying things co-evolve with normative and moral concerns. Or, in other terms, ontological and normative orders are co-produced. The IAAF regulations on hyperandrogenism, we argue, are a remarkable example of this co-productionist move. In the regulations, indeed, the moral concept of ‘fairness’ and the notion of ‘sex’ – the latter biologized, and reduced to the allegedly feminine ranges of androgens – work in couple, as each of them is alternatively used to propel the normative force of the other. To see why this is so, and what it implies for our discussion, let us have a closer look at these regulations. Following an eighteen-month long coordinated discussion with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) medical commission, the IAAF issued its policies on hyperandrogenism in early May 2011 (www.iaaf.org/news/iaaf-news/iaaf-to-introduce-eligibility-rules-for-femal-1). The policies require female athletes who do not fall within the limits of 10 nmol/lit of testosterone as defined by IAAF to undergo androgen-suppressive therapy for up to two years, to reduce the level of testosterone, in order to compete as females. The burden of proof to demonstrate that female athletes with hyperandrogenism do not derive a competitive advantage from the excess testosterone is on the athlete (paragraph 6.6 of the rules, IAAF 2011). In a nutshell, the regulations demand women with hyperandrogenism undergo medical treatment to lower their androgen levels to those of average females if the want to be eligible for women’s competitions.

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The policies-declared goal, hence, is not to determine whether someone is ‘really’ a woman – along the lines of the now discontinued sex testing policies, but to assess instead whether high levels of androgens (the condition referred to as hyperandrogenism in the regulations) confer any significant advantage – perhaps masculine – to women displaying this condition (see Liotard in Chapter  1). The IAAF is hence explicitly trying to escape the muddy waters of sex determination, which as we have shown unfold into a continuum of conditions, by trying to provide an answer to an allegedly far simpler ontological question: what is it that makes a woman (and a man) for the purposes of sports competitions? The proposed answer is also seemingly simple: it is testosterone. As we read in the regulation: “The difference in athletic performance between males and females is known to be predominantly due to higher levels of androgenic hormones in males resulting in increased strength and muscle development” (p.1). Testosterone, hence, becomes the master molecule of ‘athleticity’ and, more importantly for our purposes, the biochemical watershed of ‘masculinity’ and ‘femininity’. The idea that an extremely complex trait like athleticism can be reduced to one single biochemical component, and in a way that markedly discriminates between ‘males’ and females’, does not go without critique. To rehearse just some, there is no scientific evidence showing that successful athletes display higher levels of testosterone than less successful ones. Moreover, although the reference range for testosterone for adult males is comprised between 300 and 1200 ng/dL and for adult females it does not exceed, on average, 100 ng/dL, it has been observed that testosterone concentrations vary according to several factors like: exposure to exogenous hormones such as estrogen and thyroxine, the time of the day, and the age of the individual.2 Although interesting, it is not necessary to pursue here this line of inquiry further. What is important to highlight, instead, are the auxiliary assumptions that seemingly prompted the classificatory effort within the regulations. Let us therefore take as the premise of our arguments the assumption that higher levels of testosterone do confer an athletic advantage. We argue below that, even on the basis of this premise, the medicalization of athletes with hyperandrogenism is unwarranted, as it ultimately results in inconsistent policies and, more importantly, in markedly discriminating attitudes towards athletes’ pathologized bodies. Let us then examine what is the argumentative strategy of those who drafted the policies and see whether their reasoning resists careful scrutiny.

The myth of the level playing field: competing against alike In a response letter to Karkazis and co-authors published in The American Journal of Bioethics (Bermon et al., 2013), the authors of the policy, indeed, recognize that drawing a line on such a complex continuum is controversial. They, however, state that the policy responds well to the ‘limited purpose of providing for fair competition in sport [with regards to possible cases of hyperandrogenism].

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Bermon and co-authors argue that the new policy, although bound to be controversial, is “a vast improvement over previous efforts” and “responds with sensitivity to possible cases of hyperandrogenization” in that the new policy represents “fairness for female athletes, respect for all” (Bermon et al., 2013, 65). Surprisingly, however, once again the distinction between advantage and unfair advantage has been completely overlooked. Bermon and co-authors write: The female former Olympic athletes, who contributed to the creation of the IAAF regulations, agreed that success in sport should be due to the combination of talent and dedication. In events where androgenization provides a powerful advantage, women want to compete against alike, not against women with a degree of hyperandrogenism that gives them a male physiology. (Bermon et al., 2013: 65) The advantage, or better the ‘unfair advantage’ thesis, is the pervasive assumption underlying the construction of female categories in elite sports. Paragraph 6.5 of the IAAF policies on eligibility of women with hyperandrogenism to compete in women’s competition states this quite clearly: The Expert Medical Panel shall recommend that the athlete is eligible to compete in women’s competition if: (i) she has androgen levels below the normal male range; or (ii) she has androgen levels within the normal male range but has an androgen resistance such that she derives no competitive advantage [Italics, ours] from having androgen levels in the normal male range. (The IAAF policy document can be downloaded here: www.iaaf.org/about-iaaf/documents/medical) As explained above, the rationale underlying the IAAF and IOC policies is that setting a limit on the levels of androgens would compensate for the ‘unfair competitive advantage’ that female athletes with hyperandrogenism have, and achieve a ‘level playing field’. But is this a plausible scenario in elite sports? As we also argue below, singling out, and setting a limit on, hyperandrogenism from other biological variations that may confer a genetic advantage is – at best – an inconsistent policy: there are plenty of other genetic variations that are not regulated by IAAF and, even though advantageous for athletic performance, that are not considered unfair for competition. What is remarkable, however, is that in trying to escape from the perilous ontological questions about who is ‘really’ a woman, the IAAF embarks – perhaps inadvertently – in an equally challenging exercise that seeks to determine when it is fair to be a woman in athletic competitions. The mythical idea of the level playing field – the long-standing moral imperative ruling sports – becomes essentialized to a biochemical component singled out

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IAAF and IOC policies on hyperandrogenism 51 to provide, at once, ontological and normative closure of the controversy. The regulatory normativity, as we have seen above, acknowledges – and indeed it is motivated by – the need to accommodate borderline cases (i.e. instances of hyperandrogenism). The accommodation of cases that fail to conform to the standard, however, comes about through the pathologization of transgressing bodies. If you want to be a woman, one that is fair to her fellow competitors, you have got to have the right level of androgens either by ‘nature’ or after submitting to medical treatment. At least, this is the message that the IAAF policies send out. As it is now apparent, in the IAAF regulations on hyperandrogenism, classificatory efforts coalesce with normative concerns about fairness in sports, in an attempt to preserve the idea of the level playing field. As the concepts of ‘fairness’ and ‘level playing field’ appear to be the fundamental normative drivers of the issue, it is thus necessary to spell out whether cases of hyperandrogenism would actually challenge them in a morally relevant way. The question thus becomes: how to distinguish fair advantageous variations, from ‘unfair’ advantageous variations? Is there a morally relevant difference between hyperandrogenism and other biological variations conferring advantages in sports competition? Analyses of the conceptual dyad fair/unfair advantage as referred to sports competition are indeed rare in the literature. Nevertheless, one author who recently embarked upon an analysis of the concept of advantage is Hämäläinen  (2012), who states that: “It is often implicitly assumed that the concept of advantage is unambiguous and unproblematic; only the parameters of fairness pose a challenge. This seems to be an unwarranted assumption.” (p. 310) In the next section we elaborate on Hämäläinen’s distinction between two kinds of advantages and how they may be applied in Caster Semenya’s case.

Hyperandrogenism: an unfair advantage? Mika Hämäläinen distinguishes between two kinds of ‘advantage’ in competition: ‘performance’ and ‘property’ advantage. The former is a relationship of superiority between performance numbers possessed by different athletes (or teams) and is defined as follows: “A has a final performance advantage over B if A has a better final performance number than B”. Examples of performance numbers are the number of seconds that an athlete runs a sprint in, or the numerical score that is the result of a football match. The latter is defined as “A has an advantage over B in property X if A has a more favourable amount of this property X than B does”, where properties are “constituent parts of competitors and competition environment” (Hämäläinen, 2012). One of the examples of property advantages offered by Hämäläinen is the oxygen-carrying property possessed by Finnish cross-country skier Eero Mäntyranta, who won two Gold medals in cross-country skiing at the 1964 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck. It was later determined that Mäntyranta

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had primary familial and congenital polycythemia, a rare genetic mutation characterized by an elevated absolute red blood cell mass and a consequent increase of 25–50% in the blood oxygen carrying capacity (www.olympic.org/ eero-mantyranta). Due to his genetic condition, Mäntyranta had a property advantage against fellow competitors, i.e. a greater oxygen-carrying capacity. It is plausible to speculate that on at least two occasions (the two Gold medals won at the Winter Olympics in Innsbruck 1964) this property advantage contributed to his performance advantage (the number of minutes or seconds he was able to complete his race in). However, a property advantage alone does not result in a performance advantage, as other factors contribute to excellence in competition. As remarked above, it is hard, if ever useful, to reduce something as complex as athletic excellence to a single factor, be it physiological, anatomical or biological. This is why Mäntyranta’s property advantage was not deemed to be unfair, as many other property advantages (reviewed in Eynon et al., 2013) in terms of genetic variations also are not deemed to be unfair. Indeed, cases like Mäntyranta’s are hardly rare among elite athletes. Endurance athletes in particular have been shown to have mitochondrial variations that increase aerobic capacity and endurance (Ostrander et al., 2009). Acromegaly, a hormonal condition resulting in large hands and feet, is especially prevalent among  basketball players (Clemmons A.  K., 2008). There has also been speculation that Michael Phelps, winner of eight Gold medals at the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, has Marfan syndrome, a rare genetic condition affecting connective tissues that results in long limbs and flexible joints (an obvious advantage for a swimmer) (Doyle, 2008). Another example – this time not only speculated – is Flo Hyman, one of the greatest protagonists of women’s volleyball in the 1980s, who had post-mortem demonstrated Marfan syndrome, which gave her tall stature and long arms, obviously also giving her an advantage in volleyball (Bostwick and Joyner, 2012) (Marfan syndrome was the cause of her death during a match in 1989 due to aortic dissection). Following Hämäläinen, and reasoning on the assumption that a higher level of androgens results in a more athletic body (remember this is the assumption underlying IAAF and IOC policies and which we are using as one of the premises of our arguments, even though the case is ‘not proven’), we could say that Caster Semenya too may have had a property advantage (i.e. were she affected by hyperandrogenism, which was never confirmed since Caster Semenya’s gender tests are sealed for issues of confidentiality), defined as the level of testosterone, but that is only one of several factors that contributed to her performance advantage at the 800-meter final in Berlin in 2009. More importantly, it does not follow from the fact that she may have a property advantage, that this would be unfair to her fellow athletes in competition. All the examples above show that elite athletes derive advantages from a range of biological variations, and hyperandrogenism is no different in this regard. As pointed out by Claire Sullivan:

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The fact is the playing field [in elite sports] has never been level. There will always be genetic variations that provide a competitive edge for some athletes over others. We readily accept the genetic, athletic gifts that elite athletes possess without trying to find ways to “level the playing field. (Sullivan, 2011) This is because the exceptional biological and genetic variations are considered part of what the elite athlete is, and of what makes sports competitions valuable, namely achieving excellence through combination of talent – the natural endowment of the athlete – and dedication – the effort in training and preparation that the athlete puts forth to maximize what her talent offers. In other words, all the biological and genetic variations found in elite athletes are deemed ethically acceptable because it is part of the meaning of elite sports to see individuals with exceptional physical characteristics pushing their bodies to the limit to win in competitions and, perhaps, achieving world records. Why then are IAAF and IOC targeting only hyperandrogenism among the genetic and biological variations that confer a property advantage? Why aren’t all the other genetic and biological variations that confer an advantage thought to disrupt the level playing field by IAAF? We think that the answer can only lay in the following: hyperandrogenism gets singled out from all other biological and genetic variations as it challenges deeply entrenched social beliefs (i.e. the dominant stereotype of femininity) in a way that other variations do not. Issues pertaining to the heteronormativity of sex and nonconformity to what is considered to be “feminine” in sports are already addressed by other contributors to this volume (see Chapters 8 and 9 by Salo and Sloop) and we will thus not elaborate on this point here further. We would like to remark, instead, that IAAF and IOC policies – besides raising a problem of ‘external’ consistency in the cavalier comparison of hyperandrogenism with other property advantages of elite athletes – bring about severe issues in terms of ‘internal’ consistency. Indeed, since the policies aim to achieve a level playing field by setting an upper limit for a biological molecule, then according to this line of reasoning an upper limit should be applied to the male category too. As argued by Vanessa Heggie (2010), the upper limit set by IAAF and IOC to women’s levels of testosterone is nowhere to be seen for male athletes. This absence of an equivalent upper limit apparently marks a further profound contradiction in the rationale underlying the policies, i.e. the ‘unfair advantage’ thesis. All these reasons make it apparent that such singling out is far from being warranted and, as a consequence, a potentially disruptive dilemma opens up for IAAF/IOC regulators: either banning from competition all athletes who derive an advantage from biological variations, or let everybody who is “out of the ordinary,” compete, athletes with hyperandrogenism included. In the former case, the discussion would hinge on where to set a threshold, and on

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which basis, for other biological and genetic variations. As we argue below, we think that it would be more problematic to try and set a fair threshold, than having none. As a way out of this impasse only two solutions present themselves as reasonable paths to pursue: either reconsider the classification of categories in track and field on a different basis (based on testosterone levels for example, as suggested by Foddy and Savulescu) or withdraw the policies and let athletes compete in their legal gender. An interesting parallel can be drawn in this respect: for all purposes, people can self-identify themselves (their race) with self-identification race/ethnicity (SIRE) forms3 (at least in the US). If the comparison holds – and we think it does, at least insofar as both ‘race’ and ‘gender’ are socio-cultural constructs escaping attempts to biological reduction – athletes could, in a similar way, be allowed to self-identify themselves with their gender and compete accordingly. Given all the feasible alternatives, this is perhaps the one that better balances between the need to preserve current categories and the respect due to athletes’ identities.

Unfairness in policy implementation The singling out of hyperandrogenism from the rest of property advantages in elite sport is not the only level of ‘unfairness’ arising in Caster Semenya’s case. As noted by Teetzel (2014), additional complexities need to be addressed in the questions whether policies requiring healthy women to take drugs in order to be eligible to compete are morally acceptable. There seem to be at least three layers of analysis which need to be unpacked: 1) issues with the medicalization of healthy bodies to compete 2) questions of discrimination triggered by non-conformity of bodies of athletes to an ideal/stereotype of femininity, and 3) questions of potential inequities as the costs for the medical interventions recommended by the policies fall on the athlete. These points arise once and again in the recent case of the Indian athlete Dutee Chand, which is currently under the judicial scrutiny of the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne. Dutee Chand (18 years old) was disqualified just days before the beginning of the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in July 2014 after a medical test that determined that her androgen levels are above the ‘normal’ limit set by IAAF and IOC policies of 10 nmol/lit. (Macur, 2014). The Times of India has noted that if Chand is able to reduce her androgen levels to fall within the normal testing range, she will be allowed to resume international competition (Molloy, 2014). To do this, she would have to submit her body to antiandrogen therapy such as cyproterone acetate or spironolactone, with the accompanying potentially severe side effects that these drugs pose, including some that may particularly problematic for an elite athlete such as diuretic effects and liver toxicities, as mentioned in Karkazis et al. (2012) (note that contrary to Caster Semenya’s case, we know that Dutee Chand is affected by hyperandrogenism).

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Dutee Chand is not the only athlete who was targeted by the IAAF/IOC policies. As reported in Macur (2014), four female athletes (not named) were found to have levels of androgens outside the ‘normal’ female range set by the policies. Also according to Macur (2014), it seems that they were all subjected to unnecessary medicalization procedures that had nothing to do with reducing testosterone levels in sport, including feminizing plastic surgeries. This warrants the case that female athletes who do not conform to heteronormative standards of femininity will be the targets of the testing, as was the case for Caster Semenya. It seems fair to say that in the current era where there is no mandatory gender testing for all, there is an increasing pressure on women athletes to ‘perform femininity’ to avoid having their gender called into question (this point is further elaborated in this volume by Salo in Chapter 8). The case of Dutee Chand shows, once more, how the need to preserve the sexed binary of sport categories – besides being, as we noted, dubious in itself – appears to give rise to more problems than it was supposed to solve. The issue of unnecessary medicalization is a clear one. Medical interventions are, as well established principles in medical ethics command, to be administered provided they are for the benefit of the patients and respectful of their autonomy. On the contrary, making competition in sports for people with higher-than-the-norm levels of androgens conditional to submitting to a medical test violates both principles. Hyperandrogenism is not a condition posing an immediate health threat to person affected. As a matter of fact, medical evidence shows that high levels of androgens only increase the risk of hirsutism, acne, possibly alopecia and have other virilizing cutaneous manifestations (Housman and Reynolds, 2014), but none of these augmented risks is incompatible with physical activity nor with elite sports. In this respect, the rationale for imposing treatments will certainly lie outside considerations of beneficence cheered in medical ethics. The requirement to undergo medical treatment put forward by IAAF/ IOC, moreover, does not fare better in terms of respect of the autonomy of the individuals involved. Although it is reasonable to speculate that, when required, athletes would probably give their informed consent to the treatment, it is important to recall that ‘respect for autonomy’ means much more than sheer consent. Indeed, there are good reasons to think that consent obtained in the circumstances here reviewed will rarely, if ever, be valid. The treatment is, in fact, explicitly proposed as a condition for being allowed to enter sports competition, in this context potential for coercion is more than an academic hypothesis, as athletes are, more or less explicitly, asked to choose whether to end their professional career or to submit to a treatment they never requested. Finally, it is important to note that while the policies provide explicit recommendation of treatment, they also explicitly state that they will not cover the costs for medical intervention (paragraph 7.4 of the IAAF 2011 regulations).4 In other words, not only is the burden of proof to demonstrate androgen resistance on the athlete (paragraph 6.6 of the rules),5 but so is the

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‘burden of cost’ for the treatment of hyperandrogenism which is the required procedure to get back to the track. Such costs rest on the shoulders of the athletes or their families. It goes without saying that athletes like Caster Semenya (who grew up in the village of Limpopo in rural northwestern South Africa, or in the “middle of nowhere” according to the people of South Africa, as reported in Levy, 2009) or Dutee Chand (daughter of weavers who make $8 a week, as reported in Macur, 2014) will be put at a disadvantage by the policies. As noted by Chand’s advisor Dr Payoshni Mitra, many of these athletes coming from humble social backgrounds are also providing for their families, and when the policies target them, they not only deprive them of the opportunity to compete, but also of the means to make a living for them and for their families (Slater, 2014). It therefore seems not an exaggeration to say that the ‘burden’ for the athlete – which we have seen is physical, psychological and economical in nature – would disproportionately affect individuals who already find themselves embedded into complex patterns of systematic disadvantage.

Conclusion The IAAF and IOC policies locate the process of eligibility to compete within a discourse of fair play that is itself situated within a medicalized conceptualization of sex. As we also argued elsewhere, answers as to who should be eligible to compete in which category, are not to be found in allegedly unambiguous readings of ‘Nature’ through the lenses of science or medicine. They require, instead, a broader reflection on the value dimensions and the meaning of sport: what kind of activity it is, what is the meaning of athletic excellence, and why we cherish it so much. It is this kind of analysis (or its lack thereof) that, ultimately, proves the aftermath of Caster Semenya’s case to be discomforting. By looking at things from this perspective, it is not hard to recognize that the medicalized discourse of IAAF (see this discourse in the media coverage in Chapter 7 by Montañola) and IOC apparently run against the same principle of fair play that the policies strenuously advocate. In other words, the policies deprive female athletes of the essence itself of athletic performance, which, borrowing from Murray, is both a “celebration of and a challenge posed by our embodiment” (Murray, 2009: 236). By doing so, they ‘disembody’ female athletes in competition and they not only fail to achieve the ideal of fairness they aim for, but they deprive female athletes with hyperandrogenism exactly of the essence of sport, i.e. of the possibility to push their bodies to their limits thanks to an unpredictable combination of talent and dedication (Murray, 2009: 237). Clearly, a deep investigation of the meaning of sports is not an easy task, and we have no guarantee that this endeavour will ever provide clear-cut solutions, if it is this that we seek. Nevertheless, such intricacies do not undermine the importance of attempting, but rather they call for a broader

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cultural engagement that, we suggest, needs to be inclusive of all the moral constituents, defined as “those who are in effect bound by that decision” (Gutmann and Thompson, 2004, cited in Camporesi and Maugeri, 2011). This would mean including not only regulators and medical specialists, but also gender scholars, psychologists, philosophers of sports and, perhaps more importantly, the voices of the athletes that, regrettably, have long been neglected in this debate.

Notes 1 These “medical” clarifications are well reviewed in Yang et al. (2010) and Karkazis et al. (2012). 2 See, for instance, Bostwick and Joyner (2012). 3 www.eeoc.gov/employers/eeo1survey/sample_self_identification.cfm   4 Paragraph 7.4 “The athlete shall be responsible for complying with her prescribed medical treatment during the period of Return to Competition Monitoring and shall provide the IAAF Medical Department with satisfactory evidence of such compliance, as it may request.” (IAAF Regulations Governing Eligibility of Females with Hyperandrogenism to Compete in Women’s Competition – In force as from May 1, 2011). 5 Paragraph 6.6: The burden of proof shall be on the athlete to establish, where applicable, that she has an androgen resistance such that she derives no competitive advantage from androgen levels in the normal male range and the standard of proof in such a case shall be by a balance of probabilities.

References Bermon S., Ritzén M., Lindén Hirschberg A., and Murray T.  H. (2013) Are the New Policies on Hyperandrogenism in Elite Female Athletes Really Out of Bounds? The American Journal of Bioethics 13(5):  63–65. doi: 10.1080/15265161.2013.776129. Bostwick J. M. and Joyner M. J. (2012) The Limits of Acceptable Biological Variation in Elite Athletes: Should Sex Ambiguity Be Treated Differently from Other Advantageous Genetic Traits? Mayo Clinic Proceedings 87(6): 508–513. Camporesi S. and Maugeri P. (2010) Caster Semenya: Sport, Categories and the Creative Role of Ethics. Journal of Medical Ethics 36: 378–379. Camporesi S. and Maugeri P. (2011) Genetic Enhancement in Sports: the Role of Reason and Private Rationalities in the Public Arena. Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics (02): 248–257. Clemmons A.  K. (2008) 7 Feet 7 and 360 Pounds, With Bigger Feet Than Shaq’s. The New York Times January 9, 2008 www.nytimes.com/2008/01/09/sports/ ncaabasketball/09asheville.html?_r=0 (accessed December 8, 2014). Cooky, C. and Dworkin S. L. (2013) Policing the Boundaries of Sex: A Critical Examination of Gender Verification and the Caster Semenya controversy. Journal of Sex Research 50(2): 103–111. Dabholkar S. (2013) A Need to Intercede? The International Olympic Committee and Intersexuality. The International Sports Law Journal 13(1) 55–59 http://link. springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs40318-013-0012-6 (accessed December 8, 2014).

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Doyle J.  R. (2008) Michael Phelps Unintentionally Raises Marfan Syndrome Awareness. FoxNews, August 21 www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,408023,00.html (accessed December 8, 2014). Dreger A. (1998) Hermaphrodites and the Medical Invention of Sex. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Eynon N., Hanson E. D., Lucia A., Houweling P. J., Garton F., North K. N., and Bishop D. J. (2013). Genes for Elite Power and Sprint Performance: ACTN3 leads the way. Sports Medicine, 43(9): 803–817. Foddy B. and Savulescu J. (2011) Time to Re-evaluate Gender Segregation in Athletics? British Journal of Sports Medicine, 45(15): 1184–1188. Hämäläinen  M. (2012) The Concept of Advantage in Sport. Sport, Ethics and Philosophy 6(3): 308–322. Heggie V. (2010) Testing Sex and Gender in Sports; Reinventing, Reimagining and Reconstructing Histories. Endeavour 34 (4): 157–163.. Housman E. and Reynolds R. V. (2014) Polycystic Ovary Syndrome: A Review for Dermatologists: Part I. Diagnosis and Manifestations.  Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology 71(5): 847.e1–e10. Hull C. L. and Fausto-Sterling A. (2003) How Sexually Dimorphic Are We? Review and Synthesis. American Journal of Human Biology 15(1): 112–115. IAAF Regulations Governing Eligibility of Females with Hyperandrogenism to Compete in Women’s Competition (2011) www.iaaf.org/about-iaaf/documents/ medical (accessed December 8, 2014). Jasanoff S. (ed.) (2004) States of Knowledge: the Co-Production of Science and the Social Order. New York, NY: Routledge. Karkazis K., Jordan-Young R., Davis G. and Camporesi S. (2012) Out of Bounds? A Critique of the New Policies on Hyperandrogenism in Elite Female Athletes. The American Journal of Bioethics 12(7): 3–16. Levy, A. (2009) EITHER/OR. Sports, Sex, and the case of Caster Semenya. The New Yorker (accessed December 8, 2014). Long, J. C. and Kittles, R. A. (2009) Human Genetic Diversity and the Nonexistence of Biological Races. Human biology 81(5/6): 777–798. Macur J. (2014) Fighting for the Body She Was Born with. The New York Times, October 6, 2014 www.nytimes.com/2014/10/07/sports/sprinter-dutee-chand-fightsban-over-her-testosterone-level.html?_r=0 (accessed December 8, 2014). Mäntyranta E., Olympic Athlete card www.olympic.org/eero-mantyranta (accessed December 8, 2014). Molloy P.  M. (2014) Indian Sprinter Dutee Chand Disqualified after Failing a So-called Gender Test, Bustle, July 24, 2014 www.bustle.com/articles/33066indian-sprinter-dutee-chand-disqualified-after-failing-a-so-called-gender-test (accessed October 22, 2015). Murray T. H. (2009). In Search of an Ethics of Sport: Genetic Hierarchies, Handicappers General, and Embodied Excellence. In  Performance-Enhancing Technologies in Sports, Murray T. H., Maschke K .J. and Wasunna A. A. (eds) Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press: 225–238. Ostrander E.  A., Huson H.  G., and Ostrander G.  K. (2009). Genetics of Athletic Performance. Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics 10: 407–429. Slater M. (2014) Dutee Chand begins competition ban appeal, BBC Sport, October 7, 2014 www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/athletics/29529443 (accessed December 8, 2014).

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Sloop J. M. (2012) “This is Not Natural:” Caster Semenya’s Gender Threats. Critical Studies in Media Communication 29(2), 81–96. Sullivan C. F. (2011) Gender Verification and Gender Policies in Elite Sport: Eligibility and “Fair Play”. Journal of Sport and Social Issues 35(4): 400–419. Teetzel S. (2014) The Onus of Inclusivity: Sport Policies and the Enforcement of the Women’s Category in Sport. Journal of the Philosophy of Sport, 41(1), 113–127. Yang J. H., Baskin L. S. and, DiSandro M.(2010) Gender Identity in Disorders of Sex Development: Review Article. Urology 75: 153–159.

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History of the science, law and ethics Laurence Brunet and Muriel Salle1

Introduction “The Caster Semenya case,” entirely structured around the hypothesis of the athlete’s intersexuation sheds light on a culture in which stringent rules dictate how individuals will be categorized in terms of sex and gender. According to these rules, there are two sexes, and only two, clearly defined and mutually exclusive, possessing “fundamental” physiological characteristics that are invariable. Second, a term-to-term correspondence must exist between sex and gender (see Chapter 6 by Rose). For gender, being an effect of sex, is also understood in binary mode. Although this may sound like stating the obvious, a little historical research shows that, in effect, there is nothing at all obvious about this way of “thinking difference,” as Françoise Héritier (1996) might have called it. It is merely one way, among many others, of considering things. If these statements are placed in historical and legal perspective, one clearly sees that the potential for diversity in the field of sexual physiology is a very old concept indeed, even though the words used to designate these realities have varied considerably, of course. In the past, law and medicine visualized sexual identities that were much more labile than we usually presume today. Even if Caster Semenya’s intersexuation is not officially proved, it is an opportunity for us to consider the matter of intersex issues, and the legal and medical responses to them since the nineteenth century in Europe and around the world. This sort of contextualization can lead us to examine a series of subsequent questions: to what degree is the scandal raised by Caster Semenya’s victory indicative that in the 2010s, the attitude of public opinion toward sexual difference remains stuck in the 1890s? Her case also highlights the tension aroused in contemporary legal systems by the fact that free self-determination of individuals in defining their identity is gradually being recognized. Our perspective will essentially be European, because investigations of sexual ambiguity chiefly involved nineteenth-century European medical observations. The conceptions of these scholars on the dichotomy of the sexes are detectable in the legislative bedrock on which law in various European countries is based, as well as that in common law systems.

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How sexual dichotomy was constructed in the nineteenth century In the French language, the term “intersex” was not applied to an individual until 1915. At the time, the term did not mean the same thing as it does now. Then, it designated “an individual whose development begins according to one genetic sex, and ends according to the opposite sex” (Garnier and Delamare, 2012). This is clearly evidence that, as Annick Jaulin (2001) and Thomas Laqueur (1992) have pointed out, two models for conceptualizing sexual difference coexisted. Although the single-sex model dates back to before the eighteenth century, and the two-sex model came along later, one did not replace the other. At certain times, they existed side by side. As for French usage of the term “intersexuality,” it appeared in 1931, to designate a “sexuality presenting ambivalent characteristics, but with either male or female predominating” (Garnier and Delamare 2012). In the nineteenth century, the usual term for designating individuals whose sexual identity is indefinite was “hermaphrodite.” The terms “of ambiguous sex” or “of dubious sex” also arise, to refer to a multitude of conditions in which the biological sex of the individual does not fully correspond to the usual anatomical norms. At the time, the specifics of these situations were little known, and poorly documented and described. “A clitoris shaped like a phallus, a scrotum, are deceptive, and they get away with it,” Dr Debierre pointed out (Debierre, 1886: 312). Another doctor documented a newborn who presented the attributes of a “boy, because there was a penis topped with a glans, a small orifice that could be the urethra [sic.], a very long perineum, two sack-like things … ” and also those of a “girl, for this penis might merely be an oversized clitoris; the orifice, an incomplete vaginal opening; and the folds that looked like sacks could be the rudiments of labia majora” (Huguier, 1845: 248). Nevertheless, despite or perhaps precisely because of the confusion, scholars were thrilled by the question. The poets of Antiquity wrote about the idea, in its mythical form. Ovid asserted the hermaphrodite was the product of a merging of the two sexes, male and female or, more precisely, of the invasion of the masculine (symbolized by an eagle) by an importunate feminine (the snake, in this depiction): In vain, he struggles and tries to escape from her, but she wraps herself around him the way a snake coils around the eagle, bird of Jove, grasping it and bearing it aloft; suspended in the void, the reptile imprisons the eagle’s head and talons, and with the coils of her tail, encircles the spread wings. (Ovid, 1994: 108) In Plato, on the contrary, sexual indifferentiation, which he designates as “androgyny,” existed prior to differentiation.

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In early times, our nature was not the same as it is today, being of a different sort … there were three categories of human beings … to wit, the male, the female […and] a third, that bore similarities to both of the others … : the androgynous, a distinct type that, in name as well as in shape, combined the other two. (Plato, 2001: 114–115) This category disappeared, “and all that remains of it is a name, held to be degrading” (ibid.). Simultaneously man and woman? Or neither man nor woman? The conceptions of Ovid and Plato oppose each other, and the same antagonism can be found in nineteenth-century medical texts. This chapter will analyze that scientific literature. The doctors do in fact distinguish between types of hermaphrodites, describing “two different categories: 1. creatures lacking a well-defined sex, although it is pronounced, and 2. those in whom the simultaneous existence of the organs of both sexes is observed” (Poppesco, 1874: 21). The hermaphrodite, being both a “transgression of a natural normativity” and a “transgression of the social normativity” (Dorlin, 2004: 568), disrupts the order of sexual dichotomy, challenges the boundaries, upsets the limits, and introduces an unbearable gray area that is instantly stigmatized. The amplitude of the disturbance induced is especially striking in the medical rhetoric of the late nineteenth century.2 By analyzing it, we can trace the faint contours of a whole conception of sexual difference, intended to be irrefutable, immeasurable, and based upon nature. The study of hermaphroditism was a timely question, and it benefited from the period’s latest progress in research (Salle, 2010a, 2010b). It sharply questioned the definition of the two sexes, as if speaking of neutrality, of abnormality, made it possible to specify the breadth of sexual difference and recall the norm. Recent historiography has clearly shown3 that on the subject of scientia sexualis, as Michel Foucault would have said (Foucault, 1976: 69–98), something was happening in the second half of the nineteenth century, when a body of medical scholarship on sexuality was being elaborated, a “protosexology,” as it were (Béjin, 1990: 57–58). In fact, sexology, a discipline first named in France in the early 1910s, was eager to break from this past. As a result, scholarly rhetoric on sex took a fascinating turn. Throughout the nineteenth century, sex was thought of in terms of two imperatives: that of biology, and therefore reproduction, on the one hand, and that of medicalization, on the other. This led to an interesting development of the discourse about individuals of “dubious” sex. For lack of a better word, we shall refer to these individuals as “hermaphrodites,” a word that encompasses phenomena that we would consider today as cases of intersexuation, and also trans persons. An analysis of the literature reveals a conception of sexual differentiation that is more labile than the one we are accustomed to today. In the contemporary context, the intersex hypothesis exposes the mechanisms enabling the sex/gender system to operate, along with the adjustments to which the system might consent, in order

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to negotiate, in a particularly subtle way, with the disruptions that might be a threat to it, as Fabien Rose’s study of the discourses surrounding the “Semenya case” demonstrate (see Chapter 6). At the turn of the nineteenth century, the hermaphrodite figure served precisely that purpose. The Belle Époque represents a pivotal moment in the history of what we refer to today as “gender identity disorders.” It was then that the imaginary of sexual difference, an imaginary that we ourselves have largely inherited, emerged. It is a valid subject for research, because it “plays an essential role, even when we are immersed in a world of scholarly, scientific knowledge” (Carol, 2003: 203). Medical scholarship on the topic of hermaphroditism, to use the terminology of the period, is blatantly subjective. The hermaphrodite, “the new monster-figure” (Foucault, 1999: 62), appeared in the late eighteenth century, according to Michel Foucault. The phenomenon was then characterized either in physical terms, thereby corresponding to a person we refer to today as being “intersex,” or in psychological terms, referring in this case to a “homosexual.” As a result, “physical hermaphroditism” and “psychological hermaphroditism” were two sides of the same coin, that of sexual indetermination. The “protosexology” (Béjin, 1990: 57–58) evolving at the time was especially curious about the phenomenon. Whether physical or psychological, the hermaphrodite, an interloper like the criminal considered to be a savage who had gone astray in civilization, or the “primitive,” associated with disturbing figures contrasting sharply with the image of lightness, brightness, and unconditional faith in Progress that characterizes the Belle Époque, betrays the anxiety aroused by any lack of definition and any form of biracialism. The phenomenon had become unbearable – but why? What can we read between the lines of the analyses of hermaphroditism? The number of scholarly pronouncements it stimulated is far out of proportion with its status as an epiphenomenon. In a society increasingly focused on moral and sanitary concerns, and also disturbed by the issue of denatality – which occurred very early in France – associated with national rivalries (exacerbated following France’s defeat at Prussia’s hands), and by conflict between social classes, sexual abnormals gradually became the monopoly of medical scholars. Starting in the first decades of the nineteenth century, medicine turned them into a social problem, a hitherto unheard-of phenomenon. (Révenin, 2007: 25) Analyzing medical journals of the period sheds light on this question. The doctors’ great curiosity can be explained in part by scientific and technical progress, as Eugène Wilhelm pointed out in 1911: “In-depth study of the subject, and knowledge about various forms of hermaphroditism and its true biology, date back only to the nineteenth century, especially after technological improvements and innovations had perfected the exploration of the genitalia.”

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Indeed, the vagina and cervix could not be examined until French doctor Joseph Récamier (1774–1852) propagated the use of the vaginal speculum, a metal cylinder. However, the scientific theories of the time also had a great impact on the discourse on hermaphrodites. At a time when the medical profession was gaining more scientific and social legitimacy than ever before, and sexology was emerging, evolutionist and positivist theories were the source of an imagination of sexual difference casting the hermaphrodite as a “throwback,” the living vestige of a pre-human state, as it were. Hence, the existence of significant difference between sexes was interpreted as the sign of a higher evolutionary rank. Intersex individuals were therefore considered to be medically and socially degenerate. Moreover, these doctors intended to develop a rational discourse, far removed from the fantasies of ancient poets or the barbaric treatments inflicted upon these “monsters” in the past. And the medical discourse was the source of legislative discourse which was also renewed, in connection with a social edifice based upon an absolutely inevitable difference between the sexes, a symptom of its evident superiority in the minds of the scientists, who held a stake in this viewpoint, of course. It seemed unbearable for an individual to live with a sex he or she chose or, worse, for this person to be unclassifiable in one of the two sexual categories that were accepted. “The consequences of such errors [of sex] are detrimental not only to the personal interest of the individual, but also to the public interest of society” (Loir, 1854: 24) The whole medical profession agreed: it was important for doctors and legal professionals to work together, at what was certainly a pivotal time in the discourse on the diversity of sexual physiologies – a discourse that was still heir to ideas that were quite ancient, at the same time as it was serving to found our modernity.

From the single sex to differentiation: indeterminacy as the sign of an evolutionary delay Progress in embryology enabled late nineteenth-century doctors to develop an evolutionist conception of the pathogenesis of hermaphroditism. Although, in its beginnings, the anatomical analysis of the stages of embryonic development was essentially descriptive and comparative, it received a great boost from the influence of transformist theories. This school of thought saw the development of the individual as an accelerated version of the evolutionary phases the species had undergone (in other words, the “ontogenesis recapitulates phylogenesis” theory). As a result, the perception of intersex persons changed. “Every teratological fact enters into the laws of evolution; considered at its source, it is the result of arrested development at some embryonic phase.”(Poppesco, 1874: 8). By the 1870s, theories had emerged asserting that androgyny was a stage of development, and that “25 or 30 days after conception, the human embryo

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[is endowed with] the genitalia of both sexes, simultaneously” (Saint-Cyr, 1892: 104). Only later, “towards the sixth week, does the genital bud that will become a penis or clitoris appear at the anterior end of the cloacal slit” (Dailliez, 1893: 9). The French physician Dailliez even adds a footnote specifying that, “in Latin, as if to attest to this original unity, there is only one term, Mentula, to designate the penis or clitoris.” On this point, let us add that late nineteenth-century scholars considered the development of the female genitalia to be nearly complete ten or eleven weeks after conception: “everything stays about the way it is, in women,” Dr Debierre tells us (Debierre, 1886: 331), whereas “to make the transition from female to male type,” intrauterine evolution must continue. A more explicit statement of the ranks of women and men on the evolutionary ladder is hardly imaginable. Men obviously were the superior beings, in the hierarchy of sexes. German physician Heinrich Waldeyer was the source of this theory. When it was combined with Ernst Haeckel’s “theory of recapitulation,” on the relationship between ontogenesis and phylogenesis,4 the mixture was explosive. It was a scientific assertion of what novelist Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) had predicted in the foreword to the Human Comedy: “There is only one animal. The creator used just one and the same pattern for all organized creatures” (Balzac (1842) 1976: 7). This was true regardless of the species, breed or… sex to which they belonged. “All vertebrates begin by being hermaphroditic. Even the highest mammals go through this embryonic stage … All of them, before they acquire male or female characteristics, go through a stage of sexual indeterminacy, in which the sexes are mingled, or rather, in which the sexes are added on to each other” (Debierre, 1886: 307). The observation is also valid for the human species: “The human begins by being hermaphroditic: that is the first irrefutable and unrefuted point,” Dr Debierre asserts emphatically. It is only “later [that] sexual differentiation causes one of the two sets of genitalia to atrophy … But, nevertheless, vestiges of the primal sexual duality remain” (Debierre, 1886: 309). Let us add that this differentiation was believed to be reversible: a slide back into indeterminacy is always possible, as a consequence of flaws in evolution – those caused by ageing, for example: “Among animals, as the female ages, she becomes masculine on the outside,” the French doctor Lacassagne pointed out (Testut, 1890: 177). This conception of sexual difference reflects the one-sex model: it implies that the only difference between masculine and feminine is one of degree (Laqueur, 1992). The existence of intersex individuals serves as effective proof of the theory: “Developmental anomalies (read ‘arrested development’) … are evidence of the primal hermaphroditism” (Debierre, 1886: 310). In an era when scientists were desperately seeking a natural explanation for the difference between men and women, this theory was bound to raise objections. Even though it blurred the dichotomy between the sexes only at the very earliest stages of embryogenesis, blur them it did. Initially developed by the German physician Heinrich Waldeyer5, it was widely criticized, for it amounted to an admission that “every human being, during a part of his or her existence,

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possesses a part of sperm ducts and a part of egg ducts, existing simultaneously” (Debierre, 1892: 104, emphasis original). The problem is clear to see: if the theory is correct, it removes any grounds for the argument that men and women are fundamentally different, by nature. Moreover, it directly contested the model of the difference between the sexes that prevailed during the second half of the nineteenth century. As Thomas Laqueur shows, since Antiquity and until the eighteenth century, the one-sex model had dominated. It says that there is only one sex, and it is masculine, of course. Absolutely no anatomical difference exists between male and female genitalia, apart from the fact that the woman’s system is inside the body, and the man’s on the outside. According to this model, women were simply imperfect versions of males – “inverted men,” as it were: “Within such a conceptual framework, the existence of individuals possessing the characteristics of both sexes was not perceived as a freak event. Instead, their anatomy tended to confirm the natural order of things.” (Marry and Löwy, 2007: 150). Over the course of the nineteenth century, truly, the transition from the one-sex model to the two-sex model was underway. The adoption of the twosex model was accompanied by a sharp naturalization of each of the two categories, male and female. Annick Jaulin has clearly pointed out that this change in mindset did not occur by “the substitution [somewhat exaggerated] of one model for the other.” Instead, “the two models coexisted within a structure, in which one was dominant” (Jaulin, 2001: 200). Within such a thought framework, Waldeyer’s explanation for the causes of hermaphroditism was profoundly subversive, unless the intersex individuals concerned, caught in the trap of pathologization, did not serve precisely to reassert the norm. Acknowledgement of a “middle” sex was in fact thought out and theorized in order to confirm the irrefutable truth that the other two were different. There was another consequence of this evolutionist conception of the pathogenesis of hermaphroditism: the individual afflicted with it was not only a “mistake of nature,” as had already been decided, but even more, a retarded type, a throwback to an earlier stage of development usually lost in the shadows of evolution and embryogenesis. Ernst Haeckel’s theory was then beginning to make the rounds of scholarly circles. Even though it was sometimes sharply criticized, its assertion that the hermaphrodite is an individual whose development has ended at an embryonic stage had significant consequences. This conception made the intersex person even worse than a monster, a “primitive” in the original sense of the word, because he/she presented “a backward case of arrested development” (Debierre, 1886: 330, emphasis original). The era was ruled by the value of Progress, the core of all reflection, scientific, technical, and political: “backward” was the most negative qualification it was possible to apply to intersex persons. Anatomical conformity and term-to-term correspondence between one sex and the other, and one gender and the other, formed two coherent wholes that were mutually exclusive. The ideal match was believed to be evidence the beings were

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highly evolved creatures, an axiom that went beyond the question of hermaphroditism alone. It was implemented to disqualify other categories of the population, as well. For example, nineteenth-century conceptions of racial and class hierarchies were underpinned by the same hierarchical, evolutionist thinking that explained sexual differentiation. In racial categories considered to be lower on the evolutionary ladder, sexual ambiguities abounded. “The same set of underlying principles [presided] over the emergence of sexual and racial categories,” Elsa Dorlin (2006: 14) shows. It is not at all surprising to see the principle of the difference between sexes cited as an indicator of distinction between categories of humans, some of whom firmly believed they were made of superior stuff than the others. The norm was two mutually exclusive sexual categories, corresponding term-to-term with two genders that were also binary, and that were the obligatory cultural signifiers. This norm was embodied by upper-class white populations, for whom everything pointed to an irrefutable difference between man and woman, masculine and feminine, from costume and anatomy all the way to psychological profile and political role, with the refinement of education emphasizing the contrast even more. Hence, exceptions to the norm were interpreted as evolutionary throwbacks or, at the very least, as the sign of an inferior education. Thus, the scientists of the era were quite convinced that the anatomy of prehistoric women must have been almost identical to that of prehistoric men, whereas that of modern women was quite different (Testut, 1890: 216). Likewise, the myth of the supposedly insatiable sexual appetite of black women implicitly states where they were thought to stand on the evolutionary scale. Because a vigorous sexual appetite was considered to be a masculine trait, this imagery of the insatiable African woman constructed not only a “repulsive figure of femininity” (Dorlin, 2006: 260) but also the blatant sign that African people, because they displayed this lack of differentiation in sexual appetite, were an evolutionary throwback (see Chapter 8 by Salo). The presumed sexual appetite of prostitutes can also be interpreted in this way (Besnard, 2010). According to this mindset, any category that occupied a higher rung on the hierarchical ladder, be it of class or of race, had developed a broad gap between male and female sexual characteristics. Late nineteenth-century physicians professed this idea and were stakeholders in it. The active role they intended to play in tightening the legislative provisions concerning “registration of sex for the purpose of vital records” (Loir, 1854: 3) attests to that fact. They had long been in great demand as consultants on public health and sanitation, established in France in the early 1800s. Now their advice was actively sought in other areas of public policy.

Forensic perspectives on declaring sex and how it was registered in official nineteenth-century records: a relative flexibility French physician J.-N. Loir devoted a report to the subject of public policy on hermaphroditism, “read to the Académie des Sciences Morales et

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Politiques,” dated September 16, 1854. Citing the opinion of “the most commendable authors,” who included Mathieu Orfila and Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, he underscored “deficiencies in the provisions of French civil law regarding sexual distinction and registration of sex for vital records” (Loir, 1854: 3). Many other doctors were alarmed, like Dr Loir, by the lack of legislative provisions covering cases of hermaphroditism or individuals of “dubious sex,” as one sometimes reads. The Napoleonic Code made no provision for sexual ambiguity: “its authors may have presumed that these anomalies did not exist, and were merely figments of the imagination” (Loir, 1854: 4). Yet “it is the legislator’s duty to prevent the sad results [of such] mistakes,” and it was the doctor’s duty to draw the legislator’s attention to the problem. Both doctors and legislators were particularly dismayed by the fact that vital records might not reflect the anatomy of the individual. “In our public records, we sometimes find … death certificates bearing the mention that the individual’s vital record was altered, because the individual’s true sex was discovered only by accident, and rectified only after death,” Dr Loir tells us (1854: 8), deploring these postmortem discoveries. Of course, these physicians firmly believe it is essential to correct any error in the record of the individual during that person’s lifetime. The corrections were sometimes made, in fact, since he writes that “excerpts from court rulings handed down during the individual’s lifetime are annexed to the birth certificates of those concerned, to change a false entry in the vital record” (Loir, 1854: 8). Beyond the mere matter of identity, the physician is convinced th,at the correction is necessary so that the individual can take up “a profession suitable to his sex” (Loir, 1854: 13). Obviously, the era could not tolerate crossovers: it was strict in defining different social roles for male and female. Physicians believed that an erroneous classification at birth might have very serious consequences: Excessively severe forensic issues are connected to flaws in the appearance of genitalia. Sometimes individuals whose vital records were falsified at birth are condemned to a whole series of moral disturbances, before they can recover their entitlement and return to common law; sometimes a marriage had to be annulled because it was contracted under a case of false sexual identity. (Poppesco, 1874: 32) For this reason, certain physicians felt three changes were necessary: 1. An additional provision [should be added] to Article 57 of the Napoleonic Code; 2. a physician should intervene on the current means of presentation; 3. the indication of exceptional cases of vital records in which there is uncertainty regarding the determination should be mentionned on the birth certificate of sex. (Loir, 1854: 24)

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Mainly, the doctors arrange to be the only legitimate authority in diagnosing an individual’s sex correctly. The amendment they propose to Article 57 of the Civil Code would exclude “new, inexperienced parents, ignorant matrons, prudish midwives” (Loir, 1854: 29). It is appropriate for every newborn to be subjected to medical examination because “it is evident that the intervention of the doctor in the presentation can prevent such errors and the consequences they will have, sooner or later” (Loir, 1854: 30). If an individual reaches adulthood without the error having been noticed, the physician is still entitled to intervene, as shown by the emblematic case of Herculine Barbin, alias Alexina B, whose memoirs were published by Michel Foucault in 1978.6 Reared as a girl until the age of 20, “Alexina is a man, a hermaphrodite, no doubt” (Chesnet, 1860: 209), as the examining physician writes (see Chapter 6 by Rose). The doctor is the authority who proceeds with “the rectification [of the identity] on the vital records registry” (Foucault, 1978: 101). The case may be emblematic, but it was not unusual. For example, Dr Germonprez mentions the case of a person wearing woman’s clothing in a very strange way: his features are rough, his demeanor embarrassed, his speech is brief and hesitant, and the whole impression he makes is as enigmatic as the contents of the letter of introduction this person presented. (Germonprez, 1892: 5) Naturally, Germonprez concludes the record is mistaken. “The person in question is not a woman… it is a man!”(Germonprez, 1892: 6). And he is careful to see that the correction is made. Although these cases of hermaphroditism are incidental, in statistical terms, the great physicians of the day believed they nevertheless deserved serious attention. In fact, the doctors all cautioned their readers that although these cases “are far from common” (Loir, 1854: 6), they are nevertheless “more frequent than it is thought.” Professor Brouardel, a prominent forensic doctor of the time, notes that in 1887, he “carried out six assessments” (Dailliez, 1893: 6) that revealed errors in the determination of an individual’s sex at birth. In France, the doctor’s word was trusted to judge disputed cases. However, that was not the case everywhere in Europe. Thus, as Dr Loir points out (1854: 26), the Prussian code specifies: Art. 19: When hermaphrodites are born, the parents determine which sex should be assigned to them as children. Art. 20: Nevertheless, upon reaching the age of eighteen, this type of individual is free to choose the gender he or she wants and claims as his or her own. Art. 21: His or her rights will be established on the basis of this choice. Art. 22: But if a third party’s rights depend upon the sex of a person who claims to be a hermaphrodite, this third party can request an examination by professionals.

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Art. 23: The decision of the professionals prevails over the choices of the hermaphrodite and his or her parents. Art. 24: The rights of both sexes are the same, unless an exception has been established by special laws or by valid conventions. But beyond these legislative provisions concerning persons “of dubious sex,” what is fascinating are the debates elicited by these cases. They are evidence of the variety of opinions on the question, and even of the ambiguity of certain opinions. Who has the authority to judge an individual’s sex, when it does not match either of the two referential anatomical models? Some say, “it is up to the individuals concerned [by these anomalies] or to their parents to choose the sex they feel is most suitable” (Laugardière, 1865: 179). Others sternly maintain that it is a mistake to leave such freedom of choice to the parties concerned, for “truth subsists, outside and above the convenience of the individual concerned” (Germonprez, 1892: 30). And when a third-party’s interest is involved, “it is up to the competent experts to make a decision,” that is, the physicians. But as long as there is no third-party interest in the matter, “why restrict a freedom?” (Germonprez, 1892: 30). It therefore seems quite thinkable for an individual to register his or her own choice of sex in the vital record, even if it is not anatomically accurate. Some doctors even suggest that a person could be neither male nor female, for a while, or perhaps even definitively. For example, Dr Lacassagne recommends when there is a doubt about the sex [at birth], a reprieve will be granted until puberty (from ages 14 to 20). During this period, upon request or at the beginning of the subject’s 20th year, he or she will submit to a medical examination to rule on his or her sex and his or her registration in the vital records as a man, a woman, or a neuter. Until the civil tribunal hands down a judgment, the birth certificate will bear the marginal annotation S.D. (sex dubious). (Lacassagne, 1887: 91) These suggestions were not incorporated into the law, but they nevertheless reveal some open-mindedness about sexual difference. Maybe the binary model was less dominant than we think it was. Perhaps the one-sex model described by Laqueur had survived, if only in the minds of scientists. That might explain their ability to conceive of some fluidity in sexual categories. In this respect, Professor Brouardel’s comment is provocative: “Personally, [in 1887], I made six assessments in which I recognized that individuals who had been registered at birth as little girls had become men” (Dailliez, 1893: 6, original emphasis). So the Belle Époque was indeed a turning point in the history of differentiating between the sexes. There is no doubt that things were changing. The will to assign one category or the other to persons “of dubious sex” would gradually prevail. To justify this strict binary categorization, doctors cite

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anatomical, physiological, and psychological evidence, but try as they may they never succeed in reaching consensus about the scientific basis for a person’s sexual identity (Salle, 2010a; 2010b). The conditions that would make a different discourse possible are present twice over. The scholars could envisage both the plasticity of sexual categories, and an expansion of the two-sex model, for some of them note the existence of a “third sex.” But increased medical influence over disputed cases tended to establish the naturalization and normalization of sexual identities. The contours of sexual and gender categories grew rigid, and tension arose over the need to match gender to sex. These historical developments explain in part the construction of the legislative edifice that serves as a framework today, regulating the situation of persons of ambiguous sexual identity.

In contemporary law, the “social order” versus the “natural order” The way contemporary law manages cases of intersexuation is the result of a dual discourse that developed in the late 1800s and early 1900s. On one side, scientific doubts about the relevance of bi-categorization of sex strengthen the law’s calling to distance itself from the reality of anatomical and biological evidence. In civil law countries, in particular, as opposed to countries governed by common law,7 the system seeks to identify individuals on the basis of characteristics recorded in official registries. However, in doing so, it is chiefly concerned with instituting social differentiations, in line with political purposes, rather than with imitating a “natural order.” This reasoning has been demonstrated several times, in cases involving the establishment of parenthood (Brunet, 2011; Thery and Leroyer, 2014). The same type of reasoning would probably extend to establishing sex which, like parenthood, is a characteristic of a person’s legal identity and, as such, is registered with the office of vital records. Although modern societies have continued to require that a person be associated with one of the two sexual categories, and although this sexual identity is consigned to an official document, the courts have long tolerated a certain fluidity of identity. The tendency to break out of the confines of a strict, binary model of the sexes has recently become even stronger, in many legal systems. Clearly, there is a contrast between the creativity of civil law in this field and the rigidity of the two-sex classification in the rules governing the globalized field of sport. On the other side, however, the courts rely upon medical expertise to interpret intersexual bodies and force them to fit into one of the two sexual categories – even if the doctors must resort to wielding the scalpel. Therefore the statement above must be qualified, for it is not true that intersex persons enjoy freedom and autonomy when it comes to choosing their sexual identity. Indeed, when an infant is born, it is the responsibility of the physician, and no longer that of the clerk at the vital records registry, to determine the sex

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of the child. If uncertainty remains even after all of the available evidence for evaluation has been assembled, doctors are prompt to perform surgery on the child’s genitals. Thus, what must be tested is the real ability of the law to free itself from sexual assignment by medical means.

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The relative fluidity of sexual identities This fluidity may take on two forms: either the sex may remain indeterminate, or the division between the sexes may be porous. How can vital records accommodate indeterminate sex? There are three possibilities: a binary categorization of the sexes, an undefined sex, and the observation of a third sex. In many Western countries, the law requires that the birth certificate mention the mention of the child’s sex, along with the date and place of birth.8 For law, these are traditionally “three historical truths that resist any later manipulation” (Carbonnier, 2014: 502). Nevertheless, the law contains gaps. On the one hand, the law does not specify which sexes are possible, even though this lack of information is filled by other texts.9 On the other hand, determination of sex is held by the law to be a simple procedure, despite the fact that ambiguous cases have always been reported. Today, it is estimated that between 1 and 2 percent of the population possess sexual characteristics that differ from masculine or feminine norms (HAS, 2009: 23). According to approximate statistics, in around 1 out of 1,500 or 2,000 births, an unusual conformation of the genitalia requires an examination by a medical specialist to determine the sex of the child (Greenberg, 2012: 2). These situations where sexual identity remains ambiguous are not that rare; hence, as we saw, the request by certain physicians in the nineteenth century to be able to record an undefined sex on the birth certificate, at least until puberty. However, French law has always expressly rejected such a solution, even though in certain cases, accommodations can be made. The memorandum issued on October 28, 2011 set forth the following provisions regarding special rules for various vital records documents concerning birth and parenthood. It explicitly envisages the situation of intersex persons (§55): If, in certain exceptional cases, the physician believes that he cannot immediately provide any indication of the newborn’s probable sex, but that within one or two years, it will be possible to determine the sex definitively, following appropriate treatment, it is admissible, with the approval of the State Prosecutor, initially to omit any designation of the child’s sex on the birth certificate. In such a case, it is appropriate to take all useful measures so that, subsequently, the birth certificate can be effectively completed by legal decision. In all such cases of sexual

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ambiguity, the parents are advised to choose a name for the child that is appropriate for either a boy or a girl. Therefore, in cases of great uncertainty, it is possible to leave the sex marker on the birth certificate blank. However, this solution is admissible only temporarily, on the condition that medical treatment is planned and that a male or female sexual identity will be attributed to the child in the medium term. The omission of the designation of the child’s sex on the birth certificate, temporarily admissible, cannot constitute a stable, definitive identity for the person. Therefore, the law does not create a new category of persons who are “deprived” of a sex or placed “outside sex”; it is simply a transitory identification. German law has gone further towards the recognition of a specific category of persons characterized by the indeterminacy of their sex. This is the outcome of the law of 31 January 2013 amending rules on vital records. A clause was added to paragraph 22 of the law on vital records, in point (3): “If neither the female nor the male sex can be assigned to the child, then the child is to be entered into the register of births without such an indication.” Three options are therefore provided for recording the birth: declaring either a feminine sex, a masculine sex, or omitting any mention. When the child cannot be connected to either the category of men, or that of women, the parents are obligated to omit the sex marker on the birth certificate: the law gives them no choice. The legislators’ intention was to loosen the particularly burdensome restriction on the parents of an intersex baby, forcing them to declare an identity in reference to the binary man/woman classification. The point was to avoid pressuring them to consent to any irreversible procedure undertaken to “normalize” the child’s atypical genitalia to conform to one of the two sexual models. By contrast with the palliative and temporary solution offered by French law, the birth certificate devoid of sex marker is intended to be maintained for an indefinite period of time, even though the legal provisions that follow hint that a rectification procedure may later make it possible to register the child as male or female. However, paradoxically, the result achieved by the law is then liable to contradict the goal sought, for it may increase the parents’ worries that their child will be ostracized, later in life, inasmuch as the blank sex field on the birth certificate reveals his or her intersex condition. These fears would be even more incentive for them to request that surgeons intervene to “normalize” the child’s anatomy (Schneider, 2013: 39). Australia has taken a more radical path, granting persons with an intersex condition the right to such an identity permanently. Since 2003, the country has, upon the request of the applicant, issued passports marked with the letter “X” instead of and in place of the sex, but this option had not been opened in the field of vital records. However, the Australian High Court ruled on April 2, 2014 to allow a person who had undergone sex reassignment, but who felt neither male nor female, to register with the office of vital records

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with a marker that was neither masculine nor feminine. The designation “non specific” will be entered as the sex designation on this person’s birth certificate (Moron-Puech, 2014). Nevertheless, this option is strictly supervised by Australian judges. The person must present medical certificates proving that he or she has undertaken a sex conformation procedure for the purposes of eliminating sexual ambiguities (in other words, hormonal treatment and/or surgery), and that this procedure has failed. True, the stringent conditions imposed by the courts limit the scope of this solution considerably. Nevertheless, it seems to be possible to apply it both to trans persons and to intersex persons, as long as they have submitted to unsatisfactory sex conformation procedures (Brunet and Fortier, 2012). Moreover, this situation is remarkable in that the point is no longer to define a blank status, by omitting the sex designation as German law does, but to go beyond the two-sex model by truly creating a third sex. It is not hard to interpret the designation “non specific sex” as the institution of a third sexual category. Moreover, the fact that the designation is intended to be permanent, rather than temporary, strengthens the three-sex-model interpretation. This contrasts with the situation under French law, where the intersex status is temporary, until the future sex of the infant can be determined (Moron-Puech, 2014). The Australian solution was an isolated case, but it may start setting a precedent. Indeed, a French district court has granted a married 64-year-old person the right to write “neutral gender,” instead of “male,” as the sex marker on official forms.10 The request was filed by a person who was born with both masculine and feminine attributes and who self-identified neither as a boy nor as a girl. The Court concluded that the masculine gender, attributed by this person’s birth certificate for the past 65 years, was “pure fiction” that “was imposed upon him for his entire existence without him ever being able to express his deepest feeling.” It ruled that the birth certificate must be rectified to include a “neutral gender.” But the judgment is liable to be overruled on an appeal submitted by the State Prosecutor, contending that it recognized a third sex classification which is not mentioned in any French laws. Instead of creating a third sexual category, temporary or permanent, legal systems prefer to authorize persons with intersex conditions to transition from one to the other of the two existing categories, more or less flexibly. Approval for changing the sex designation on vital record documents Intersex persons who were registered as being male or female at birth and who wish to change that designation as adults can now file a request that the designation on the document be changed. Sweden, for example, passed legislation in 1972 explicitly providing for this option. An individual can apply to the Department of Health for the authorization to alter the sex originally designated on the birth certificate to bring it into conformity with the sexual identity later developed by the individual. This solution is even open to minors with an intersex condition, who can file a request signed by their

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legal guardian. In France, the procedure has long been admissible and, even though it requires the signature of a judge, it enjoys a fairly liberal regime. In other countries, such as the United States, the term “clerical error provisions” used to be applied to the procedure. By filing a letter signed by a medical doctor swearing that an error had been committed, the intersex individual could obtain a change in the designation of sex on the official document (Greenberg, 2012: 69 and 109). French legal rulings dating back to the nineteenth century already attest to the benevolence of judges in enabling persons to whom the “wrong” sex was assigned at birth to change the designation. For example, they even approved of a change in designation on the basis of a mere “deed of public knowledge,” testimony signed by witnesses asserting that the applicant is known in his/ her social surroundings by a sexual identity that is the opposite of the one that was assigned to him/her on his/her birth certificate; that this fact about him/her is accepted, thus attesting to the erroneous designation at birth. In other court rulings, opposition between the sex designated at birth and the apparent genitalia of the individual as an adult sufficed to justify an alteration of the sex designated on the birth certificate (see the rulings cited and analyzed by Catto, 2014: 40–45). These corrections to the official documents were admitted at no financial expense, and in the absence of medical evaluation, and medical treatment (Catto, 2014: 42). An extension of this trend can be observed in a more recent ruling by the Versailles Appeals Court dated June 22, 2000:11 the child had been designated as male at birth, despite “particularly insufficient male genitalia.” Treatment intended to masculinize the child had failed, and surgery had been carried out in order to “promote the child’s orientation towards foreseeable feminization.” The Versailles judges’ statement of grounds emphasized that “the parents had agreed to give female rearing to the child,” who “for several years had been considered by his/her family and social circle to be a girl.” True, the medical profession had played a central role in determining the child’s sex, both in terms of the treatments carried out and the impact of the medical evaluation upon the court’s final decision. However, the judges did not seek evidence that the child’s body had indeed been reassigned to the other sex. They do not hide the fact that “the physical reality of the child” remains ambiguous. The point is that the judges grant considerable weight to the child’s psycho-social sex, the sex to which the individual belongs in daily life. It is a decisive factor in authorizing the change of sex and first name on the child’s birth certificate. This ruling is definitely an expression of the court’s approval of some fluidity in sexual identity. The relative flexibility of French judges in dealing with requests from intersex persons stands in sharp contrast to the severity with which they continue to oppose similar requests by trans persons (Brunet and Fortier, 2012: 102–112; Reigné, 2012a; Brunet, 2014). Indeed, although some uncertainty remains, transgender persons seeking a change in sex designation on official documents are still required to submit to bodily mutilation and sterilization procedures.12

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Strangely, in other countries, it is quite the opposite: intersex individuals wishing to correct the sex marker on official documents are advised to file claims according to the procedure set up to manage cases of transsexuality. In the absence of any specifically defined regulation, the most effective way for individuals applying to have an error in sexual designation on their birth certificate corrected is to associate their plea with that of individuals who no longer identify with the sex they were born with, despite the fact that the two conditions are practically incomparable. Nevertheless, individuals with intersex conditions can benefit from the legal rules established to protect the rights of “trans” persons, their privacy, and their gender identity. The Argentine Law of Gender Identity of May 23, 2012 provides an especially striking example of the trend towards strengthening a subjective right of the individual to gender identity. According to Article 2 of this law, Gender identity is understood as the intimate, personal experience of gender experienced by every individual, whether or not it corresponds to the sex assigned at birth, including personal body consciousness. This consciousness may involve a change in the individual’s appearance or bodily functions, by pharmacological, surgical, or other means, if freely consented. It also implies other expressions of gender, including clothing, speech, and conduct. The right to be treated in agreement with gender identity chiefly secures an entitlement to change the sex designation on official documents in the vital record.13 Denmark adopted the path pioneered by Argentina by passing a law on June 11, 2014, making it possible for an individual to change the identification number assigned at birth, the last digit of which indicates sex.14 A new ID number will be issued to persons who identify with the other sex, upon simple written request, after a six-month waiting period for confirmation. No medical certificates, reports, or evaluations are required for this purpose, although earlier law in Denmark did demand such documents. Like Argentina, Denmark has made a commitment to recognize the individual’s right to self-determination in matters of gender identity, a development that is likely to benefit both transgender and intersex persons. Likewise, the Republic of Malta has taken steps in this direction. The law passed on April 15, 2014 treats gender change as an administrative formality.15 To date, no other European country has gone as far as Denmark and Malta in enshrining the right of the individual to dispose of his/her sexual identity as he/she pleases, even though several states have loosened the regulations that governed a change in sex marker on vital records. For example, the Spanish law of March 15, 2007 (Spain has one of the most liberal legislative frameworks in Europe on this subject) permits a change in legal sex as long as the applicant can prove the ongoing existence of “dissonance” between

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the physiological sex initially registered and the gender identity experienced by the person. It is still necessary for the applicant to provide medical certificates proving that he/she is undergoing treatment to make his/her physical characteristics match those of the requested sex, but the court is banned from requiring that the person undergo sex reassignment surgery. It is also important to mention the law passed by the United Kingdom in 2004, the Gender Recognition Act. Although it explicitly refers to gender dysphoria, it does not define the term, which should make it possible to extend its application to intersex persons who, like transgender persons, have been living for over two years with a gender that is the opposite of the one registered at birth. This application seems to be validated even more by the fact that the individual does not have to undergo sex reassignment surgery or hormone replacement therapy. This panorama undeniably demonstrates that for lack of legal authorization to enter “non specific” as a sex designator on official birth registries, several of the world’s legal systems do allow for changes in sex markers on documents, in a much freer and more liberal way, without requiring any sort of reconstructive surgery to change the body. But this progress in the right to self-determination is limited to persons over 18 capable of exercising their independence. The protection it offers comes too late. Indeed, intersex persons are most vulnerable in childhood, when they are still minors. That is when they really need legal protection.

Challenging medical authority Protection of the child’s right to respect for his/her body now presents a formidable obstacle to the medical strategy of correcting physical ambiguities in sexual identity with the scalpel and syringe. The invisibility of intersex children Considering the terrible ostracism intersex individuals suffered, beginning in the nineteenth century, it is not surprising that physicians recommended that the body with ambiguous genitalia be “corrected.” As we saw, this ambiguity was associated with “medically and socially degenerate behavior.” In every Western society, as soon as physicians possessed the surgical technology enabling them to intervene, they set about changing the anatomy of children whose sexual ambiguities were visible at birth16 to make them conform to masculine or feminine standards. The parents, in fact, are often traumatized by the birth of a child with unusual genitalia, an event for which they are not prepared. In isolation and distress, they plead with doctors to “normalize” the physiognomy of the child as soon as possible. Parents are stunned when the health care team assisting the birth cannot say whether the infant is a boy or a girl. The intersex condition of the infant may prevent them from bonding with him/her, feeling that he/she is their own and loving him or her, as long as

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the infant’s genitalia remain so ambiguous that no clear sexual identity can be assigned to the child (Rajon, 2008: 75 and78). Thus, medical representations of the binarity of the sexes combined with the parents’ dismay combined to result in early medical and surgical procedures for the purposes of assigning a sex to the infant’s indeterminate body. Starting in the 1950s,17 the prevailing opinion was that “normalization” surgery should be performed as soon as possible, if a child was born with ambiguous genitals (Catto, 2014: 38; Picquart, 2009: 145–146). At the time, it was more difficult for surgeons to construct a functional penis. Good practices therefore recommended that the infant be assigned to the female sex, should the size of the genitals make it impossible to envisage the fabrication of a penis big enough to enable “conventional” sexual relations (Greenberg, 2012: 17). The parents were then instructed to raise the child according to the sex assigned by the surgeons, in order to make sure the child’s integration in the family and at school would go smoothly (Rajon, 2008: 81–82). These practices, which presumed that a child’s sexual identity could be modified at the surgeon’s will, were finally challenged. Certain scholars called for a moratorium on these “normalization” procedures, charging that they were devoid of therapeutic purpose. Being purely cosmetic, the procedures would at best result in very long-term effects on the health and sexual sensitivity of intersex persons. At worst, they might seriously damage the psychological integrity of a child if he or she had been assigned to a sex, which he or she might violently reject later in life (Picquart, 2009: 33 and 63; Greenberg, 2012: 20; Schneider, 2013: 32). Knowledge of the etiology of intersexuation has certainly developed considerably since, and the long-term impact of the different variations in sexual development is better understood. However, it is still fairly common for doctors to be unable to establish a diagnosis of sex (Bouvattier, 2012: 36). Thus, even if in-depth and full explorations of the body are carried out, there is absolutely no certainty that the choice of sex made for the child will be the right one, and that he/she will identify with it. As a result, certain studies have recommended that any “normalization” surgery be suspended until the child him/herself reaches an age where he/she can provide informed consent to it (Greenberg, 2012: 22–23). By contesting the legitimacy of sexual conformation surgery imposed on the body of the intersex child, this human-rights movement has contributed to slowing down the rate of procedures, and to convincing certain parents to delay invasive and irreversible treatments until the child can participate in the decision to undergo them. Nevertheless, it will take much more before such operations on the body of a minor have completely disappeared in Western societies and elsewhere. Indeed, parents and physicians continue to join forces to proceed with “normalization” surgery, on the basis of their shared concern to seek what they believe to be the child’s best interest (Berkowitz, 2015: 115–116). A French pediatric surgeon who specializes in sex reassignment operations at a top French facility expressed the following opinion:

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If the surgery is performed by people who are experienced perineal and genital surgeons, if the surgery is truly considered as part of a medical treatment program focused on the overall management of the welfare of the child and his/her family, then the procedure should be performed as soon as possible after the exact diagnosis and in light of the long-term prognosis that can be established in 85% of cases of DSD [disorders of sex development].18 Even in cases where the diagnosis is impossible to establish, this specialist doubts that it is useful to postpone surgery until the child is old enough to self-determine. “We have no idea of the consequences that may result from being raised as a ‘neuter.’ They may be even more harmful than a carefully planned sex assignment and quality surgery carried out in early childhood” (Nihoul-Fekete, 2010: 61). In their mission, surgeons have received support from health-care team psychologists, who commonly consider that it is “truly a psychological emergency to resolve the initial confusion” so that interactions with the child can begin (Guéniche, 2014). Pediatric psychiatrists agree that gender identity is irrevocably established by the time the child reaches the age of two (Rajon, 2008: 832), so surgeons prefer to operate on infants in their first months. They all believe that it is their duty to decide “the matter of the baby’s assignment” (Guéniche, 2014). As a result, they were fairly directive towards the parents.19 Yet the doctors admit that these surgical procedures, which are irreversible (despite the fact that some fail), are only in very rare cases medically necessary. Moreover, they are technically more challenging on an infant than on an older child, and further surgery is likely to be necessary several times as the child grows. As for the parents’ anxiety, it is not necessarily soothed by early surgery. Isn’t there some likelihood that all of these foreseeable disadvantages to “normalization” surgery outweigh the one advantage that is hoped for, but not guaranteed, that the child will be integrated smoothly into society? What is more, this medical authority over children’s sexual identity is backed up by law in many countries, where the child’s sex must be indicated on the birth certificate. The distaste of the law in certain countries, like France,20 for leaving the field for sex blank encourages and maintains the propensity of the medical profession for standardizing and normalizing the bodies of intersex children, thereby eliminating the aporia posed by their existence (Catto, 2014: 35). The same reasoning might actually have inspired German legislation, even though the intention of the new law appeared to be to postpone indefinitely any administrative pressure to declare a sex on the birth certificate. The fact that the child is placed “outside sex” for an unknown amount of time might, on the contrary, exacerbate the parents’ distress, and cause them to rush doctors to assign a sex to their child. Therefore, legal rules for vital records very often conspire with medical practices to make children whose intersex condition is blatant at birth invisible as soon as possible (Schneider, 2013: 25).

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For a child’s right to bodily integrity In the 1990s, particularly in the United States, intersex people formed organizations to lobby against the abusive practice of “sex normalization surgery.” These procedures were carried out on infants without their consent, if they were born with ambiguous-looking genitalia. The movement was successful in raising public consciousness and improving medical practice by recentering the latter on the child’s physical health and well-being, rather than the proper appearance of their genitals. However, it did fail to institute a legislative ban on carrying out this surgery on minors who are unable to provide informed consent. Actually, the movement continued to consider an intersex condition as a pathology that justified a surgical procedure to correct it, in some cases, even if the condition did not endanger the life of the child. This very question, in fact, rapidly caused a schism in the protest movement (Greenberg, 2012, Chapter  8). Currently, a number of NGOs, especially in Europe, are now calling for the prohibition of any sort of “normalizing” surgery before the child reaches an age where he or she can effectively participate in the decision to undergo surgery. The lobbying efforts of these activist groups nevertheless were productive, by drawing the attention of European and international institutions, both political and judiciary, to the issue. The will of these institutions to promote human rights may prove to be a valuable instrument in protecting the infant’s right to bodily integrity. First of all, let us note that the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) is no longer satisfied with merely proclaiming the child’s right to protection, the way it had done in earlier Declarations. The Convention is now legally binding, because it must be directly enforced by judicial authorities in the many countries that ratified it.21 It attributes a legal status to the child, equal to that of an adult, by recognizing the child’s freedom and dignity. Several articles in the Convention (articles 3 and 12 in particular) ground the child’s right not to be subjected to unnecessary surgical procedures prior to attaining the age of consent. This is indeed how the Constitutional Court of Colombia interpreted the law, in a ruling dated May 12, 1999 (sentencia SU 337/99). It concerned an 8-year-old girl who had male chromosomes (XY) but who had been raised as a girl, after she failed react to hormone treatment. Her genital anatomy was ambiguous, and her mother was eager for her to undergo surgery to remove her gonads and construct a vagina, in line with the recommendations of doctors. The constitutional judges ruled that the mother’s consent could not be substituted for the child’s in this case. They commented that although in certain situations, parents can replace their children in the making of these decisions, the child’s right to free development of personality had to prevail, it being considered that in this case, at the age of eight, the child was already aware of her body and her genitals, and that her gender identity was already defined. Gender reassignment

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surgery was out of the question unless the child’s informed consent to such surgery had been obtained.22 The child’s right to respect for his physical autonomy is also endorsed by the Report of the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment published by the General Assembly of the United Nations. It condemns the practices to which children who present atypical sexual characteristics at birth are subjected: “irreversible sex assignment, involuntary sterilization, involuntary genital normalizing surgery, performed without their informed consent, or that of their parents, ‘in an attempt to fix their sex,’ leaving them with permanent, irreversible infertility and causing severe mental suffering” (Mendez Report, 2013: 18–19). A decisive step towards promoting the right of the child to respect for his bodily integrity may very well have been taken in Europe in 2013, with the adoption by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe of Resolution 1952 (2013) on the rights of intersex children.23 This resolution and the report accompanying it concern an especially disturbing category of violent procedures inflicted on children: those which are often presented “as beneficial to the children despite clear evidence to the contrary” (§2). The situation of intersex children is specifically addressed, along with practices such as genital mutilation and forcing children to submit to piercings or cosmetic surgery procedures. The Parliamentary Assembly explicitly condemns medical and surgical treatments imposed on children merely for cosmetic purposes, and not vital to the child’s health (Reigné, 2013). The Resolution also intends to raise consciousness of the need to have children participate in decisions that are related to their bodily integrity, whenever it is possible and appropriate. It would encourage governments to take “specific legal provisions to ensure that certain operations and practices will not be carried out before a child is old enough to be consulted.” The initiative of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has just been backed up by a report from the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe, calling on EU Members States to end medically unnecessary “normalizing” treatment on intersex persons without their free and informed consent.24 These developments at the EU level protecting the rights of intersex persons coincide with concerns raised by various national institutions in Europe, asserting that “normalization” surgery on intersex children is a violation of the child’s right to bodily integrity. The German Ethics Council filed such a report in 2012,25 as did the Swiss National Advisory Commission on Biomedical Ethics in 2012.26 Both issued opinions condemning sex assignment surgery carried out for the sole purpose of integrating the child in a social and family environment, considering that before the child can decide for himself, it is unethical to undertake any irreversible procedure aimed at determining the sex of the child unless his life is in danger (Reigné 2012b).

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True, the European Resolution is not binding, according to positive law now in effect in Europe. However, it would suffice for the European Court of Human Rights to rely upon it, and then the Resolution would have a much broader impact. In fact, the ECHR very recently showed that it was attentive to resolutions made by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe seeking to slow down sex reassignment surgery carried out in the absence of the subject’s free consent.27 It was in this spirit, and in order to conform to European recommendations, that the Republic of Malta promulgated a law on April 14, 2015, banning the practice of performing performing “sex assignment treatment or surgical intervention on the sex characteristics of a minor,” as long as these procedures, which lack medical justification, can be postponed until the child “can provide informed consent” to them.28 This is the first law of its kind in Europe. As it is gradually enshrined in law, the child’s right to autonomy and to respect for his or her bodily integrity could very well herald the end of medical hegemony over the gender identity of intersex persons.

Conclusion This historical survey shows that medicine and law have envisaged sexual identities in a much looser and more labile way than we might imagine, in our contemporary period. The two models of sexual difference put forward by Thomas Laqueur (1992) coexist, to a great extent, and are cited respectively, sometimes at the same time, depending on the issues arising from identification with one sex or the other. Likewise, perceptions of intersexuation vary for reasons that are as scientific as they are political, depending on the role society wishes to assign to these “dubious” individuals. Sometimes seen as a living insult to the natural order, at other times, they are considered quite favorably, as physical proof of the need to be detached from bodily realities to institute a social order. Sometimes, the prevailing discourse sees male and female bodies as two versions of one single sex, ranked hierarchically and arranged vertically. This certainly makes it possible to envisage the boundaries between categories as being more flexible, and to authorize some fluidity in sexual identities. It also permits the idea that a person may be neither of one sex, nor of the other. In the first case, the price of flexibility is the symbolic superiority of one version over the other, even if contemporary law no longer recognizes it. Doubtless, social perceptions of intersex, in-between individuals are less horror-stricken at some sort of monstrosity than in another model. Being outside the norm is not necessarily abnormal and, especially, it is not against nature. On the contrary, if the two sexes are perceived as incommensurable opposites, horizontally arranged, the categories are more rigid. However, it permits the idea of difference, and a separation from the hierarchy. Sexual equality becomes thinkable. However, and almost as if to quell this emancipative possibility, the two-sex model requires a more marked reference to nature. Throughout

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the whole contemporary period, medical scholars have vied with legal ones for the authority to determine sexual identity. Who is entitled to the final say on whether someone is a man or woman, the jurist or the doctor? How much room should be allowed for individual feelings of identity? Does anatomy determine identity, or is the individual able to free him or herself from physical appearance to redeem a right to self-determination? The answer to this question has varied over time, and has not always gone in the direction of greater freedom. This is especially true in the case of intersex infants, whose right to bodily integrity still remains to be defined, to resist pressure from the naturalizing model of binary sex categorization. Doubtless, this shift can be explained in part by the individualization underway in the past several years. Individual choices are winning out more, to the point where they are powerful enough to counteract the pre-existing categories in which it is now possible to refuse to be classified. The change in attitude is also certainly the result of an evolution in legal status. The efforts of feminists to institute sexual equality have succeeded, and men and women now have nearly identical rights. The sex marker on vital-records documents, and all other legal papers, in fact, as an essential part of an individual’s identity may end up being legally irrelevant. So will it become obsolete? Perhaps it will not. Nevertheless, it is quite clear that the issues involved in assigning a sex to an individual have changed, just as social perceptions of intersexuation have changed (see Chapters 5, 7, 8 and 9 by Olivesi, Montañola, Salo and Sloop). Can the world of competitive sports continue to ignore this movement towards recognizing the fluidity and porosity of the barrier between the two sexual categories? The imperative that opponents be matched equally and fairly, presumed to justify a strict two-sex model, continues to force certain athletes with atypical physical characteristics to accept sexual normalization operations and treatments, in order to be allowed to compete (Fénichel et al. 2013). Can this go on for very much longer, at a time when, in civil society, the pressure of anatomy on the determination of sexual identity is gradually diminishing?

Notes 1 Translated from French by Anita Conrade. 2 The first part of this essay is the result of the doctoral research carried out on the Lacassagne Papers at the Lyon Municipal Library. Dr Alexandre Lacassagne (1843–1924) was a famous forensic physician in Lyon. In many ways, he was emblematic of medical thinking during the Belle Époque. 3 Corbin 2007, or Chaperon 2007. 4 On the recapitulation theory and its consequences (the evolutionism of the day caused scientists to consider each man contained an ape) see Stephen Jay Gould, La mal-mesure de l’homme, Paris, Odile Jacob, 1997 (new edition), Chapter III: “La mesure des corps. Deux theses sur le caractère simiesque des indésirables,” p.149–182. 5 Heinrich Wilhelm Waldeyer (1836–1921) taught anatomy at the University of Strasbourg and later at Berlin University. He can be considered a pioneer of embryology.

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6 See the document published by Michel Foucault in 1978 in a brief-lived Gallimard collection called “Les vies parallèles.” It is based on the 1866 book by Dr Ambroise Tardieu, Question médico-légale de l’identité dans ses rapports avec les vices de conformation des organes sexuels. 7 “The common law and civil law systems are the products of two fundamentally different approaches to the legal process. In civil law, the main principles and rules are contained in codes and statutes, which are applied by the courts codes. Hence, codes and statutes prevail, while case law constitutes only a secondary source of law. On the other hand, in the common law system, the law has been dominantly created by judicial decisions, while a conceptual structure is often lacking. This difference is the result of different role of legislator in civil law and common law. The civil law is based on the theory of separation of powers, whereby the role of legislator is to legislate, while the courts should apply the law. On the other hand, in common law the courts are given the main task in creating the law (sic)” (C. Pejovic, Civil Law and Common Law: Two Different Paths Leading to the Same Goal, www.upf.pf/IMG/doc/16Pejovic.doc) 8 Art. 57 of the French Civil Code stipulates “The birth certificate shall specify … the sex of the child.” 9 Circulaire du 10 janvier 2000, Instruction générale ayant pour objet de faire la synthèse de la réglementation applicable en matière de délivrance et de renouvellement de la carte nationale d’identité [A review of the rules applicable to issuing and renewing national identity cards]. 10 Tribunal de Grande instance de Tours (no. 2 chambre civile), 20 August 2015. 11 CA Versailles, 1er ch. A, 22 juin 2000, Jurisdata no. 13495, Semaine juridique 2001, II,10595, note Ph. Guez. 12 Cass., Civ. 1st, June 7, 2012 (10-26.947 and 11-22.490) and 13 February, 2013 (1114.515 and 12-11.949). 13 Thus, Article 3 of the law provides that “Anyone can request a correction of the sex marker in the register, as well as a change in first name and in photograph, when they do not coincide with that person’s perception of his or her gender identity.” (Note Sénat, 2012: 21). It is explicitly indicated in Article 4 that proceeding with this rectification of the register in no case requires either sex reassignment surgery, total or partial; hormone therapy; or any other psychological or medical treatment. 14 http://tgeu.org/sites/default/files/Denmark_Civil_Registry_law.pdf 15 Act no. XI of 2015, Gender Idendity, Gender Expression and Sex Characteristics Act. 16 Certain forms of intersexuality are not detected at birth, because the dysfunction of the hormone system does not necessarily result in ambiguities of the external genitalia at that time. These cases are discovered at puberty, upon the appearance of secondary sex characteristics that do not match the sex attributed to the person at birth. 17 John Money’s theory that as infants, intersex persons could be molded into either sex (through surgery, hormonal treatments and psychological conditioning) was broadly accepted, and established early if not immediate surgery as standard practice. (Berkowitz, 2015: 116–120) 18 Disorder of Sex Development. 19 In Germany, practices are similar. 96% of intersex persons (of all types) underwent hormone replacement treatments. 64% of the persons in this sample were subjected to a gonadectomy; 38% to clitoral reduction surgery; 33% to vaginal construction (Rupprecht, 2013: 15). 20 In France, the option of leaving the sex marker blank (rather than indeterminate) for one year or two remains contingent upon having the child undergo

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“appropriate medical treatments” to definitively determine the child’s sex (see the Memorandum of October 28, 2011 regarding the special rules for various vital statistics documents associated with birth and parenthood: § 55). The United States is one of the very few countries not to have ratified the UNCRC. This ruling by the Colombian Constitutional Court, as well as the two that complete it, are presented in Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Justice: A Comparative Law Casebook, International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), Geneva, p140 ff. Council of Europe, PA, resolution 1952 (2013), October 1, 2013. Human rights and intersex people. Issue Paper published by the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Council of Europe, April 2015. Concomitantly, the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights issued similar recommendations: The fundamental rights situation of intersex people, FRA-Focus, FRA-European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, April 2015, Vienna. Deutscher Ethikrat, Intersexualität, Stellungnahme, Berlin, 23  February, 2012. In Germany, the courts had opened the debate earlier: a ruling by the Cologne district tribunal dated 6 February 2008 had convicted a surgeon for removing the internal feminine organs of a 15-year-old minor in the absence of her informed consent (the Völlingcase, published in Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Justice: A Comparative Law Casebook, op. cit., p.146 ff.) Swiss National Commission on Biomedical Ethics, On the management of differences of sex development. Ethical issues relating to “intersexuality”, Opinion No. 20, November 2012, Berne. ECHR 10 March 2015, case of Y.Y. v. Turkey (application no. 1479/08). Act no. XI of 2015, cited above, art. 14.

References Béjin, A. 1990, Le nouveau tempérament sexuel: essai sur la rationalisation et la démocratisation de la sexualité, Paris, Kimé. Berkowitz, E. 2015, The boundaries of desire. A century of bad laws, good sex, and changing identities, Berkeley, CA, Counterpoint. Brunet, L. 2011, “Des usages protéiformes de la nature: essai de relecture du droit français de la filiation,” in L’argument de la filiation aux fondements des sociétés européennes et méditerranéennes anciennes et actuelles, Bonte, P., Porqueres, I., Gené, E. and Wilgaux, J. (eds), Paris, éd. la MSH, pp. 285–323. Brunet, L. 2014, “Stérilisation et changement de la mention du sexe à l’état civil- Les atermoiements du droit français, ” in La parenté transgenre, Hérault, L (eds.), Aixen-Provence, Presses universitaires de Provence, pp. 127–142. Brunet, L. and Fortier, C. 2012, “Changement d’état civil des personnes “trans” en France: du transsexualisme à la transidentité,” in Droit des familles, genre et sexualité, Gallus, N. (ed.), Bruxelles, Anthémis and LGDJ, pp. 63–113. Bouvattier, C. 2012, “Conduite à tenir devant une anomalie des organes génitaux externes,” Médecine et Enfance, January, vol. 32, no. 1, pp. 32–37. Carbonnier, J. 2004, Droit civil, Introduction, Les personnes, La famille, Paris, PUF, Quadrige. Carol, A. 2003, “Esquisse d’un etopographie des organes génitaux féminins: grandeur et décadence des trompes (XVIIe–XIXe siècles),” [“Sketching the topography of female genitalia: Grandeur and decadence of the Fallopian tubes (17th–19th centuries)] Clio. Histoire, femmes et sociétés, no. 17.

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Catto, M-X. 2014, “La mention du sexe à l’état civil,” in La loi et le genre, Etudes critiques de droit français, Hennette-Vauchez, S., Pichard, M. and Roman, D. (eds), Paris, CNRS éditions, pp. 29–47. Chaperon, S. 2007, Les origines de la sexologie (1850–1900), Paris, Audibert. Corbin, A. 2007 L’harmonie des plaisirs: les manières de jouir du siècle des Lumières à l’avènement de la sexologie, Paris, Perrin. Dorlin, E. 2004, “Hermaphrodisme,” in Dictionnaire de la pensée médicale, Paris, PUF, 2004, pp. 569–571. Dorlin, E. 2006, La matrice de la race. Généalogie sexuelle et coloniale de la Nation française, Paris, La Découverte. Fénichel, P., Paris, F., Philibert P. Hiéronimus, S., Gaspari, L., Kurzenne, J-Y., Chevallier,  P., Bermon, S., Chevalier, N., and Sultan, C., 2013, “Molecular diagnosis of 5α-reductase deficiency in 4 elite young female athletes through hormonal screening for hyperandrogenism,” The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, 98 (6): E1055–E1059. Foucault, M. 1976, Histoire de la Sexualité: La volonté de savoir, Paris, Gallimard, chap.III: “Scientia sexualis,” pp. 69–98. Foucault, M. 1978 Herculine Barbin dite Alexina B, Paris, Gallimard. Garnier, M. and Delamare, J. 2012, Dictionnaire des termes techniques de médecine, Paris, Maloine. Gould, S.J. 1997, La mal-mesure de l’homme, Paris, Odile Jacob. Greenberg, J.A. 2012, Intersexuality and the Law, New York, New York University Press. Guéniche, K. 2014, “Etats des problèmes concernant les Disorders of Sex Development,” Table ronde 2, in Bonheur ou malheur d’être fille ou garçon, Journée d’étude de la Société française de Psychiatrie de l’enfant et de l’Adolescent, with K. J. Zucker, Paris (January 30). Héritier, F. 1996, Masculin, Féminin. La pensée de la différence, Paris, Odile Jacob. Jaulin, A. 2001, “La fabrique du sexe: Thomas Laqueur et Aristote,” in Clio. Histoire, femmes et sociétés, no. 14, pp. 195–205. Jorland, G. 2010, Une société à soigner. Hygiène et salubrité publiques en France au XIXe siècle, Paris, Gallimard. Laqueur, T. 1992, La fabrique du sexe. Essai sur le corps et le genre en Occident, Paris, Gallimard. Marry, C. and Löwy, I. 2007, Pour en finir avec la domination masculine. De A à Z, Paris, Les Empêcheurs de penser en rond. Moron-Puech, B. 2014, “Création d’un sexe ‘non spécifique’ par la Haute Cour d’Australie,” La Revue des droits de l’homme [online], Actualités Droits-Libertés, April 10: http://revdh.revues.org/641 (accessed February 22, 2015). Méndez, J.E. 2013, Report of the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, United Nations, General Assembly, Human Rights Council, 22nd session, A/HRC/22/53: www.ohchr.org/ Documents/HRBodies/HRCouncil/RegularSession/Session22/A.HRC.22.53_ English.pdf (accessed on October 21, 2015). Nihoul-Fekete, C. 2010, “Abord médico-chirurgical des désordres de la différenciation sexuelle,” in Les assises du corps transformé, Regards croisés sur le genre, Mateu, J. Reynier, M. and Vialla, F. (eds), Bordeaux, Les Etudes hospitalières, pp. 57–62.

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Categorizing and attributing the sex of individuals 87 Pejovic, C. 2001, “Civil Law and Common Law: Two Different Paths Leading to the Same Goal,” Victoria University of Wellington Law Review, vol. 32, no. 3, August, pp.817–841: www.upf.pf/IMG/doc/16Pejovic.doc (accessed on October 21, 2015). Picquart, J. 2009, Ni homme, ni femme. Enquête sur l’intersexuation, Paris, La Musardine. Rajon, A-M. 2008, “L’épreuve corporelle:  l’intersexualité à la naissance,” in L’état civil dans tous ses états, Neirinck, C. (ed.), Paris, LGDJ, pp. 71–85. Reigné, P. 2012a, “Le changement de sexe devant la Cour de cassation. Le juge, l’expert et l’irréversibilité,” La Semaine Juridique, no. 26, p. 753. Reigné, P. 2012b, “Suisse: remise en cause des traitements médicaux pratiqués sur les enfants intersexués,” La Semaine Juridique, no. 20, p. 1348. Reigné, P. 2013, “Le droit des enfants intersexués à l’intégrité physique,” La Semaine Juridique, no. 44, p. 1149. Révenin, R. 2007, “Conceptions et théories savantes de l’homosexualité masculine en France, de la monarchie de Juillet à la Première Guerre mondiale,” in Revue d’histoire des sciences humaines, no. 17, vol.2, pp. 23–45. Rupprecht, M. 2013, Children’s right to physical integrity, Report, Committee on Social Affairs, Heath and Sustainable Development, Parliamentary Assembly, Council of Europe, Doc. no. 3297. Salle, M. 2010a, “Les médecins et l’hermaphrodisme dans la seconde moitié du XIXe siècle,” Le corps à l’épreuve du genre: entre normes et pratiques, Nancy, Presses universitaires de Nancy, pp. 127–143. Salle, M. 2010b, “Une neutralité subversive:  l’hermaphrodisme dans le discours médical de la fin du XIXe siècle,” in Ethnologie française, 2010–1, Vol. XL, pp. 123–130. Schneider, E. 2014, An insight into respect for the rights of trans and intersex children in Europe, Council of Europe: www.coe.int/t/dg4/lgbt/Documents/An%20insight%20 into%20respect%20for%20the%20rights%20of%20trans%20and%20intersex%20 children%20in%20Europe.pdf (accessed October 21, 2015). Sénat, 2012, Direction de l’initiative parlementaire et des délégations, Note sur la modification de la mention du sexe à l’état civil, LC 223. Thery, I. and Leroyer A-M. 2014, “Filiation, origines, parentalité, Le droit face aux nouvelles valeurs de responsabilité générationnelle,” Rapport remis à la ministre délégué chargée de la famille, Paris, Odile Jacob.

Bibliography Balzac, H. (1842) 1976, La Comédie humaine, Paris, Gallimard. Chesnet, H. 1860, “Question d’identité. Vice de conformation des organes génitaux. Hypospadias. Erreur sur le sexe,” Annales d’hygiène publique et de médecine légale, série no. 2, 14, pp. 7–11. Dailliez, G. 1893, Les sujets de sexe douteux. Leur état psychique. Leur condition relativement au mariage, Paris, Baillière. Debierre, C. 1886, “L’Hermaphrodisme devant le code civil,” in Archives d’Anthropologie criminelle, pp. 305–342. Foucault, 1999, Les Anormaux. Cours au Collège de France (1974–1975), Paris, Gallimard-Le Seuil. Germonprez, F. 1892, Une erreur de sexe avec ses conséquences, Lille, L. Quarré.

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Huguier, P.-C. 1845, “Séance du 16 septembre 1845 à l’Académie royale de médecine,” in Archives générales de médecine, no. 9, 248. Lacassagne, A. 1887, Les actes d’état civil:  étude médico-légale de la naissance, du mariage, de la mort, Lyon, Storck. Laugardière, J. 1865, Guide de l’officier de l’état civil, Colmar, Ch. M. Hoffmann. Lombroso, C. 1896, La femme criminelle et la prostituée, Paris, Alcan. Loir, J-N. 1854, Des sexes en matière d’état civil. Comment prévenir les erreurs résultant de leurs anomalies, Paris, Cotillon. Ovide, 1994, Les Métamorphoses, Paris, Les Belles Lettres. Platon, 2001, Le Banquet, Paris, Flammarion. Poppesco, B. 1874, De l’hermaphrodisme aux points de vue médico-légal et scientifique, Paris, Rey. Saint-Cyr, F.-J. 1892, “Recension de l’ouvrage de Charles Debierre, L’hermaphrodisme, Paris, Baillière, 1891, 160 p.,” in Archives d’Anthropologie criminelle, p.104. Testut, L. 1890, “Recherches anthropologiques sur le squelette quaternaire de Chancelade (Dordogne),” Lyon, Georg, pp. 131–246. Tiphaine, B. 2010, Une folle débauche. Les prostituées à la Salpêtrière et dans le discours médical (1850–1914), Paris, L’Harmattan. Wilhelm, E. 1911, “L’hermaphrodite et le droit,” in Archives d’Anthropologie criminelle, pp. 267–294.

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The specificities of the Caster Semenya case as a “discursive moment” Aurélie Olivesi1

The South Korean championship’s leading scorer … is at the heart of a controversy surrounding her sexual gender2 … Eun-Seon Park says that the accusations against her as “humiliating” and reserves the right to bring the case to court. Her case resembles Caster Semenya’s, the South African athlete who was accused of being a man after winning the 800 meter race in 2009. (Euronews, 2013) Eighteen years old and barred from competing with women due to elevated rates of testosterone. This isn’t Caster Semenya’s story but that of another athlete, a sprint specialist diagnosed as being “hyperandrogynous”[:] Dutee Chand” (L’Équipe, 2014)

Cases about sportswomen whose femininity is questioned (like Eun-Seon Park in 2013 and Dutee Chand in 2014) are very often compared to the Caster Semenya case, the latter having become a point of reference in collective memory. When analysing media discourses, the event constitutive of this case became what Sophie Moirand describes as a “discursive moment” (Moirand 2007:4). A discursive moment “gives rise to abundant media-based material; a few traces of the moment also endure in the medium-to-long term through subsequent discourses concerning other events”. The discursive moment therefore contributes to the construction of “collective memory”. I aim to examine the specificities of the Caster Semenya case as a “discursive moment” by considering thematic aspects, studying how the case was anchored geographically and through the confrontation of speakers – the latter point having been the focus of a study with Sandy Montañola (Montañola and Olivesi 2016a and 2016b). This particular discursive moment also happened to be global (as are big sporting competitions) and gave rise to divergent public opinions in different countries. Cheryl Cooky et al. (2013) interpreted the differences in treatment from one cultural area to another as different ways of framing the case: on one hand “spectators, and citizens from the Global North, common sense understandings of gender-verification

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testing posit testing as an objective, scientific process that ensures a levelplaying field and thus, ‘fairness’ in sport competition”, and on the other,

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Rather than framing the gender-verification tests as a scientific process necessary to “ensure” a level-playing field, … the South African news media framed the process as racist, a human rights violation, and a product of Westernized standards of femininity and beauty. (Ibid. 34–48) Different ways of relating to oppressive discourses resulted in such framing differences. My hypothesis consists in saying that such differences in framing, which led to the creation of a “discursive moment” and its inscription in collective memory, were triggered by a double phenomenon. First, the Caster Semenya case was the seat of an ethical conflict opposing three axiological systems – regulations, the law and respect for individuals – which are generally congruent in the sports world. This case therefore set a precedent in collective memory as it led to ethical reconfigurations ● ● ●

on questions related to fair competition; on the place of gender in sports; on the self-determination of one’s own identity.

With this “discursive moment”, a discourse emerged challenging the implicit foundations of sports regulations, gender construction and identity. The second phenomenon was made apparent when analysing the controversy from an enunciative angle: interrogations were solely formulated negatively, and questions linked to an ethical reconfiguration remained unanswered. Due to the polyphony of media-based discourses (Krieg, 2000), representations that were fashioned over the course of the ethical controversy remained juxtaposed to traditional representations. Such negative formulations meant that, while previous categories were being challenged, explicit redefinitions weren’t presented, leading to aporia. My hypothesis therefore consists in saying that this case became a “discursive moment” and structured the collective memory precisely because it allowed aporia to appear within a discursive frame where evidence was the rule (Montañola and Olivesi, 2016a and 2016b). With Caster Semenya’s case, new questions emerged and subsequent cases could then be considered using renewed representations. I started by exploring the confusion caused by Caster Semenya’s victory in order to grasp how this moment led to a discursive reconfiguration. I first established an exploratory corpus of texts using articles on the Caster Semenya case from the French and Francophone African press written between August 2009 and July 2010. This corpus allowed me to identify themes of axiological confusion that were linked to the semantic field of suspicion. In a second Anglophone corpus, which was composed of articles on the case and compared the Western point of view with the African one (Bhula

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2011; Cooky et  al., 2013), I  then searched for words close to the semantic field of suspicion. This corpus was supplemented by an additional German corpus since the case started during the Berlin World Championships. In an attempt to analyze possible evolutions, I focused my research on the scheme based on disorder and its resolution (as does Sandy Montañola in Chapter 7). I first identified terms that proved the existence of an axiological disorder (suspicion, doubt…). I then examined in which fields these terms could be attributed and how they could be distributed. I also looked at the context surrounding these suspicions to understand what types of axiological systems were in conflict. I finally used the enunciative point of view to analyse how these ethical conflicts could be resolved, which led me to notice that they were always presented as negative syntactic constructions.

What was Caster Semenya suspected of doing? To indicate agitation surrounding Caster Semenya, the first term used was “suspicion”. I therefore looked for French terms stemming from the base of the word “soupçon” (in French “soupçon”, “soupçonner”, “suspicion”, “suspicieux”, “trouble”; in English “suspicion” and in German terms derived from “Verdacht”, “Zweifel”). This led me observe that the suspicion towards Caster Semenya was caused by three explicit motifs – doping, transvestism and ignorance – although these motifs weren’t equivalent from an ethical perspective. The first explicit motif was a suspicion of doping or cheating: Although [the controversial doctor Ekkart Arbeit’s] relationship with the athlete isn’t clearly established, Caster Semenya’s pedigree and sudden increased performances – she gained 25 seconds in the space of two international competitions for the 1,500 meter race and 8 seconds for the 800 meter race – contributed to arouse doping suspicions. (Le Monde, 2010) Doping was suspected for all women whose tests showed high levels of testosterone, the male sex hormone. (Schultz, 2013) However, these suspicions were soon ruled out. The article in the French daily Le Monde added that the doping angle was “abandoned because of the storm of things that got mixed together: race, sex and performances.” The second motif for suspicion lay in the idea that Caster Semenya was actually a man, or was at least conscious of being intersex and could have taken advantage of this to run with female athletes, thus deliberately cheating. Such suspicions were cast either on her or on the South African sporting authorities, as was highlighted by the French sports daily L’Équipe:

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On the 26th of July in Mauritius, Caster Semenya won the Junior African Championship with an already incredible time (1’56’’72). The International federation was not present and was only alerted by the press. On the other hand, the South African federation started running tests, albeit quite slowly. A gold medal is always good to have. (Blondet, 2009) These same suspicions were mentioned in the French newspaper Le Figaro. On 31 August 2009 (Saint-Paul, 2009), it published an article drawing parallels between Caster Semenya’s victory ten days earlier and the theatrical release of a film, Berlin 36, by the German director Kaspar Heidelbach retracing the real-life story of Gretel Bergmann, a Jewish German athlete who was banned from participating in the Olympic games by the Nazis. The latter had also nurtured a competitor to run against her – Dora Ratjen – who was later revealed to be a man. However, Carlson (2005) and Bohuon (2012) remind us that Dora Ratjen’s case is the “only … documented case of a man actually masquerading as a woman” (Carlson, 2005) (however Bohuon demonstrates that Dora Ratjen was actually intersex). According to Bohuon, the constant reference to masquerading men is a fallacious line of argumentation used to justify gender tests. And yet, this type of suspicion was still seen as offensive. By asking “Did she cheat at the IAAF championships?”, Phat Joe (real name Majota Kambule), a South African radio DJ angered his listeners: “Outraged by this, listeners then called in and lambasted Kambule, saying he was making a mockery of Caster Semenya’s situation and being insensitive towards her and her family.” (City Press, 2009c). This suspicion was also attacked by Caster Semenya’s family, whose words were repeated in many media outlets: “‘She’s my little girl. I raised her and I never doubted her femininity’ declared Caster Semenya’s father” (Aujourd’hui en France, 2009a). The third suspicion motif consisted in saying that Caster Semenya had an undetermined sex without knowing it. She therefore didn’t cheat deliberately but had nevertheless skewed fair competition standards; the latter point being at the heart of an ethical conflict. However, this form of suspicion put Caster Semenya’s culpability in perspective since she didn’t cheat. Pierre Weiss and sporting instances defended this particular point of view: “From a legal perspective, if we discover that you belong to a different sex than the one you declared, it is not a form of cheating” (Miserey, 2009; Aujourd’hui en France, 2009a). While Caster Semenya’s case seemed to respect the spirit of the rule, it didn’t follow it exactly. This leads us to think that the foundations of such a segregation rule are weaker than they seem. Voices started emerging, notably from South Africa, reminding us that Caster Semenya was not to blame: “The funny thing is that, this is not Caster’s fault; this is the work of God” (City Press, 2009c). “Semenya’s “crime” is that, like millions of others, she might be intersex. That is, she is suspected of having a common sex variation which in her case may include internal testes and/or a chromosomal variation” (City Press, 2010).

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The notion of non-deliberate cheating opposes two conceptions: the fact that the rule of fair competition doesn’t guarantee justice towards athletes versus the fact that athletes could break a rule without knowing it and without being able to change the situation. In order to understand how to solve such an ethical conflict, we must analyse the co-text surrounding the evocation of “doubt” in the corpus.

A discursive moment becomes an ethical conflict: constructing aporia Three axiological systems coexisted within sentences written by the media that expressed doubt. Although these axiological systems – regulations, law and ethics – are usually congruent, conflicts occur when they collide. The first system is the sporting regulations. The sentences describing these regulations implied that they were usually somewhat automatic – but that the automatic nature of these rules could not be implemented in Caster Semenya’s case: To Nick Davies, the IAAF spokesperson, it is clear that “this concerns a medical problem and not a doping case in which she would have deliberately cheated”. And he adds: “The test results do not let us think that the rules were bent in any way. They do however tend to favour the hypothesis that Semenya benefitted from an undeniable medical advantage over her rivals. Results aren’t automatically cancelled in a case such as this one”. (Le Monde, 2009; Camille, 2009; Rambion, 2009, our emphasis) “Overwhelmed and embarrassed by the way this case turned out, the IAAF added … that, unlike documented doping cases, Caster Semenya wouldn’t automatically loose her title if she were to be a man” (Aujourd’hui en France, 2009a). Furthermore, “the test results, protected by medical confidentiality, may not be published” (L’Equipe, 2009a). Although the rest of Caster Semenya’s fate remained unknown, “whatever happens … the IAAF won’t withdraw her controversial Berlin gold medal.” (ibid.). In similar ways, the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) magazine Têtu and the women’s magazine Elle formulated this question using doubt: “To what extent will Caster Semenya – whose gender was called into question – be able to actually compete with other young women? Not sure that anyone has an answer to that question” (Rambion, 2009c). “Caster didn’t cheat: she is who she is. She could therefore keep her gold medal. But can she still compete with women? The IAAF is currently struggling to answer this question” (Duriez, 2010). Caster Semenya’s victory confronted the application of the rule with the rigidity of its own mechanics: instead of initiating an automatic and

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undeniable process, one had to initiate a more complex mechanism; one in which Caster Semenya’s person was taken into account in her entirety, both as a sports figure and as an individual. However, when I analyzed syntactic constructions, I noticed that such an observation was systematically made using negative syntactic structures. This metalinguistic negation rebutted positive utterances formulated earlier in the discourse (Ducrot and Schaeffer, 1995) but didn’t offer new assertions. By approaching the sportswoman in her entirety, the axiological system of the law had to be considered. Yet sporting rules couldn’t go against the law, which was the frame of reference for doctor-patient confidentiality. However, even when the law was mentioned, firm answers didn’t emerge: “A judicial-sports in-between situation – she isn’t formally suspended nor is she authorized to run – an intolerable situation for her lawyer, who announced his intention to sue the South African federation” (Libération, 2010). When addressing these unclear responses, Caster Semenya gave her own definition of human rights in an affirmative way: “Some of the occurrences leading up to and following the Berlin World Championships have infringed not only on my rights as an athlete but on my fundamental human rights, including my right to dignity and privacy.” (City Press, 2010). This comment was cited in City Press by the feminist scholar and author Pumla Gqola: Ms Semenya has no right to privacy, unlike other athletes who have been tested before. A band of scientists want direct access to her body so that they can answer once and for all: is she female, male or something altogether different. (Gqola, 2009a, reposted on her blog3) We notice an opposition between aporia on one hand and an affirmative, albeit situated, statement on the other. In the international press, the only identifiable speakers who used affirmative syntactic constructions were from South Africa and they used strong terms: humiliation, violation of human rights, injustice. It is important to note that these speakers explicitly called for lawyers because of the fact that sports regulations were contradicting the law (based here on human rights). The South African President Jacob Zuma therefore declared: “It would be the Third World War. We trust our lawyers with the case. We would contest such a decision at the highest level. It would be completely unfair. Caster and her family don’t deserve to be humiliated like this.” (L’Equipe, 2009b). For his part, Makhenkesi Stofile, the Minister of Sports “added that his department was consulting with its lawyers regarding the human rights violation against Semenya.” (City Press, 2009b). In Chapter 7, Sandy Montañola notices the emergence of a “South African voice”. Such statements opposed the rigidity and the universalism of legislation and regulations constructed by Westerners to the specificities of local situations, and to the situation of domination in which the athlete found herself. In this way, these speakers conveyed a discourse that denounced

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post-colonialism. The Canadian Press quoted Leonard Chuene, who declared “I stand firm. Yes, indeed, she’s a girl. We are not going to allow Europeans to describe and define our children.” (2009). Such remarks were always connected with South African speakers. From what I observed, they were never cited and commented upon by Western journalists in their own names. The third axiological system concerns ethics and the respect due to a human being, which serves as a basis for law making. The question of humiliation is central: Jacob Zuma, the South African president himself, expressed his disappointment towards the IAAF, denouncing the “humiliation” endured by his young compatriot Caster Semenya. “It is one thing to seek to ascertain whether or not an athlete has an unfair advantage over others. But it is another to publicly humiliate an honest, professional and competent athlete.” decried the head of State. (Aujourd’hui en France, 2009b) And yet, such comments weren’t mentioned elsewhere, as was highlighted in a City Press editorial: “South Africa is being assaulted, I say so because, this is the saddest story since apartheid and colonialism. Almost all South Africans are pained by this injustice” (2009c). In her blog, Pumla Gqola compared Caster Semenya to Saartjie Baartman: Some 200 years ago a young South African woman named Saartjie Baartman was forcefully removed to Europe, as a woman who was physically different to the commonly accepted norm she became a figure of curiosity and disgust to the people she was paraded in front of. After her death she was dissected. Now Caster is likewise to be dissected. (Gqola 2009a) Or in other South African media sources: “This week Caster was treated like Saartjie Baartman was: an oddity from Africa, a freak to be poked and spoken about, not spoken to” (Gqola 2009b). When these implicit norms are deconstructed, they are limited due to the fact that they remain situated utterances spoken by South Africans. Let’s allow, for a moment, that the news of Semenya’s intersexuality is true … Lurking beneath the salacious coverage is the sports world’s underlying ethic – women are inferior to men. The notion that there is an enormous physical gulf between men’s and women’s athletic abilities is rarely questioned. (City Press, 2010) The only Western media sources (northern) that relayed these objections were those whose editorial policies defended dominated populations and who

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already questioned traditional gender norms (such as the LGBT paper Têtu in France). And yet, as Der Spiegel remarked, “we have no idea why this appeal is taking so long” (Ahrens, 2010). If the traditional norm was questioned, would it automatically lead to the construction of a new norm?

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From a implicit norm to an Aporetic norm In order to see which norm was being constructed and how it was constructed, I observed how the speakers involved in the case (sports authorities, journalists, doctors, competitors) reformulated rules that had been challenged by the case. These formulations were systematically negative. By respecting these negative rules, questions linked to fair competition, to the place of gender in sports and to determining one’s own identity could once again be reunited. Such negative rules were the following: ● ● ●

do not cheat do not exceed certain bodily norms do not share medical results

The norm that was being constructed wasn’t so much a positive norm, but an implicit norm. From this perspective, as John Sloop comments in this volume (Chapter 9), silence can be the condition for an evolution in representations. The construction of sexual difference (which contradicts the traditional standards of the separation of sexes in sports, based on the naturalization of sexes) is therefore highlighted in the public space of the media – even though its formulation is negative. Negative formulations make it possible to maintain a discussion in the public space (Ducrot, 1984). An article in the conservative French newspaper Le Figaro was therefore titled: “Belonging to a specific sex isn’t just a matter of chromosomes. Determining someone’s sex isn’t an easy task, since many factors, both genetic and psychological, must be taken into account” (Miserey, 2009). However, as Sandy Montañola shows in her chapter, this article was counterbalanced within the publication, on the same page, by another article defining Caster Semenya based on physical standards. But a stable norm could not be established using only negative definitions. That is why the notion of an unstable and temporary norm must also be examined; with such a norm also being defined negatively. Because Caster Semenya’s situation was unclear, sponsors had the option of retracting. As a marketing target, Semenya is hard to grasp. Worst: she cannot be sold. Her agent continued to say that Caster was authorized to run as a female athlete, so she could have sponsors. But the companies we contacted all said that too much uncertainty surrounded Caster. They said ‘we don’t touch her’. (Rambion, 2010)

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And such a rejection wasn’t explained. In a similar vein, Carl Lewis’s support ended in an apocope: Not sure whether this will change her future prospects, but the World champion can at least rely on the support of one of the world’s most famous retired athletics sportsmen: Carl Lewis. The man with ten Olympic medals and ten World championship medals declared: “I’m very disappointed (that the South African federation) tossed all of this in the world’s face, it’s unfair to her. Now, for the rest of her life, she’ll be known as “the one who…” (Rambion, 2009b) Such a negative norm remained unstable. City Press, the South African newspaper, started building a norm on an explicitly ironic foundation: “Nikes with a pink swoosh. Now what further proof could possibly be needed of her gender? Never mind her deep voice and rippling muscles that even Michelle Obama would die for? – the answer to her gender lies in the shoes.” (City Press, 2009a). These negations led to an aporetic situation. In its French edition, the women’s magazine Elle left the question open by juxtaposing interrogations: The leaders of global athletics are faced with a quasi-intractable problem: how can a “real” woman be defined? The answer seems simple. And yet … Is it about having an apparent female sex? Is it about being able to conceive children? If someone’s sterile, is she still a woman? Does it mean having two X chromosomes …? Or having been raised as a girl? Living like a girl? (2010) With this case, representations could possibly evolve, but an alternative norm wasn’t offered. As the geneticist Eric Vilain remarked in a quote relayed by Elle, the emerging discourse was aporetic: “we’ll never find a biological marker that can define in certain terms what a woman is” (Ibid.). Amidst the media polyphony, alternative norms existed. The discourse on Caster Semenya’s victory challenged sports norms without making new ones. The Caster Semenya case was a discursive moment precisely because it created aporia in a place where questioning hadn’t occurred and it allowed alternative discourses to be heard.

Conclusion The Caster Semenya case was a “discursive moment” that remained in collective memory; it restructured discourses on fair competition, gender in sports and sex identity since the three axiological systems that had previously been congruent competed against each other. But although this discursive

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moment’s enunciative characteristics paved the way for questioning, it also left questions open without providing answers: the moment was defined negatively by all speakers involved – except for South African speakers, who therefore allowed the post-colonial question to emerge within the construction of said norms, and, consequently, to challenge their foundations. As a discursive moment, the Caster Semenya case led to aporia and didn’t lead to the emergence of a new stable norm. Thanks to this case, certain questions were raised in the public space, thus showing the constructive nature of aporia. This aporia provided space for other voices to rise and to be heard, such as Dutee Chand who, in 2015, was always defined as a woman in the articles in which she featured – until she finally got the right to compete among other women without being forced to have any medical treatment on 28 July.4

Notes 1 Translated from the French by Anne Losq (www.annelosqtraduction.com/). 2 About this neologism, see Chapter 6 by Rose. 3 https://pumlagqola.wordpress.com/2009/08/24/semenya-as-the-21st-centurybartmann/ 4 www.tas-cas.org/fileadmin/user_upload/Media_Release_3759_FINAL.pdf.

References Ahrens, P. (2010) “Umstrittene Läuferin Semenya: ‘Eine Zeit des Ausruhens’”, Der Spiegel online, 20 August, www.spiegel.de/sport/sonst/umstrittene-laeuferinsemenya-eine-zeit-des-ausruhens-a-712894.html, [28 October 2014]. Aujourd’hui en France, (2009a) “Championne ou champion?”, 21 August, p. 19. Aujourd’hui en France, (2009b) “Caster Semenya, l’égérie de l’Afrique du sud”, L.A., 26 August, p.19. Bhula, V. (2011) Questioning Gender: The Representation of Race and Gender in Global and Local Print Media Responses of the Caster Semenya Saga, Dissertation, Department of Media Studies, University of Witwatersrand. Blondet, C. (2009) “Le cas Semenya”, L’Équipe, 20 August, p. 12. Bohuon, A. (2012) Le test de féminité dans les compétitions sportives: Une histoire classée X ?, Donnemarie-Dontilly, éditions iXe. Camille, (2009) “Ces mystérieux tests qui font de Semenya une ‘hermaphrodite’, Rue89.fr, 15 September, http://rue89.nouvelobs.com/rue69/2009/09/15/ces-mysteri eux-tests-qui-font-de-semenya-une-hermaphrodite, [19 December 2014]. Carlson, A. (2005) “Essay: Suspect Sex”, The Lancet, Volume 366, pp. 39–S40. City Press, (2009a) “All Black, All Gold – Caster’s Our Girl”, www.news24.com/ Archives/City-Press/All-black-all-gold-Casters-our-girl-20150429, 22 August [17 October 2014]. City Press, (2009b) “Sports Ministry Promises ‘World War’ Over Semenya Saga”, www.news24.com/Archives/City-Press/Sports-ministry-promises-world-war-overSemenya-saga-20150429, 11 September [20 October 2014].

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From the implicit to aporia 99 City Press, (2009c) “DJ Takes Caster Comments Too Far. Period”, www.citypress. co.za/entertainment/dj-takes-caster-comments-too-far-period-20090912/, 12 September [20 October 2014]. City Press, (2010) “Let Caster Be Herself”, www.news24.com/Archives/City-Press/ Let-Caster-be-herself-20150429, 11 April [20 October 2014]. Cooky, C., Dycus, R. and Dworkin, S. L. (2013) “What Makes a Woman a Woman?” Versus “Our First Lady of Sport” A Comparative Analysis of the United States and the South African Media Coverage of Caster Semenya”, Journal of Sport & Social Issues, 37, p. 31–56. Ducrot O. (1984) Le Dire et le dit, Minuit, Paris. Ducrot O. and Schaeffer J.-M. (1995) Nouveau Dictionnaire Encyclopédique Des Sciences Du Langage, Le Seuil, Paris. Duriez, I. (2010) “Affaire classée X ou Y ?” Elle, 28 May, p. 119–122. Euronews.fr, (2013) “Une nouvelle affaire Semenya?”, http://fr.euronews. com/2013/11/07/une-nouvelle-affaire-semenya/, 7 November [20 October 2014]. Gqola, P. (2009a) “Joint Working Group statement on Caster Semenya”, 23 August, https://pumlagqola.wordpress.com/category/sarah-bartmann/#\_jmp0\_, [17 October 2014] Gqola, P. (2009b) Semenya as the 21st Century Bartmann?, 24 August, https:// pumlagqola.wordpress.com/2009/08/24/semenya-as-the-21st-century-bartmann/, [17 October 2014]. Jacobson, C. (2009) “South Africans rally at airport as runner embroiled in gender controversy returns”, The Canadian Press, 25 August. Krieg, A. (2000) “Analyser le discours de presse. Mises au point sur le ‘discours de presse’ comme objet de recherche”, Communication, 20, p. 75–97. L’Équipe, (2009a) “Raquil sur 800 M?”, 10 September, p. 15. L’Équipe, (2009b) “Semenya ou ‘la 3ème guerre mondiale’”, 12 September, p. 17. L’Équipe, (2014) “Dutee Chand, 18 Ans, pas assez femme pour sprinter”, www. lequipe.fr/Athletisme/Actualites/Chand-hyper-androgene-en-colere/506614, 14 October. Le Monde, (2009) “Caster Semenya serait hermaphrodite”, www.lemonde.fr/sport/ article/2009/09/11/caster-semenya-serait-hermaphrodite\_1238851\_3242.html, 11 September [17 February 2011]. Libération (2010) “Semenya, pas de genre défini, pas de course”, 2 April, p. 22. Miserey, Y. (2009) “L’appartenance a un sexe n’est pas seulement affaire de chromosome”, Le Figaro, 21 August, p. 9. Moirand S. (2007) Les discours de la presse quotidienne. observer, analyser, comprendre, Presses Universitaires de France, Paris. Montañola S. and Olivesi A. (2016a) “Quels locuteurs pour quelles définitions de l’identité sexuée dans les médias? Le cas de Caster Semenya”, Le Discours et La Langue, 8.2. forthcoming. Montañola S. and Olivesi A. (2016b) “Caster Semenya dans les forums sportifs: Les normes corporelles au cœur de l’identité sexuée”, Corps, Femmes, Contraintes Sociales, Presses Universitaires de Rennes, to be published. Rambion, M. (2009a) “Caster Semenya est-elle effectivement hermaphrodite?”, Têtu, 14 September, www.tetu.com/2009/09/14/news/international/caster-semenyaest-elle-effectivement-hermaphrodite/] [22 May 2012].

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Rambion, M. (2009b) “L’affaire Semenya ne s’arrête pas là”, Têtu, 19 September, www.tetu.com/2009/09/19/news/international/dans-le-vestiaire-des-filles-laffairesemenya-ne-sarrete-pas-la/, [22 May 2012]. Rambion, M. (2009c) “Affaire Semenya: Caster… repetita?”, Têtu, 21 November, www.tetu.com/2009/11/21/news/international/dans-le-vestiaire-des-fillesaffaire-semenya-caster-repetita/, [22 May 2012]. Rambion, M. (2010) “Des SMS pourront-ils sauver Caster Semenya?”, Têtu, 30  October, www.tetu.com/2010/10/30/news/international/dans-le-vestiaire-desfilles-des-sms-pourront-ils-sauver-caster-semenya/,[22 May 2012]. Rémy, J.-P., (2010) “Et Semenya redevint femme”, 8 July, Le Monde, p. 28. Saint-Paul, P. (2009) “L’honneur retrouvé de Gretel Bergmann”, Le Figaro, 31 August, p.34. Sekgala, S. (2009) “Caster: Unpunishable Crime and Thuggery”, City Press, 12 September, www.news24.com/Archives/City-Press/Caster-unpunishable-crimeand-thuggery-20150429, [20 October 2014]. Schulz, A. (2013) “Olympische Spiele – Rätsel um Semenya endlich gelöst?”, Eurosport.de, 8  May, https://de.eurosport.yahoo.com/news/olympische-spieler%C3%A4tsel-um-semenya-endlich-gel%C3%B6st-095158545.html, [28 October 2014].

6

Caster Semenya and the intersex hypothesis

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On gender as the visual evidence of sex1 Fabien Rose

The Caster Semenya case is built on a hypothesis: that of the intersexuation of the athlete.2 All the discourses about Caster Semenya proceed from this hypothesis, which was deemed sufficiently probable by sports authorities to subject Caster Semenya to medical tests.3 When Australian newspapers reported on September 11, 2009 the alleged results of the tests conducted by the IAAF, this hypothesis passed from the status of a hypothesis to that of a verified “truth” about Caster Semenya. Since that time, even if it has never been confirmed (nor, incidentally, denied), by Caster Semenya or by the various “authorities” (sports, medical, political) that have sought to determine the “truth” about her sex, it has been taken for granted in most discourses devoted to Caster Semenya.4 What renders this assumption that Caster Semenya is intersexed so convincing? Why is the idea that Caster Semenya is intersexed so appealing that, even in the absence of any proof, this hypothesis was taken for a fact? These questions, inspired by the ones Michel Foucault posed about the repressive hypothesis in his History of Sexuality, will serve as an anchor for my reflection (Foucault, 1976). In this chapter, I will particularly look at the function served by the intersex hypothesis in the Caster Semenya case. If I have chosen these questions as my starting point, it’s because I’m convinced that discourses about Caster Semenya say little about the athlete, and a lot more about the culture in which Caster Semenya became an object of discourse and in which the intersex hypothesis became a “truth”. In this chapter, I will examine what these discourses reveal about the way sex and gender are commonly thought about and understood. Looking at discourses in the media, but focusing especially on the discourses of sports committees’ official documents, I will diagnose a peculiar circular logic in Western culture in which gender, assumed to be the natural effect of sex, is consequently presumed to constitute (visual) evidence of one’s sex. Using examples from media and social media discourses about Caster Semenya, I will then show how Caster Semenya’s gender has been constituted as fundamentally problematic, and thus a legitimate object of query, necessitating medical tests. Finally, I propose that the intersex hypothesis serves to normalize Caster Semenya’s gender by making it appear natural. I will show

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that this investment in the intersex hypothesis is symptomatic and revealing of the subtle ways in which the assumption of a correspondence between sex and gender can be normalized discursively. For this hypothesis provides a practical response to the implicit question that is, in my opinion, the source of all the hype surrounding Caster Semenya: if, in the common understanding of gender,5 femininity is the consequence and the effect of femaleness and masculinity the consequence and effect of maleness, with which sex could a gender like Caster Semenya’s possibly fit?

Terminological confusion as a discursive manifestation of the common understanding of gender The Caster Semenya case gave rise to an international flood of discourses that defies any attempt at an exhaustive analysis. However, a careful analysis of a selected corpus of these discourses reveals telling patterns and repetitions that testify to a widespread acceptance of the common assumption that one’s gender is pre-determined by one’s sex. At least in Canadian and Quebecois media discourses about Caster Semenya,6 the concepts of “sex” and “gender”, “femininity” and “women”, “masculinity” and “man”, “gender” and “sexual identity” are used almost interchangeably. For example, in La Presse Canadienne, the tests Caster Semenya was subjected to are presented as tests of “femininity”, “sex determination”, “sexual identity”, “gender” and “sexual gender” (a French neologism that is particularly evocative of this prevalent conceptual confusion). On one occasion, these tests were even referred to as “gender screening” (Casey, 2010), as if gender were something akin to a disease. Indeed, the common understanding of gender renders moot any distinction between gender, sex and sexuality; these distinct concepts are thus presumed to be interchangeable. This conceptual confusion is also reflected in the terminology used in the documents of official sports committees and associations. Particularly telling is the IAAF’s policy regarding the athletes competing in the “female” category. During the Berlin World Championships in August 2009, the policy in effect was the IAAF Policy on Gender Verification, whose stated purpose was to ensure fairness in women’s events by “establish[ing] a policy and mechanism for managing the issue of gender amongst participants in women’s events”7. This policy, prepared by the IAAF’s Medical and antidoping Commission in 2006, outlines a “process for handling cases of gender ambiguity” and offers a “recommendation on sex reassignment and sports” (IAAF, 2006).8 In this policy, the IAAF clearly favoured the use of the term “gender” over “sex,” and the federation showed some caution in its use of this latter word, which it put in quotation marks. However, the specific measures to be used in the IAAF’s process for “handling” “gender ambiguity” suggest that the federation nonetheless failed to grasp the concept of gender as something distinct from sex. For what “gender” exactly may be subject to

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a “medical assessment before a panel comprising gynecologist, endocrinologist, psychologist, internal medicine specialist, expert on gender/transgender issues” and/or to a prior examination by a medical delegate? What kind of “gender ambiguity” are the IAAF trying to handle when the visual inspection of one’s genitals during urine collection for anti-doping purposes can result in gender “suspicion”?9 Such uses of the term gender testify to a confusion between sex and gender that is the effect of an acceptance of the common understanding of gender. In December 2009, the Caster Semenya case prompted sports committees to reflect on sex and gender in sports. This work led to the development and adoption of International Olympic Committee (IOC) Regulations on Female Hyperandrogenism (IOC, 2012) and of IAAF Regulations Governing Eligibility of Females with Hyperandrogenism to Compete in Women’s Competitions (IAAF, 2011b).10 However, in these policies, the conceptual confusion persists. The IAAF regulations 1) explicitly identify androgens as being the main factor giving one competitive advantage and, as a matter of fact, 2) implicitly identify androgens as the criterion on the basis of which “men” and “women” should be distinguished in sports.11 If, in the IOC regulations, it is specified that regulations are not designed “to make any determination of sex”, the IOC seems to share IAAF opinion as it nonetheless proposes that athletes deemed ineligible to compete in the category “woman” because of their high level of androgens should be given the opportunity to compete in the “male” category: “In the event that the athlete has been declared ineligible to compete in the female category, the athlete may be eligible to compete as a male athlete, if the athlete qualified for the male event of the sport” (IOC, 2012, 1).12 The IOC even invite national sport committees to “actively investigate any perceived deviation in sex characteristics”, explicitly making perception an appropriate tool of detection for “sex”. Meanwhile, the IAAF specify having decided to discontinue “all reference to the terminology” “gender verification” and “gender policy” but, unlike the IOC, the IAAF does not explicitly suggest that an individual with hyperandrogenism may compete in the “male” category. After all, the IAAF specifies that one of the principles on which the regulation is based is “a respect for the very essence of the male and female classifications in Athletics” (IAAF, 2011b, 2).13 If the IAAF is however much more elusive than the IOC on the reasons that may encourage them to investigate whether or not a given athlete presents hyperandrogenism, this association specifies in its regulations that these athletes “often display masculine traits”. Here too, it is assumed that a physiological variation leaves traces and that, therefore, perception is a useful detection tool.14 This assumption is even illustrated by a table produced in appendix 2 of the IAAF regulations, showing various signs of “virilization” on various body parts (upper lip, chin, chest, abdomen, arms, thigh and back), which are supposed to constitute as many traces of hormonal nonconformity (IAAF, 2011b: 22). Titled “Hirsutism scoring sheet according to Ferriman and

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Gallwey”, this scoring sheet, designed to help medical doctors to diagnose hyperandrogenism in female athletes, acts to me as an illustrated manifestation of a belief in the common understanding of gender. In short, both media discourses about Caster Semenya, and the terminology deployed in policies that regulate the participation of athletes competing in “women’s” sporting events attest to a generalized investment in the common assumption that biology is the source of gender, even in the case of those whose gender does not appear to conform to social norms (see Chapter 3 by Camporesi and Maugeri).

“Just look at her”: legitimization of the doubts about Caster Semenya, and justification of the IAAF tests It is essential to take into account this widespread assumption that gender is codeterminous with sex because it is what legitimizes curiosity and doubts about Caster Semenya’s gender, as well as justifying the tests to which the athlete has been subjected by the IAAF. Caster Semenya’s gender was constituted as problematic at The Berlin World Championships.15 The participation of Caster Semenya in the “female” 800 meter was supposed to announce and unequivocally confirm her sex.16 Because of her participation in the female category, it was, at least at first, taken for granted that Caster Semenya is a woman, which is to say that she has a genital conformation and physiology accepted as being a female one, which are presumed, in the common understanding of gender, to be the source of a feminine gender. However, at the World Championships, Caster Semenya’s appearance was not seen to match what is expected of those identified as female. That is to say, her gender was not regarded as feminine, as would be expected from a person who is supposed to be woman. It is this dissonance that made Caster Semenya’s gender problematic in this competition, and that serves as a background for all those discourses trying to make sense of her gender. In media discourses about Caster Semenya, the dissonance between her gender and her sex is widely discussed. Newspapers and other media outlets insisted on the tone of her voice, her developed musculature, her facial hair, her way of walking and her attitude, which contributed to giving this athlete running in the female category what many regarded to be a male appearance, and making her look “like a boy”, as one journalist put it (Lucas, August 20, 2009. For French press, see Montañola and Olivesi, 2016). In an article published in the New Yorker, the term “butch” in its adjective form is also used to characterize Caster Semenya, making her an undeniable incarnation of female masculinity (Halberstam, 1998),17 (see also Chaper 1 by Liotard above). On the basis of the same criteria,18 many Internet users have made a judgment without any appeal: “If it walks like a man, talks like a man, and looks like a man… then (sic) it must be a man” (raiders2k9 in Letsrundotcom, August 17, 2009). In those cases where it is claimed that Caster Semenya is a man, when there is an attempt at explaining her presence in a women’s 800

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meter final, it is insinuated that Caster Semenya is either a trans woman,19 or a man who chose to run against women for the sole purpose of winning a medal (see Chapter 5 by Olivesi). The latter option is however disputed by many who consider that, given the little effort made by Caster Semenya to “do” femininity, it is unlikely that the 800 meter runner is a man trying “to pass” for a woman.20 Anecdotes told by Caster Semenya’s family members, coach and acquaintances and reported throughout the press contribute to give an historical legitimacy to the idea that Caster Semenya’s gender is problematic. An article published in The Guardian presents Caster Semenya’s gender as having always been a problem, by painting a picture of her childhood: “Caster was teased and mocked as a tomboy. And the steeliness so evident in her today was forged in those fiercely independent yet occasionally lonely days in Fairlie” (McRae, 2009). The principal of the secondary school attended by Caster Semenya is cited somewhere else, saying: “It is only when she reached grade 11 that I realized she was a girl” (Lucas, 20 August 2009). Through these anecdotes, the world is also informed of the fact that Caster Semenya commonly faces what J. Halberstam called the bathroom problem (including Hart, 2009). The methods through which interrogations about Caster Semenya’s gender are usually answered in competitions are also everywhere made public: Semenya became accustomed to visiting the bathroom with a member of a competing team so that they could look at her private parts and then get on with the race. ‘They are doubting me’, she would explain to her coaches, as she headed off the field toward the lavatory. (Levy, 2009) Finally, remarks made by her coach of the moment, Michael Seme21 not only serve to present reactions to Caster Semenya’s gender as a “natural reaction”, but he provides “the” method that should be used to establish the “truth” about Caster Semenya: We understand that people will ask questions because she looks like a man. It’s a natural reaction and it’s only human to be curious. People probably have the right to ask such questions if they are in doubt. But I can give you the phone numbers of her roommates in Berlin. They have already seen she has nothing to hide. (Maclean, 2009) Not only do all of these anecdotes present Caster Semenya as being a constant object of curiosity, but they also contribute to constituting this curiosity as legitimate and justified. The trivializing tone adopted and reported everywhere conceal the implications of this incessant curiosity to the one who is subjected to it. The violent and invasive nature of such a treatment is

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trivialized by constant references to the detached attitude Caster Semenya offers to these repeated offenses (including Hart, 2009 and AFP, 2009). The discursive treatment of Caster Semenya appears to be, neither more nor less, than a way to renew and replay on a discursive level the effective treatment that has been reserved to her by the sports authorities. In this context where it is Caster Semenya’s gender, rather than the framework through which it is regarded, that is presented as the problem, even if the specific reasons that prompted the sports authorities to force Caster Semenya to undergo tests remain unknown, the IAAF tests appear to be the logical consequence of her “problematic” gender.22 This conviction that Caster Semenya’s gender is what justified testing23 takes a peculiar turn in the francophone press, where it is reported that the secretary general of the IAAF, Pierre Weiss, said at the press conference held after the final win by Caster Semenya on August 19, 2009 that “there’s no evidence that she is not a woman. There is just a visual doubt”.24 The expression “visual doubt”, extensively use in the francophone press, has even been relayed by French academics interested in sex/ gender testing and bicategorization in sports (Bohuon, 2009; Bohuon, 2010; Polloni, August 21, 2009). However, at the press conference which was held not in French but in English – the quote in French is a translation intended for French-speaking audiences – Pierre Weiss talked about “doubts that Semenya is a woman”, and not about “doubts” that would strictly be visual: “There is doubt about the fact that this person is a lady, is a woman”.25 The slip and its popularity in the francophone press suggests that, despite an emphasis on the question of Caster Semenya’s sex in official and mediatic discourses, the unease was ultimately about Caster Semenya’s gender (for European corpus, see Chapter 7 by Montañola). The issue of gender is thus of critical importance to understanding the Semenya case. Although it has not been a question strictly speaking of “visual doubt” in the English-language coverage of the Caster Semenya case, there is trace of other forms of concerns about precisely what is seen of Caster Semenya. For example, the South African magazine YOU feminized Caster Semenya and turned her into a cover girl: “Exclusive: We turn SA’s Power Girl into a Glamour Girl – and She Loves It!” (You, September 10, 2009). Next to the cover headline stating “Wow, Look at Caster Now!”, there is a picture showing Caster Semenya in a frozen pose, literally transfigured: made up, with long hair, wearing female clothing, jewelry, as well as nail polish. In the pages of the magazine, where Caster Semenya serves as a model for various feminine clothes and accessories, the reader can learn that the athlete would like to have the opportunity to wear dresses and to dress in a feminine way more often, and that she would like to learn how to use make up. Rather than erasing the doubts about Caster Semenya and allowing the reader to measure the distance between a before and an after in Caster Semenya’s look – as suggested by the ‘Now’ of ‘Wow, Look at Caster Now!’ –, this confirms the idea that Caster Semenya is (visually) a challenge to gender. The feminized Caster Semenya has especially been compared to Sylvester, a drag

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queen. The YOU cover has also been the subject of a caricature starring Mark Geyer, an Australian rugby player.27 The caricature was intended to determine whether or not Geyer was a more attractive woman than Caster Semenya.28 It is unclear what exactly YOU’s objective was. Rescuing the South African “golden girl” by feminizing her to blur the doubts about her sex? Gender sensationalism? Adopting a campy attitude towards the Caster Semenya case and the gender anxiety surrounding it? Yet the makeover ultimately confirmed the idea that Caster Semenya’s gender is problematic. In this context, Caster Semenya’s gender becomes obviously problematic. The curiosity about it, but also the medical tests to which she has been subjected by the IAAF, are consequently legitimated.

“What does a hermaphrodite look like?”29: the function of the intersex hypothesis The intersex hypothesis can be interpreted as a means to normalize the challenge posed by Caster Semenya’s gender. In a context in which Caster Semenya’s gender has been positioned both in media and official sports discourses as a problem, the assumption that she is intersex offers a convenient apparent solution. The intersex hypothesis allows one to explain Caster Semenya’s gender as a natural effect of her sex, an explanation that thus maintains the stability of the sex/gender relation.30 In other words, this hypothesis allows one to match with a “problematic” gender a sex also considered “problematic”. There is a long history of efforts to explain gender non-conformity and nonnormative gendered self-identifications through invocations of intersexuation (see Chapter 4 by Brunet and Salle). Many historical examples show that it was not uncommon to invoke intersexuation to make sense either of a gender deemed “troubled” or perceptions of a discrepancy between a genital configuration and a gender.31 Some now famous “cases” demonstrate clearly how the intersex hypothesis can have a powerful legitimation function. We should mention here the now classical example of Agnes, presented by Harold Garfinkel as “a nineteen-year-old girl raised as a boy whose female measurements of 38-25-38 were accompanied by a fully developed penis and scrotum” (Garfinkel, 1967: 117). Agnes was in fact a young trans woman who, at the end of the 1950s, was able to obtain a vaginoplasty from the UCLA clinic after having been deemed intersex by the clinic’s specialists, who were unaware that her physiology was the consequence of estrogen hormones, which she had been self administering since the age of 12. In her History of transsexuality in the United States, historian Joanne Meyerowitz argues that it is precisely because she has been considered intersex by the medical team from UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles) that Agnes was able to gain access to a vaginoplasty, a surgery which was then commonly denied to trans women who wanted it (Meyerowitz, 2002: 159–161). If disidentifying with the gender corresponding to the sex that one was assigned at birth is now indirectly pathologized under the entry “Gender

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Dysphoria” in the American Psychiatric Association (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders – V (DSM-V), according to the DSM, the “Gender Dysphoria” diagnostic should be the object of a specification if coupled with what the APA calls a “disorder of sex development” (APA, 2013). This specification suggests that even today, the relationship between non-normative gendered self-identification and non-normative sexed bodies is considered peculiar or, in the DSM’s particular case, a “different” pathology.32 This way of seeing does not only inform clinical practices. It also has an impact on the way intersex people are treated, both literally and discursively. In her book Intersex: A Perilous Difference, Morgan Holmes tells an anecdote that reveals much about the visual treatment that can be reserved to intersexed persons in a context where these expectations prevail. Holmes had been asked to take part in a photo shoot, for a visual piece to accompany an article on intersexuality in Out magazine. In order to “look like a hermaphrodite”, the photographer asked her to wear men’s underwear and a woman’s tank top with high heels (Holmes, 2008: 103–105). In the English introduction of Herculine Barbin (Foucault, 1980a), Michel Foucault, for his part, surprisingly seems to fall into the trap of assuming the visibility (in the literal sense of the term) of intersexuality. I wrote surprisingly because Foucault’s introduction is intended to be a critique of the idea that there is a “truth about” individuals and, above all, that this “truth” has its origin in sex. Herculine Barbin, first published in 197833, is in fact the text of a manuscript found in Paris in February 1868 next to the body of Abel Barbin, who committed suicide. The text is everywhere presented as the memoirs of a nineteenth century “hermaphrodite”. Adelaide-Herculine Barbin (considered to be “female”) became Abel Barbin (considered to be “male”) at the French Vital Statistics in 1860, following a medical examination whose aim was to find the cause of the pain that Barbin was complaining about. That medical examination prompted the physician to determine that “Alexina [the common first name of Barbin] is a man, hermaphrodite probably, but with evident predominance of the male sex” (Chesnet, 1860: 140). As the title of the original manuscript suggests, the narrative is about Barbin’s memories, life as a “couventine”, as a schoolgirl and teacher in a boarding school, about Barbin’s relationship with Sara, the daughter of the Director of the boarding school where Barbin was teaching, and about what was Barbin’s life, but also difficulties and torments after the change of name and gender at Vital Statistics. If we take into account the part of Barbin’s memoirs that relates to the period preceding Barbin’s change at Vital Statistics, nothing suggests that Barbin was displaying any type of gender non-conformity that should have earned Barbin, in everyday social interactions, a gender other than the female one that was assigned at birth. In other words, if one relies on what is written in Barbin’s memoirs, at least in appearance, Barbin didn’t seem so distinct from the other schoolgirls. However, Foucault seems to assume that Barbin was noticeable and visibly ambiguous. Even if Foucault argues against the idea that a truth is to be found in sex, he manifests his

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disbelief at the idea that the nuns and colleagues of Barbin knew nothing about Barbin’s (inter)sex: It seems that nobody in Alexina’s feminine milieu consented to play that difficult game of truth which the doctors later imposed on his indeterminate anatomy, until a discovery that everybody delayed for as long as possible … It seems that nobody who looked at it was aware of his somewhat awkward, graceless body, which became more and more abnormal in the company of those girls among whom he grew up … Falsely naïve girls, old teachers who thought they were shrewd – they were all alike as blind as characters in a Greek fable when, uncomprehendingly, they saw this puny Achilles hidden in their boarding school. (Foucault, 1980b, xii–xiii. The italics are mine.) In my opinion, the fact that Foucault knows about the intersexed configuration of Barbin’s body is probably what explains the fact that he takes for granted that Barbin’s gender should have been seen, that it was as easy to distinguish from the schoolgirls’s gender, as Barbin’s sex seemingly was.34 Sex and gender being codeterminous in the common understanding of gender, the presumption that a person whose sex is seen as abnormal must also have a gender that appears abnormal, and vice versa, somehow becomes a logical reflex. There is a powerful assumption that one necessarily “looks like” what one “is”, which is illustrated by Foucault’s failure to question this notion, even as he questions the idea of a “truth” which is to be found in sex. It is with that in mind that we need to make sense of the popularity of the intersex hypothesis, even if the hypothesis on Caster Semenya has never been confirmed, the IAAF having refused to publicly reveal the test results.35 Many have chosen to interpret the long retreat that the IAAF imposed on the athlete between August 2009 and July 2010 as a sign that Caster Semenya was undergoing medical “corrective” treatments (Goetghebuer, 2010, 5–6; See Chapter 9 by Sloop). These treatments are a rumour that has never been confirmed, yet some would try to find “evidence” of them on Caster Semenya’s body. In an article evocatively titles “Runner Caster Semenya Looks a Lot More Feminine Than She Did in 2009,” Rebecca Greenfield claimed to offer visual proof of these treatments (Greenfield, 2012). Two photos of the athlete in action one taken in 2009, at the Berlin World Championships, the other in 2012, were produced side-by-side. On both photos, red arrows and indications were used to highlight supposed changes in Caster Semenya physical characteristics, which viewers were encouraged to interpret as signs that the athlete had undergone treatments which had the effect of feminizing her body. Despite the rehabilitation of Caster Semenya by the IAAF, the intersex hypothesis thus still seems to hold considerable force. In such a context, the intersex hypothesis can be seen as a modality of naturalization and, by extension, of normalization of Caster Semenya’s gender. This hypothesis provides a sex that appears to be the source of Caster

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Semenya’s gender, and thus helps make sense of Caster Semenya’s gender. The acknowledgement of a sex that is “inter”, which is thought of as an ambiguous sex, which has “both male and female characteristics”, also contributes to leaving intact the categories “male/man/masculine” and “female/ woman/feminine”. This reductive framework for understanding intersexuation should be seen as a particularly subtle way of reaffirming the status of these binary categories as an undisputable “truth”. This is precisely the function of the intersex hypothesis in discourses on Caster Semenya, which serve to defuse the challenge that Caster Semenya’s gender poses to the common assumption that gender is codeterminous with sex.

Conclusion Interesting arguments can be made that the Caster Semenya case offers an opportunity to confront the limited nature of gender and sex bicategorization (Sloop, 2012). The admission of the intersex possibility in media and official discourses on Caster Semenya allowed for a rare public acknowledgment of the reality that sex is characterized by complexity rather than by binarity. Yet in the context of these discourses on Caster Semenya, the notion that the athlete is intersex also has the effect of normalizing Caster Semenya’s gender. In other words, in the specific case of Caster Semenya, the assumption that she is intersexed should be interpreted as a practical way that was offered to make sense of an unintelligible gender, while maintaining relatively intact the common understanding of gender. This worked in two ways: 1) by admitting an “other” sex to make sense of an “other” gender, which allows one to continue to posit a causal relationship between sex and gender; 2) by foreclosing a range of possibilities that could have been opened up by other ways of thinking about Caster Semenya’s gender. The intersex hypothesis was thus a convenient way to make sense of an otherwise unintelligible gender. Because it allows one to naturalize the challenge Caster Semenya’s gender poses, the intersex hypothesis is indicative of how the sex/gender system not only works, but can successfully negotiate in particularly subtle ways with what has the potential to challenge it.

Notes 1 I am grateful to Isabel Macdonald for the proofreading of this chapter. I also want to thank SSHRC (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada), FQRSC (Fonds de recherche du Québec – société et culture), and Hydro Québec (Concordia University) for the financial support given to my doctoral research, as this chapter is extracted and adapted from my dissertation (Rose 2013). 2 Throughout this chapter, I will use intersexuation instead of intersexuality as this term allows me 1) to emphasize the fact that in the case of Semenya, we are facing a situation where, first and foremost, “inter”sex is the result of a process of attribution of a sex that is judged “inter”; 2) to insist that there is no question of sexuality here. The “inter” of the term is part of a process of distinction between bodies, based on so-called “sexed” physiological characteristics and considered to be the source of a clear and legitimate demarcation between “men” and “women.”

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3 One can of course only speculate on the exact reasons that prompted sports authorities to submit Semenya to tests. However, as soon as doubts about doping or “travesty” are removed, tests are generally intended to verify if the athlete has what medical authorities refer to as a “condition or a “disorder of sexual development,” that would physiologically distinguish the athlete from her/his opponents in a manner deemed to confer unfair advantages over rivals. 4 After the blunder of having revealed the name of the athlete that had been subjected to the tests, the IAAF said that, to respect Semenya’s privacy, the test results would never be made public. However, even after Semenya won the silver medal at the London Olympic Games in August 2012, a year after the sports authorities allowed her to return to competition, voices can still be heard in favor of a public revelation both of the test results and of any measures that have been taken (especially Thomas, 2012, and Tucker and Dugas, 2012). 5 In this text, I will use the expression “common understanding of gender” to refer to the received idea that sexes and genders form coherent (usually two), mutually exclusive, non-problematic and organic wholes. Under the common understanding of gender, sexes have fundamental physiological characteristics and sexual difference exists outside of space and time. As gender is though to merely reflects sex, gender therefore acts as the automatic cultural signifier of sex. 6 I read all the articles dealing with Caster Semenya in La Presse Canadienne (in French), from August 2009 to July 2012. I also read the main articles devoted to the athlete in the Canadian Press (in English). I’ve added to this corpus selected articles from The Guardian, many of which had some echoes in English Canada. I selected these articles through the database Eureka.cc. I added to this corpus many online news articles, as well as several blog entries, and web and video comments made about Caster Semenya. The pieces that constituted my corpus might be heterogeneous, but they are surprisingly homogenous in terms of the way they make sense of the Caster Semenya discourse. 7 This concern for fairness is recalled in several places in the IAAF regulations, which refer to the need for “fair competition”, and specify that those competing in the women’s category “should not be enjoying the benefits of natural testosterone predominance normally seen in a male” and moreover should have “no advantage over other females”. This is also stated a multiple time in the new rules that came into force in May 2011, which regulate the eligibility of “females with hyperandrogenism to compete in women’s competition” (IAAF, 2011b). I will discuss these updated regulations later in the chapter. However, it should be noted, as pointed out by April Vannini and Barbara Fornssler, “what matters, it seems, is fairness for most, rather than all … it is impossible to be fair to every single person in the universe. In this sense, the only logical conclusion is to exclude minorities and recognize them as meaningless deviations of the norm” (Vannini and Fornssler, 2011: 247). All policies relating to sex in sports, whether their goal is to “verify” or to judge the “normality” or the “conformity” of an athlete’s sex (as in the case of the regulations relating to the eligibility of trans people to compete (IAAF, 2011)), are in fact policies about “the rights of genetic women” (Cavanagh and Sykes, 2006: 78). They are intended to protect women deemed “normal” from what is considered unfair competition from individuals who are considered out of the norm in terms of sex/gender. 8 Information on this subject is also available in the IAAF Medical Manual (no date). For everything that relates to sex/gender testing related policies, see Chapter 13 written by C. Harmon Brown and M. Jegathesan and entitled “Special Issues of Women Athletes”, specifically part 2 “Gender Verification and Sex Reassignment Policy”, as well as appendix 13 “Process for the Management of Gender-Related Issues” which paraphrases section B “Process for Handling boxes of gender ambiguity” of the IAAF Policy on Gender Verification.

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9 According to the chapter devoted to “gender verification” in the IAAF Medical Manual: “Visual examination of the genitalia during the delivery of a urine specimen in the women’s doping control station is a sufficient method of determining whether the athlete is male or female” (Harmon Brown and Jegathesan, Chapter 13). Therefore, it must be concluded that the IAAF attaches great importance to genitalia as determinants of sex. In such a context, the tests that may be carried out later, after the anti-doping control, are designed not to distinguish men from women, but to distinguish from women people who are considered “neither men nor women” but who might be taken for women because of their genital conformation, visually considered typical of women. 10 This last regulation was adopted on April 12, 2011 and entered into force on May 1 of the same year (IAAF, 2011: 4). 11 Since 1928, competition in Athletics has been strictly divided into male and female classifications and females have competed in Athletics in a separate category designed to recognize their specific physical fitness and performance. The difference in athletic performance between males and females is known to be predominantly due to higher levels of androgenic hormone in males resulting in increased strength and muscle development.” (IAAF, 2011: 1). 12 However, it should be noted that further in the same document, it is paradoxically specified that: “For men’s 2012 OG Competitions, only men are eligible to compete” (IOC, 2012: 2). 13 Another of the principles on which the document of the IAAF relies is that it is crucial to ensure that “women” don’t have to face any opponent with a competitive advantage. This concern goes hand in hand with a purported desire to ensure the health of individuals deemed to be overproducing androgens: “if the condition remains undiagnosed or neglected, [it] can pose a risk to health” (IAAF, 2011: 1). In the document of the IOC, this concern is not explicit. However, the scenario that an athlete may be personally concerned about symptoms of hyperandrogenism (“an athlete who is concerned about personal symptoms of hyperandrogenism” (IOC, 2012)) is envisaged, suggesting that hyperandrogenism gives cause for concern. According to Morgan Holmes, this idea that any biological and physiological “sex” variation exposes one to health risks is a strategy of normalization and of discipline of intersex bodies (Holmes, 2008: 62). 14 My conclusions are somehow confirmed by certain comments attributed to experts who sat on the committees that led to the revision of the sex/gender policies: “Some of the statements emerging out of Miami border on the surreal. Maria New, a pediatric endocrinologist who specializes in atypical sex, wants “photographs of athletes [sent] to experts like her … ‘If the expert thinks the athlete might have a sexual-development disorder, the expert would order further testing and suggest treatment’.” (Dreger, 2010). 15 I think it is important to insist on the contextual character of the discomfort caused by Caster Semenya’s gender because the fact that it has been problematic in this specific context does not necessarily mean that it would be problematic in another context. Insisting on this contextual character is a way for me to take into account the potential opportunities formed by these moments or daily interactions in which, outside and away from the World Championships, Semenya’s gender may not appear problematic, whatever the reason. For more on the importance of the “moment” of gender, see Rose, 2013. See also Chapter 5 by Olivesi in this book. 16 It is the same with the anti-doping procedures to which athletes are subjected. These procedures are intended not only to check if their urine contains doping substances, but also to do a visual inspection of their genitals. 17 “Semenya is breathtakingly butch. Her torso is like the chest plate on a suit of armor. She has a strong jawline, and a build that slides straight from her ribs to her hips” (Levy, 2009: 2).

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18 Some strange criteria are also sometimes invoked, including “the way she holds the water bottle” (viyau, letsrundotcom, August 17, 2009), or her way of speaking, which one online post claimed would be typical of a male: “I am a linguistics teacher and she has the speech pattern and intonation of a male… Let’s (sic) the proof be shown” (stefkova1234 in letsrundotcom, August 17, 2009). 19 In some newspapers, the terms “transgender runner” and “shemale athlete” have been used to talk about Semenya (RT.com, 2010; The Associated Press, 2009; RT.com, 2009). This use of trans terminology seems to give reason to Stryker, Currah and Moore, who argue that “trans” can become a disciplinary tool (Stryker et al., 2008: 13). 20 See in particular the comments of chelsimino and YurAllStupid about letsrundotcom video (August 17, 2009). Some others based their judgment on the idea that concealing a penis and testicules in shorts as tight as the ones Semenya was wearing would be an exploit, particularly for a South African male (comments BOZOPUSSYCAT and mireal about the video of letsrundotcom). I would like to clarify that I know that a critical literature is attached to show the relationships that have been established between race and sex, and more specifically between race and non-normative genital configurations (Somerville, 2000, among others). The world of sports is a particularly popular site for looking at this relationship (Zirin and Wolf, August 26, 2009). However, in this chapter, I intentionally chose to isolate sex and gender from race, and to limit my attention exclusively to the former two. The thesis that the intersex hypothesis serves to naturalize a nonnormative gender can be defended regardless of considerations for race. In my view, this analysis constitutes the necessary preliminary work to an analysis that ultimately could in turn bear on issues relating to the manner in which race plays out in the relationship established between gender and sex in Semenya’s case. On the link to race, see Chapter 8 by Elaine Salo below. 21 Since October 2011, Semenya is coached by her “idol”, Maria Mutola, the Mozambican former 800 meters World Champion and Olympic Champion (The Associated Press, 2011). 22 On the other hand, it is assumed that a non-problematic gender does not require tests to be carried out: at the time of “Semenya case”, a South African strip club, Teazers, exploited that idea on a billboard ad. The ad in question announced “No need for gender testing” while showing a young woman whose gender – an by implication, we are led to believe, sex – appears unproblematic, lying on her back, wearing only high heels (www.lollyjackson.co.za/Billboards/007.jpg). It is worth noting that the owner of Teazers clubs, Lolly Jackson, argues that its advertising has absolutely nothing to do with the “Semenya affair” (Molosankwe, September 29, 2009). However, it is said that Jackson had to pay damages to the firm defending Semenya (Levy, 2009). 23 The sudden improvement of her performances is also sometimes invoked, but this factor is most of the time trivialized, given her “problematic” gender. 24 “Il n’y a pas de preuves qu’elle ne soit pas une femme, il y a juste un doute visuel” (Sagorin, August 20, 2009, among others). 25 The expression “visual doubt” (“doute visuel”) was perhaps used during the question period (I did not have access to its video). In an article, however, Weiss’ words are reported following this form: “there is no evidence to prove she is not a woman, it is probably only visual” (Johnsson, September 9, 2009). My comparison between what is reported in the francophone press and my transcription of the conference suggests that the passage in question is freely inspired by the text delivered by Weiss at the conference. But regardless of all that, the specification given in the French discourses about the content of the question seems to me indicative of the way Semenya’s gender has been received as a (visual) problem.

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26 For a picture comparing Caster Semenya to Sylvester, a drag queen, see http:// cheezburger.com/2659954944 (accessed October 13, 2014). 27 “Mark Geyer vs Caster Semenya” (Triple M 104,9, www.triplem.com.au/sydney/ shows/grill-team/photos/mark-geyer-v-caster-semenya?selectedImage=4). 28 On the first page  of a fictional magazine mocking the cover page  of YOU, for which Semenya posed as a cover girl, the rugby man is feminized and adopts a pose similar to that of Semenya, with the words “Exclusive: We turn NRL legend into a glamour girl, and he loves it!” and the big title “Wow! Look at Mark Geyer Now!” (at the bottom, another title: “Cross dressing made easy: our 10 top tips”). Internet users were then asked to comment online, by answering the following question: “Is Mark Geyer a better looking woman than Caster Semenya?” (A variation on this question appears to whomever places their cursor on the cover of the fake issue: “Do you think MG looks more like a woman than Caster Semenya?”) (Mark Geyer vs Caster Semenya, image 1 slideshow). 63% responded “Yes – although he’s not the sexiest woman ever!” and 37% responded “No way – Semenya isn’t that bad” (Mark Geyer vs Caster Semenya). 29 This title is borrowed from Holmes (2008, 102). 30 Curtis Hinckle argues that it is on the basis of the relationship established between (inter)sex and gender “ambiguity” that the medical establishment justifies the “treatment” of children considered intersex by their parents: “The Consortium has heralded these publications as advances in the healthcare of intersex children and not about gender. However, if one takes the time to read the Handbook for Parents that is all it is about – gender. And how could it be about much of anything else? The whole reason for combining a lot of different conditions which have nothing in common medically under the umbrella term ‘disorder of sex development’ is not to treat real health conditions of intersexed children aim but to relieve the sufferings and anxieties that gender ‘ambiguity’ provokes within society” (Hinckle, September 21, 2006). 31 By the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, the medical and sexological authorities who were seeking causes for what they called “sexual inversion”, often sought them in a genital configuration considered ambiguous or abnormal (Reis, 2009; Sommerville 2000, 27). See also Chapter 4 above. 32 The revision of the DSM IV into DSM V gave rise to activism that aimed to reform the diagnosis of GID and the criteria associated with it. Among the reforms sought, “Professionals Concerned with Gender Diagnoses in the DSM … recommend[ed] eliminating the need to specifically mention intersex people in the diagnostic criteria”. In the section concerning the diagnosis in adults, recommendation took the following form: “Our group also believes that qualifiers regarding Disorders of Sexual Development should be removed. The Disorder of Sexual Development subtypes send an implicit message that having a developmental variation related to sexual physiology is a subset of being Gender Incongruent” (Professionals Concerned with Gender Diagnoses in the DSM, http://gidconcern.wordpress.com/ statement-on-gender-incongruence-in-adults-and-adolescents-in-the-dsm-5/) 33 Both the English and French versions of the introduction were published in 1980. 34 In her critique of Foucault’s analysis of Barbin’s memoirs, Judith Butler surprisingly falls into the same trap. She assumes a (inter) sex / (inter) gender alignment for Barbin, an assumption that she critiques as an effect of power when it comes to the categories man and woman (Butler, 1990: 127–144). 35 Semenya figured as an “intersex symbol” on a list of “50 people who matter” 2010 (New Statesman, September 27, 2010).

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References AFP (2009) “Semenya prend ‘comme une plaisanterie’ le débat sur sa masculinité”, Cyberpresse, 8 September, www.lapresse.ca/sports/autres-sports/ athletisme/200909/08/01-899642-semenya-prend-comme-une-plaisanterie-ledebat-sur-sa-masculinite.php. [11 September 2012]. American Psychiatric Association (APA) (2013) “Gender Dysphoria”, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), Fifth Edition, (DSM – V), 451–459. Bohuon, Anaïs (2009) “Caster Semenya, l’incroyable athlète qui bouleverse l’éthique sportive”, Médiapart, 11 September, http://blogs.mediapart.fr/edition/ article/110909/caster-semenya-l’incroyable-athlete-qui-bouleverse-l’ethiquesportive. [11 September 2012]. Bohuon, Anaïs (2010) “Sport, sexe et genre: la bicatégorisation sexuée, l’inanité d’un projet?”, http://biosex.univ-paris1.fr/dossiers-thematiques/sport-sexe-et-genre/. [11 September 2012]. Butler, Judith (1990) Gender Trouble. Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, New York, Routledge. Casey, Michael (2010) “Semenya: le président de l’IAAF indique qu’un dénouement surviendra en juin”, La Presse Canadienne, 14 May. Cavanagh, Sheila and Heather Sykes (2006) “Transsexual Bodies at the Olympics: The International Olympic Committee’s Policy on Transsexual Athletes at the 2004 Athens Summer Games”, Body & Society, Vol. 12, No. 3, 75–102. Chesnet (1860) “Question d’identité; vice de conformation des organes génitaux externes; hypospadias; erreur sur le sexe”, Michel Foucault (1978) Herculine Barbin dite Alexina B, Paris, Gallimard, pp.137–140. Dreger, Alice (2010), “Intersex and Sports: Back to the Same Old Game”, Bioethics Forum 22 January, www.thehastingscenter.org/Bioethicsforum/Post. aspx?id=4426. [11 September 2012]. Foucault, Michel (1976) Histoire de la sexualité. Vol. I: La volonté de savoir, Paris, Gallimard. Foucault, Michel (1978) Herculine Barbin dite Alexina B, Paris, Gallimard. Foucault, Michel (1980a) “Introduction” in Herculine Barbin, New York, Pantheon. Foucault, Michel (1980b) “Le vrai sexe” in Dits et Écrits, Vol II: 1976–1988, Paris, Gallimard, 2001, 934–942. Garfinkel, Harold (1967) “Passing and the Managed Achievement of Sex Status in an Intersexed Person” in Studies in Ethnomethodology, Englewood Cliffs, Prentice-Hall. Goetghebuer, Gilles (2010) “Les grands chantiers du sexe” Sport & Vie, hors série, No. 33, 5–11. Greenfield, Rebecca (2012) “Runner Caster Semenya Looks a Lot More Feminine Than She Did in 2009”, The Atlantic Wire, 12 June, www.theatlanticwire.com/ entertainment/2012/06/runner-caster-semenya-looks-lot-more-feminine-shedid-2009/53446/. [11 September 2012]. Halberstam, Judith (1998) Female Masculinity, Durham and London, Duke University Press. Harmon Brown, C. and M. Jegathesan [s.d.], “Chapter 13: Special Issues of Female Athletes”, IAAF Medical Manual, www.iaaf.org/medical/manual/index.html. [11 September 2012]. Hart, Simon (2009) “World Athletics: Caster Semenya 800m gold medal overshadowed by gender controversy”, The Telegraph, 19 August, www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/

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othersports/athletics/6057676/World-Athletics-Caster-Semenya-800m-goldmedal-overshadowed-by-gender-controversy.html. [11 September 2012]. Hinckle, Curtis (2006) “Handbook for Parents is transphobic and homophobic”, Organisation Intersex International – USA, 21 September, http://oii-usa.blogspot. ca/2006/09/handbook-for-parents-is-transphobic.html. [11 September 2012]. Holmes, Morgan (2008) Intersex: A Perilous Difference, Selinsgrove, Susquehanna University Press. IAAF (2006) “IAAF Policy on Gender Verification”, www.iaaf.org/mm/Document/ imported/36983.pdf. [11 September 2012]. IAAF (2011) “IAAF Regulations Governing Eligibility of Females with Hyperandrogenism to Compete in Women’s Competition”, www.iaaf.org/mm/ Document/AboutIAAF/Publications/05/98/78/20110430054216_httppostedfile_ HARegulations(Final)-Appendices-AMG-30.04.2011_24299.pdf. [11 September 2012]. IOC (2012) “IOC Regulations on Female Hyperandrogenism. Games of the XXX Olympiad in London, 2012”, 22 June, www.olympic.org/Documents/ Commissions_PDFfiles/Medical_commission/2012-06-22-IOC-Regulations-onFemale-Hyperandrogenism-eng.pdf. [11 September 2012]. Johnsson, Patrick (2009) “Sex change, extreme makeover or simply Caster Semenya? You Magazine shows a new side of the disputed athlete”, Afrik news, 9 September, www.afrik-news.com/article16146.html. [11 September 2012]. Letsrundotcom (2009) “Caster Semenya after the Semis at Worlds”, Youtube, 17 August www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-bqET22vEU. [11 September 2012]. Levy, Ariel (2009) “Either/Or  : Sports, Sex and the case of Caster Semenya”, New Yorker, 20  November www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/11/30/091130fa_fact_ levy. [11 September 2012]. Lolly Jackson [s.d.], www.lollyjackson.co.za/Billboards/007.jpg [image] Lucas, Ryan (2009) “Athlétisme: Caster Semenya, une fille en or pour les SudAfricains”, La Presse Canadienne, 20 August. Maclean, Stewart (2009) “Is she really a He? Women’s 800m runner shrugs off gender storm to take gold”, Mail Online, 19 August, www.dailymail.co.uk/ news/worldnews/article-1207653/Womens-800m-gold-medal-favourite-CasterSemenya-takes-gender-test-hours-World-Championship-race.html. [11 September 2012]. McRae, Donald (2009) “Caster Semenya: ‘People want to stare at me, to touch me. I don’t think I like being famous so much’”, The Guardian, 14 November, www. guardian.co.uk/sport/2009/nov/14/caster-semenya-donald-mcrae-training-camp. [11 September 2012]. Meyerowitz, Joanne (2002) How Sex Changed: a History of Transsexuality in the United States, Cambridge, Harvard University Press. Molosankwe, Botho (2009) “‘Offensive’ billboard creates a stir”, IOL News, 29 September www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/offensive-billboard-creates-a-stir-1. 459926. [11 September 2012]. Montañola S. and Olivesi A. (2016) “Quels locuteurs pour quelles définitions de l’identité sexuée dans les médias? Le cas de Caster Semenya”, Le Discours et la langue, 8.2. forthcoming. New Statesman (2010) “50 People Who Matters”, 27 September www.newstatesman. com/2010/09/intersex-symbol-caster-semenya. [11 September 2012].

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Caster Semenya and the intersex hypothesis 117 Polloni, Camille (2009) “Le test de féminité : utile ou sexiste? (interview with Catherine Louveau)” Les inrocks, 21 August, www.lesinrocks.com/2009/08/21/actualite/ societe/le-test-de-feminite-utile-ou-sexiste-1138132/. [11 September 2012]. Professionals concerned with Gender Diagnoses in the DSM [s.d.], “Introduction” and “Statement on Gender Incongruence”, http://gidconcern.wordpress.com/ Reis, Elizabeth (2009) Bodies in Doubt: an American History of Intersex, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press. Rose, Fabien (2013) (Sa)voir le genre autrement: le gender passing comme paradigme, PhD Dissertation (Montreal: Concordia University). RT.com (2009) “Gender Test Shock over Shemale Athlete”, 24 August, http://rt.com/ sport/gender-test-shemale-semenya/. [11 September 2012]. RT.com (2010) “Alleged transgender runner returns to sport”, 20 May http://rt.com/ sport/alleged-transgender-runner-returns/. [11 September 2012]. Sagorin, Yannick (2009) “Semenya, la drôle de dame du 800”, Sports.fr, 20 August, www.sports.fr/cmc/athletisme/200934/semenya-la-drole-de-dame-du-800_240980. html. [11 September 2012]. Somerville, Siobhan B. (2000) “Scientific Racism and the Invention of the Homosexual Body” Queering the Color Line: Race and the Invention of Homosexuality in American Culture, Durham and London, Duke University Press, 2000, 15–38. Sloop, John M. (2012) “‘This is Not Natural’: Caster Semenya’s Gender Threats”, Critical Studies in Media Communication, Vol. 29, No. 2: 81–96. Stryker, Susan, Paisley Currah and Lisa Jean Moore (2008) “Introduction: Trans-, Trans, or Transgender?” Women’s Studies Quarterly, Vol. 36, No. 3–4, 11–22. The Associated Press (2009) “Transgender runner not comfortable with fame”, NBC Sports, 13 November, http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/33912935. [11 September 2012]. The Associated Press (2011) “Caster Semenya choisit l’ex-championne olympique Maria Mutola comme entraîneuse”, 24 October, La Presse Canadienne. Thomas, June (2012) “Did Caster Semenya Lose the Women’s 800 Meters on Purpose?”, Slate, 11 August, www.slate.com/blogs/five_ring_circus/2012/08/11/ caster_semenya_2012_olympics_did_the_south_african_runner_lose_the_ women_s_800_meters_on_purpose_.html. [11 September 2012]. Triple M 104.9, “Mark Geyer vs Caster Semenya”, www.triplem.com.au/sydney/ shows/grill-team/photos/mark-geyer-v-caster-semenya?selectedImage=4. [11 September 2012]. Tucker, Ross and Jonathan Dugas (2012) “London 2012: Women’s 800m perplexity, analyzing Semenya’s race”, The Science of Sport, 11 August, www.sportsscientists. com/2012/08/womens-800m-analysing-semenya-other.html. [11 September 2012]. Vannini, April and Barbara Fornssler (2011) “Girl Interrupted: Interpreting Semenya’s Body, Gender Verification Testing, and Public Discourse” in Cultural Studies – Critical Methodologies, Vol. 11, No. 3, 243–257. You magazine (2009) “Wow, Look at Caster Now!”, 10 September, No. 144. Zirin, Dave and Sherry Wolf (2009) “There’s nothing sporting about sex tests”, The Globe and Mail, 26 August, www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/theresnothing-sporting-about-sex-tests/article4283846/. [11 September 2012].

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From sports to science, rhetorical and power issues in the media coverage of Caster Semenya Sandy Montañola1

The construction of gender takes place through “technologies,” one of them being the media (De Lauretis, 1987). Media outlets expect people to perform roles and thus comply with shared social expectations based on identity categorizations (Butler, 1990). Such media forms are often criticized by social movements for their participation in the co-construction and exposure of stereotyped social representations in the public arena.2 My aim is to uncover the mechanisms that combine the complexities of the gendered process with its ambivalences and contradictions (Kane and Buysse, 2005). This approach allows us to go beyond the simple identification of stereotypes (Damian-Gaillard and Montañola, 2014) and mediacentric condemnations. Representations, when they are seen as frameworks for the interpretation of reality (Lippmann, 1922; Moscovici, 1960; 1986; Jodelet, 1994; Amossy and Herschberg-Pierrot, 1997), are therefore the vectors of power dynamics in the symbolic, economic and social realms. Through the analysis of the “Caster Semenya case,”3 we can see how the media gradually co-constructed and took ownership of a public problem using discursive mechanisms that were culturally placed with individuals whose motivations only surfaced gradually. The socio-discursive approach offered here is based on the sociology of journalism – the structure of the newsroom, the profile of journalists, economic stakes and historical evolutions – coupled with the analysis of mediatized representations. This approach requires the articulation of the three dimensions that are integral to the mediatisation and the constitution of meaning: cognitive dimensions (perception patterns, frameworks, social representations…), discursive dimensions (editorial formulas, columns, genders, writing models, and, more generally, specific types of rhetoric), and sociological dimensions (the role of social actors who are, in fact, referred to by journalists as their “sources”). (Delforce, 2004: 127) Such an approach accounts for the fact that representations are not stable through time, that they are built by individuals who are part of the social space

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and who operate within it all the while using discursive forms that are also adaptive. This study on representation and discourse shows how a question can become a shared public problem in which the involvement of individuals is partly based on some of the pre-established stances they uphold. My research covers gender assignation – heuristics to study “what is defined and imposed in the media in terms of gendered representation” (Damian et  al., 2014: 11) – in the context of the media’s construction of a public problem. In order to undertake such a task with a socio-discursive focus, I opted to combine a corpus of journalistic articles and research interviews. The corpus is composed of newspapers from the European press that range from 2009 to 2014.4 Spanning seven European countries (France, Sweden, United Kingdom, Spain, Belgium, Italy, Romania), I selected a general national daily newspaper for each country (three for France), thus allowing me to make relevant comparisons (Véron, 1988; Rieffel, 2005).5 Although I cannot make generalizations about the “British press” or the “Italian press,” comparisons allow me to highlight the non-variable aspects of argumentative structures. Working within a European context raised the issue of language expertise. While all cultural and professional contexts weren’t described in detail, having such a “Europeanised” corpus allowed me to see whether or not a transnational discourse existed, and its existence was later confirmed by the study. In order to complete the corpus of texts on mainstream media,6 I included more diversified print, web and television sources.7 I also conducted research interviews with a science/medical journalist at the Figaro newspaper, who covered the “Caster Semenya case,” the representatives of two intersex associations and the coordinator at the French Reference Centre for Rare Disorders of Sex Development (Bicêtre Hospital in Paris). A socio-discursive analysis consists in connecting the representations, the people and the mechanisms involved. Although an objectivist and descriptive view of the journalistic discourse is still common, I concur with Roselyne Koren (2004) in thinking that the media is contingent upon enunciative subjectivity. This is particularly clear in regards to press writing and the tension that exists between the “information neutrality axiom and the concept of political counter-power” (Koren, 2008, §14), thus placing impartiality in the field of ethics at a heuristic level and differing from objectivity, which is incompatible with “argumentative procedures” (ibid., §30) (such as the choice of topics, the hierarchisation, objectivity effects, rhetoric). With such a perspective, I can analyse argumentation and social representations without having to resort to ideas linked to distorted reality or manipulation. I chose not to approach representations as more or less distorted versions of reality but rather as the vehicles for the construction of a common world (Delforce, 2004). I couldn’t fully consider the discourse’s given meaning, the weight attached to it or, more importantly, the discourse’s positioning by simply identifying the speakers and the arguments in each newspaper or for each event. I therefore preferred to

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use the notion of social discourse (Angenot, 2006; Tavernier et al., 2010) which allowed me to incorporate the power issues of various social groups, where each group was defending its own position in the public space. Caster Semenya’s media coverage then became a moment of discursive struggle (Gabay, 2001; 2005). Such struggles occur within a framework of pre-established discourses (Bloch, 2012), bringing back a form of stereotypy which “is found to be necessary for the argumentation to function: it can take different shapes, but it still is the foundation of any discourse that aims to be persuasive” (Amossy and Herschberg-Pierrot, 1997: 105; Moirand, 2007; Eggs, 1994).8 This chapter focuses on a double perspective, with all its associated challenges and limits. On one hand, I aim to show the part played by the media in the construction of public problems and to present the people who were involved and who took the media into account. On the other hand, the analysis of the media must be done through the thorough deconstruction of representations in context, examining both enunciative mechanisms (argumentation) and media-based mechanisms (press conferences, the postures of individuals, aims) on a significant corpus of texts, both in the number of articles and in duration. I represent (Figure 7.1) the argumentative mechanism of the different stakeholders. The first part of this article focuses on the triggering event, which serves as an interpretive framework to the non-standard (understood as unexpected) event (of femininity norms in particular). The second part focuses on how the “African voice” is delegitimized through rhetorical devices. A third part questions the use of the scientific and medical discourse by different stakeholders and medias.

The triggering event: establishing an interpretive framework In this first part, the focus centres on the triggering event.9 After having shown that the mediatization process followed a chronology, I also want to show how the media featured the non-standard perspective. Such a nonstandard perspective rendered the IAAF’s investigation legitimate, also allowing the media to monitor the story’s highlights journalistically. This section identifies the importance of observing the progressive construction of such a “public problem” and seeing the evolution of the argumentation and its discursive mechanisms. The first statement – made during the announcement of the gender-verification test in August 2009 – was to partly affect the following statements because of the values it carried and the legitimate people it recognized. From the standpoint of non-standard perspective Between 2009 and 2014, all media forms in the corpus mentioned Caster Semenya. Despite such follow-up, the topic did not make the headlines in the various publications, except for the Figaro newspaper on 21 August 2009.

Delegitimation

Deconstruction

Juxtaposition

Questioning of science

Figure 7.1 Representation of discourses conveyed by the various actors in the media through rhetorical devices (lexical fields, arguments and narrative form).

Media

Part 3

Post Appartheid

Sexism Racism

Doctors

Generic

Part 2

Respect

C

Quiet associations

C

B

A

Conflict

South African voice

AUTHORITY BY EXPERTISE Scientificity

Truth

Fairness

Equity

International sports institution

COMMUNITY CLAIMS/VALUE

Lexical fields

RESULTS

Justice Investigation

FEMINITY TEST

IAAF press conference Official source Absence of Caster Semenya

A serious question

DOUBT ABOUT GENDER

n tio s ANALOGY iza e al renc r tu ffe References from other cases a i N d of

Social Scientists

Appointment

= X ? NO Y! =

Doping ?

B

Journalistic ethos

MEDIA

Cause Consequence

AUTHORITY BY WITNESS STATEMENT Competitors’ reactions Family, coach, close relations...

Narrative form

Key

Rumours

Juxtaposition/accumulation

MALE appearance evidence

TOO FAST evolution

IMPOSSIBLE performance

D

A

B

A

Bodily and sports norms

COMMUNITY CLAIMS

Arguments

Part 1

Non-standard event

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Legitimate

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Caster Semenya’s case didn’t appear much in editorials nor did it contribute to shifting the order of columns: the case was mainly reported in the “Sports” section of generalist media and in the “Society” section of magazines that didn’t have a sports section. After closely examining discursive materiality and the employed journalistic genders (Mouillaud and Tetu, 1989), it appeared that the mediatization of the case followed a chronology of crisis (Lerbinger, 1986) with a latency period, an acute phase (initiated by a triggering event and its publicizing), a chronic period (with the arrival of new protagonists, the topic then re-emerged after 2010) and, finally, the decrease in mediatization (known as the healing phase) (Robert and Verpeaux, 1991). Caster Semenya’s mediatization can be explained by the law of the non respect of the standard, which is understood as a deviation from the social norm. Therefore, the media described an “unusual situation” using six essential terms: case, polemical, controversy, affair, rumours and discomfort. These terms are part of “generic words that induce their own scenarios … [These words] lead to a form of narrative programming that includes implicit protagonists and actions; they frame the event” (Ringoot, 2014: 92). Such a non-standard perspective is even evident in the titles themselves: “Caster Semenya, a sportswoman accused of… being a man!”10 Although the magazine Elle usually doesn’t address sports topics, it justified its coverage by using an ellipsis, an exclamation point and the sportswoman/man paradox. In fact, the journalists had interiorized and anticipated the economic constraints and the reader’s “needs” (Pradié, 2004; Montañola and Souanef, 2012; Hubé, 2008; Picard, 2006). The non-standard perspective became the justification for Caster Semenya’s mediatization in a context where female athletes were already under-mediatized (especially caused by bodily norms who questioned the femininity norm, Bishop, 2003; Hargreaves, 1994; Kane and Buysse, 2005) or mediatized in a stereotypical way (Duncan and Messner, 1998; Duncan et  al. 1991; Eagleman 2013; Gauntlett, 2002; Montañola, 2007, 2011). All media outlets had the same way of highlighting the non-standard of the event: the quasi-logical argumentation of cause and effect was systematically used. We shall examine this in two steps: through framing and through the storytelling. Framing occurred when the victory was viewed as impossible: “crushing the 800 meter race,”11 “young genius… unlikely gamine,”12 “knocking out the competition,”13 “a crushing victory… an impressive lead,”14 “a stratospheric lead.”15 The lexical fields stressed the point. Two arguments backed the framing: Caster Semenya’s youth and her athletic progress, described as being “too quick”: “still unknown a short while ago.” The cause-effect relationship appeared in the L’Humanité newspaper: “unbelievable time for her age and her sex but definitely feasible for a man.”16 Similarly, in Libération, the addition of details such as “alone” and “despite the wind” contributed to prove the impossibility of the situation, leading to the following conclusion: “we can understand how the IAAF had her in their sights.”17

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In the journalistic corpus storytelling occurred in two stages: first, through the use of the norm and then through the gap with the norm. The media first described the classic 800 meter race victory before introducing other elements. The L’Humanité newspaper used suspension by listing the things that weren’t going to happen to Caster Semenya18 thus putting the imagined scene of the 800 meter victory in tension with the one that actually took place: the journalistic follow-up happened for different reasons. Libération used a flashback introduced by “two hours earlier.” The flashback described the victory, qualified as “prodigious.” But, with another sentence, the article soon opposed other facts using irony: “There’s only one drawback, but it’s a big one: Semenya looks like a man.” The Figaro newspaper preferred to use an antithesis by drawing a parallel between Usain Bolt and Caster Semenya. The article mentioned their “impressive lead” before opposing them: “but the comparison between the sprinting giant and the controversial South African athlete stops here … while Bolt calls forth our admiration, Semenya triggers in us a sense of discomfort.” We find the same type of opposition–concession in the Daily Telegraph:19 “But instead of being able to celebrate her victory, Semenya found herself facing uncomfortable questions about whether she should really have been lining up in today’s first-round heats of the men’s 800m.”20 Using different methods, the various media outlets highlighted the gap with the norm. In the sports world, such a gap could reference to doping issues with expressions such as “glided”21 or left a “gaping hole … without giving the impression of accelerating.” The journalistic corpus then introduced other elements to explain the result with the structure “X? No, Y”: “Doping? No, but doubts about her sex”22 or “A prodigy?” no, but a physical appearance that sparks “confusion.”23 These explanations are accompanied by a justification. Is she a man? “The question could make us laugh. But, following her breath-taking performance in the Berlin World Championship, Caster Semenya is now the subject of the wildest of rumours”24 or also “man? Hermaphrodite? A very serious question.”25 The very need to clarify that the question is serious shows how much the author anticipates a wrong interpretation, given that the difference between men and women seems natural, as is the presumed ability to distinguish one sex from another (Montañola and Olivesi, 2016). The shift towards a problematic masculinity The question of knowing whether Caster Semenya belonged to the male or female category was raised through framing and the construction of a narrative. It was also evident through the omnipresent use of the semantic fields of doubt (“those who met her… couldn’t help but wonder about her masculine appearance … ”)26 and evidence (“her graceful and … masculine gait”27). The ways in which Caster Semenya was labelled could be placed on a continuum28 and served different types of rhetoric. When they used noncommittal terms, speakers avoided commitment (last name, first name, indefinite

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articles). Marked feminine indicators (“she”) were used to avoid repeating Caster Semenya’s name, her sporting status (athlete), her geographical status (the South-African), her marks of youth (young). Geographical names were also used as frames, soliciting the reader’s imagination towards South Africa. A form of reassessment consisted in showing the difficulties in referring to Caster Semenya: “he or she,”29 “ … She, or he, is still very young … ,”30 “this person,” “hero”31. A sense of doubt was established, going as far as questioning the ways in which the athlete should be named. The newspaper L’Humanité therefore wrote “Caster, ‘la’ Ghost of Berlin.”32 Paris-Match titled “Semenya, deprived of her/his passion”33. The newspaper L’Équipe also used expressions such as “the case” or “the phenomenon has been isolated.”34 Descriptions of the “athlete’s masculinity” stemmed from such a reassessment and served two functions: her being a man brought more proof of her overwhelming victory; or it was the starting point to questions surrounding her sex (“Beyond her performance, we were intrigued by her physical aspect.”35 “According to her rivals (roundly defeated in the finals), Caster Semenya may not be a woman with her masculine traits, her imposing silhouette and her low voice. This troubled the International Federation who asked for a gender verification test.”36) In the first function of the description of “masculinity”, we can see a shift between the way the “athlete’s masculinity” is described (semantic field) and the results. Although such a link doesn’t appear formally, the structures of several articles limited themselves to mere juxtapositions or additions. We could therefore read the following in Elle: With a masculine gait, a strong muscle structure and a particularly low voice, this South-African athlete is at the centre of a controversy in which she is accused of being a man. After having done the best athletic performance of the year worldwide, the athlete raised the International Federation’s suspicion. The federation immediately requested tests to prove that Caster Semenya was, indeed, a woman.37 The notion of masculinity was linked to suspicion in the French television channel LCI’s coverage: “breasts that look like pectoral muscles, the only one wearing shorts on the starting line, developed muscles and a slightly manly aspect – suspicions are directed towards Caster Semenya.”38 The media therefore moved away from framing the event through the lens of sports and chose to focus on masculinity (in this concept, see Connell and Messerschmidt 2005), both angles making it possible in the media to legitimize the quest and the need for an answer. Legitimizing the “investigation” and the need for a “resolution”: the press conference Within the constricted frame of sporting events, interactions between athletes and journalists are regulated by press conferences. This is even more

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the case for this particular event, a world championship. This communication relationship (Charon and De Bonville, 1996) affects sports journalists, as it is underpinned by forms of interdependency. The sports economy and the media have indeed developed jointly (Bourg, 1996; Lenoble, 2004). Research has shown that interdependencies do, in fact, exist between journalism and communication (Montañola et al., 2012; Thomas, 2008; Ollivier-Yaniv, 2001; Legavre, 2007). Sports have considerably expanded, becoming a global form of entertainment with strong political, social and symbolic repercussions. The impact of professionalization is visible through the management of the images of athletes, as the latter now depend on media coverage for their sports careers (links with sponsors, etc).39 This also explains why different speaking opportunities were organized by sports institutions and why declarations and press conferences had a particular weight in the calendar shared by the media:40 the IAAF’s request to submit Caster Semenya to a gender verification test (press conference, 19/08/09), the athlete’s return to South Africa (organized welcome and press conference, 25/08/09), the ASA coach’s resignation (press release, 8/09/09), the IAAF’s declaration about the test results that were kept secret (press release), the return to competition (press release by the athlete and her lawyer in April 2010) and the authorization to a return to competition (press release, July 2010). In the context of a crisis (Révéret and Moreau, 1997; Bloch, 2012), the media’s impact increases41 due to its capacity to make events public. Pierre Weiss, general secretary of the IAAF, conferred a specific role to the media: “She is young, she’s only a junior, she’s not prepared to answer the questions that you have a right to ask.”42 The same clarification was made in the following statement: You were waiting for the new world champion. She won’t be coming. We have decided, by mutual agreement with the South African federation, that it was preferable not to bring her in front of you. She, or he, is still very young, only 18 years old, and absolutely not prepared for the questions that you would have asked.43 The Belgian daily newspaper Le Soir and the French sport daily newspaper L’Équipe explicitly mentioned journalists: “The South African athlete didn’t have a chance to express herself in front of the press since the IAAF, in agreement with her federation, decided to shield her from journalists, allowing her to skip the traditional post-run press conference”44 and “the general secretary of the international federation explained that he wanted to preserve this ‘person’ from the curiosity of journalists.”45 The IAAF deemed the media responsible, making Caster Semenya’s protection necessary through her absence at the press conference. Thanks to this mechanism, media outlets were seen as the ones conveying rumours that led to doubts about the athlete’s sex, whereas the IAAF placed itself as her “protector.”

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Media outlets made a specific mention of the IAAF’s communication style: “Wednesday evening, in the room of the Berlin Olympiastadion where the press conferences for the Athletic World Championships are held. At a time when reporters wait in tight rows for the three female 800 meter medal winners.”46 All media sources referred to the press conference given by the IAAF on 21 August 2009 as the culmination of a process. First of all, the press conference made the older “rumours” legitimate while it also provided the media with an official source (“the rumours and the gossip gave way to official reports,”47 “rumour had it that she was a hermaphrodite”48). The press conference is also used to legitimate doubts surrounding the athlete by way of community-based claims (bodily norms and visual standards of “femininity,” values of equality between competitors – for more, see Chapters 2 and 3 in this book by Bohuon and Rodriguez, and Camporesi and Maugeri). An authoritative argument – taking the form of a testimony – was made by one of Caster Semenya’s competitors and relayed by the media; it upheld the community claims mentioned above: “They shouldn’t let this type of person run with us”49 (Elisa Cusma Piccione). Other competitors expressed themselves on the issue but their comments weren’t widely covered by the media. Elisa Cusma Piccione therefore summoned the responsibility of sports institutions (designated as “they”) meant to guarantee fairness between athletes, going back to the IAAF’s position.50 The legitimacy of such a line of questioning was based on an implicit element: historically allocating advantages to men (over women), doped athletes, and intersex people.51 In those different hypotheses, athletes denounced an inequality. In fact, in sports, Charlot and Clément observed that there was a “persistence in the naturalization process of race differences” (2007: 112) in addition to the over-valorization of physical abilities seen as “natural” to certain athletes (Montañola, 2008; Sacco and Germion, 2001).52 In Caster Semenya’s case,53 such questions brought back the discursive memory of Eastern European sportswomen and testosterone doping.54 A final element added to the whole mechanism: the argument through analogy. Such an argument was used when referring to a case in which the test done by the IAAF had “allowed the athlete to ‘become’ a man, marry and have children,”55 referring to family norms. The conference therefore is used to legitimize the existence of an “investigation” (valuing tests, using the semantic fields of investigations and results) conducted by the IAAF, the latter being the guardian of community-based claims of fairness and truth and providing a “resolution” to the investigation. The IAAF spokesperson announced that tests would be conducted and that the results would subsequently be announced. Possible restrictions linked to doctor–patient confidentiality weren’t mentioned at that time. These tests had actually been requested by the IAAF three weeks before the world championships. Several media sources mentioned this fact without questioning the deductive logic underpinning the legitimacy of the problem:56 the gender-verification test therefore took on the expected role of truth revealers. The media publicized this role by using the semantic field of justice: verdict,57 exonerated, incurs, interdiction.

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The media constructed a framework that legitimized the investigation and that allowed the IAAF to be the guardian of fairness, basing its judgement on shared norms that define men/women based on their physical attributes. Such a shared argumentation led to a deductive form of reasoning. The IAAF followed the exact rules of crisis communications (Libaert, 2010): the institution designated a spokesperson, it was responsive (announced the event in a press conference), it anticipated the question of responsibility (Caster Semenya wouldn’t be made responsible), it showed its transparency (by calling on “experts”), it showed commitment (“does everything it can to respect…”) and adopted an empathetic and people-oriented tone. The media therefore partly complied with the crisis communications that the IAAF – one of the main parties in the case – had set up. Because of this, other parties saw their voices being delegitimized, as we will see in the next two sections of this chapter. In addition, the contribution by Camporesi and Maugeri in this volume (Chapter 3) challenges the transparency of the entire process and the paternalistic attitude (empathetic) adopted by the IAAF.

Power issues and rhetorical devices in conveyed discourses Once the framework was established, many different parties started embodying various types of discourses.58 A typology composed of the different parties mentioned, cited or acknowledged by the media therefore emerged: sports authorities (the international IAAF and IOC, the South African ASA (Athletics South Africa), the departmental committee, the SASCOC);59 the athlete’s sports entourage (coach, agent, press agent, training colleagues), political protagonists (government, minister, the ANC);60 competitors, scientists (doctors, researchers in social sciences), undetermined protagonists (crowds, rumours); retired athletes; associations of intersex people; the immediate family (father, mother, grandmother), the lawyer and the media.61 Two groups could be identified: on one hand, South African sports and political figures and, on the other hand, international sports institutions. The two groups had opposing discourses, but also interacted with each other, all the while including additional parties. The second part of this article focuses on showing how a South African voice emerged. I then aim to uncover the three main rhetorical devices used by European newspapers that allowed the integration of the South African voice to the IAAF’s discourse that I have just described: the juxtaposition device, the deconstruction of an instrumentalization and the delegitimization of certain protagonists. The construction of the “African voice” Significant links exist between sports and politics despite identity discourses that focus on apolitical stances and bringing people together (Augustin and Gillon, 2004; Barthes, 1957/1970).62 The intrusion of politics in sports is frequent. When the media featured South African political figures and sports

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figures it generalized the South-African voice, making it into a “South African camp.”63 This voice was a response to the IAAF’s stance and became an ideological position based on community claims. The confrontation between both camps led to a conflict surrounding values: “This decision is racist and sexist … it is explained by the fact that Semenya is black and that she defeated European competitors.”64 Such a political posturing focused on values such as the respect of the person involved (Caster Semenya), of the country (South Africa) and of the continent (Africa) and tended to make tests seem useless. Caster Semenya’s sports entourage, along with political figures, denounced a “revolting” and “atrocious” treatment. South Africa hence became a protagonist embodied by the president (humiliation of the athlete, her family and the whole country),65 the minister of sports (who threatened a “third world war”)66 and the minister of women (“the Nation’s support”67 “a line of questions … based on physical stereotypes attributed to women,”68 “open disdain for Miss Semenya’s dignity.”)69 After having used community-based claims to respond to values (supported here by the post-apartheid context, see Liotard in Chapter 1; Dworkin and Cooky, 2012; Cooky et al., 2010), the South-African voice also attacked the competitors’ authoritative arguments. Coach Seme “advised sceptics” to contact Semenya’s teammates, as did her family members. This stance depended on specific speakers who were valued: her parents, her fans and the government sought to impose, through the media, the confirmation that she belonged to the feminine category and thus render the tests requested by the IAAF inoperative. Community-based claims touching on norms of femininity were questioned implying that said norms were different between European and African countries (to read more on the internal stakes of these various speakers, see Chapter 8 by Salo). How was this South African voice included in the media? It mostly formed the basis of short articles that used strong objectivity effects (Koren, 2004). Statements were often framed by quotation marks and the semantic field insisted on the “defence” (of an icon, a muse)70 and the “scandal” of “South Africa.”71 Le Monde transcribed the comments of South African politicians in such terms: we are gathered here today to tell the whole world how proud we are of this young woman who has placed us on the map. They can write everything they want, she’s our little girl and nothing will contain her – or South Africa’s – enthusiasm. (Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, Member of Parliament)72 These comments came in response to the IAAF with the construction of an in-group and an out-group based on “us” and “them”. How, then, did the media manage to integrate this South African voice to the framework constructed by the IAAF’s initial speech? Media outlets chose to expose the oppositions between both camps, while also legitimizing their approach through the use of three non-exclusive devices. By analysing these devices, we see power relations emerge.

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Cartoonists perceived the tension that stemmed from the different protagonists’ postures and discourses. They used this tension in their drawings, as is the case with the Cartoon of Zapiro published in the Sunday Times on 13  September 2009 illustrating the four main conveyed discourses and their consequences with reference to the Wizard of Oz (www.zapiro.com/ cartoon/122901-090913st#.VbyXNUUUoiE). Juxtaposition Through the use of juxtapositions, the media could mention declarations made by the “South African voice” without invalidating the appropriateness of the IAAF’s test procedures. Four forms of juxtaposition were identified. The first form consisted in omitting to mention the South African reaction again as the event’s media coverage ensued.73 The second form consisted in using the last sentence of articles to report back on the situation, waiting for “the results of the practical tests”, “the results should soon tell us to which sex the athlete belongs,”74 thus invalidating previous elements – while the South African voice tends to invalidate the achievement of this test. The third form consisted in setting up a framing argument: the South African voice was presented as “supporting” the athlete in this difficult moment rather than questioning the event itself. The newspaper L’Équipe highlighted that the investigation “sparked a wave of sympathy.”75 Finally, the fourth form was a type of concession–opposition. Le Figaro76 introduced it in the following way: “Visually, Caster Semenya’s morphology seems more masculine than feminine” adding a few examples (musculature, hips, face and voice). The author then continued by introducing a testimony (cause–consequence) starting with “to the extent that last month, at the Cape, the young student was denied access to the Ladies’ restroom.”77 The comments made by her coach, her father and her grandmother stipulating her femininity pointed to a paradox: “And they describe Caster as the tomboy she’s always been, never hesitating to play football with the boys.” The author built an opposition using the conjunction “but” followed by “in Berlin, the welcome isn’t as warm.” In this case, Berlin represented the IAAF and the argument presented by the family’s testimony was therefore impaired. Deconstructing an “instrumentalization” and the use of irony Some articles went beyond juxtaposition and proceeded to deconstruct the South African discourse, showing it as being “instrumentalized” by sports or political considerations. Aujourd’hui en France therefore noted that “South Africa just discovered its new idol, but the rest of the planet still doesn’t know if it should use ‘him’ or ‘her.’”78 Such a process was reinforced by a form of irony directed at the president who “gave her some ‘I love you’” and called himself “proud”. Irony also shined through when the author of the article alluded to support that may have existed for pragmatic reasons, with underlying sporting intentions: “South Africa hadn’t seen such unity since the Springboks won the

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Rugby World Cup final in 2007”. Dissonant voices were described, signalling instrumentalization. The media therefore noticed that

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despite the national infatuation for the “golden girl”, the life of women who look like men hasn’t improved in South Africa … “Such hypocrisy must stop” pleads Collen Lowe Morna, president of Gender Links, an ONG for the defence of equality between genders: “with Semenya, we celebrate differences, but we continue to rape lesbians to cure their condition…”79 The media used such a dissonance to prove that an instrumentalization had occurred. Using racial issues for political purposes was the second type of deconstructed instrumentalization. L’Équipe did this when it described the “Semenya case” as a “major political issue.”80 It also highlighted that the “racial question” had been “shamelessly”81 used. Several expressions aimed to show that public reactions surpassed the athlete: Julius Malema, president of the ANC’s youth league … : “The people who complained about Semenya’s sexual status were of another colour.” Bad faith? Racial demagogy? In his own way, Julius Malema puts his finger where South Africa hurts: “The racial question is this country’s central problem. If we don’t talk about it, White people will think that they’re doing things right.” Here, Caster Semenya is no longer the main protagonist.82 The media highlighted the fact that Caster Semenya was used as a springboard for other topics and was therefore somewhat instrumentalized by political protagonists. Media outlets describing Caster Semenya’s return rally and its organization took the same approach: “members of the party from all provinces were transported in vans to ensure that a large number of people would be present at what had become a political rally.”83 The media therefore partly deconstructed the discourse surrounding the existence of a South African voice and a sincere gathering of the people around the athlete. Delegitimizing protagonists Beyond juxtaposition and the deconstruction of instrumentalization, another mechanism employed was the deligitimization of protagonists,84 showing that the involved protagonists knew the secret and had concealed the information. The media then undermined the ASA’s credibility when the coach resigned and admitted that he had conducted tests without warning, and when Chuene was suspended by sporting authorities (for cheating).85 Expressions such as “the Caster Semenya Saga”86 or “the drama series”87 supported that line of thought. During the press conference, Leonard Chuene made a concession by admitting that he had lied and had made an error of judgment. He used a community-based claim when asking the obvious question “who never

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lied to protect someone else?” The media highlighted the dissonance: “The ASA was scandalized,”89 “at first, they had said the opposite” (about passing tests)90 and about the positioning of the Democratic Alliance (DA) – the opposing political party that denounced the strategic use by the party in power.91 Coupled with resignations and lies, these dissonances contributed to the staging of an organized discourse aimed at preserving the medal.92 Caster Semenya’s mediatized presence in the magazine You is the perfect illustration of the use of delegitimization. In the magazine, the athlete posed bearing the classic norms of femininity (makeup, jewellery, clothes). For the Romanian newspaper Romania Liberia, the magazine You became the embodiment of Caster Semenya’s strategy: “had the time to rebuild her image”93 and “She is preparing her return to the public arena by featuring on the cover of You magazine on 10 September.”94 Reasserting the need to wait for the test results was a way to invalidate Caster Semenya’s femininity, described as being “constructed” by the athlete. In this second section, we highlighted how the South African voice – which countered the IAAF’s demands – was discredited and its positions ignored. This occurred through the deconstruction of political and sports issues underlying the South African position, thus rendering it illegitimate. People who supported the South African voice were also called into question since it was harder to dispute the need for test results that were based on science, as we discuss in the following section.

Appealing to scientificity As we saw previously, doubts about Caster Semenya being “a man or a woman,” and the suspicion that she could be intersex as presented in the media justified the need for an investigation supported by community arguments (values of truth and fairness). The media shared the implicit notion that medical science would provide them with truth. This is where the authoritative argument based on expertise emerged. In this section, I aim to show how the IAAF used science in a generic way to justify testing while scientific experts were virtually absent, as was the anti-medicalization discourse defended by intersex associations. We will end this section by noting the emergence of the researchers in social sciences, who came to question the social construct surrounding such a “scientific” treatment of doubt. The figure of the scientist The IAAF called upon the figure of the scientist by creating a “scientific committee” in charge of the gender verification test. The IAAF referred to a “panel of experts” composed of doctors, psychologists and endocrinologists. The spokesperson, Nick Davies, explained that “the tests are physical and gynaecological, but they also include a scan, radiography, and a chromosome study,”95 implying that “the athlete will need to meet doctors, gynaecologists,

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geneticists, but also a psychologist and an endocrinologist.”96 Mentioning these professions and medical exams presented the advantage of referring to the “scientific community” as a whole, which was supported by terms such as “scientific committee,” “panel,” “a renowned African scientist,”97 “modern day medicine”98 and “medical jargon.”99 Doctors became a generic category: “Davies said doctors in South Africa had already begun testing Semenya but because of the complexity of the process, it would be some time before the results were available. Until then, she was clear to run.”100 The accumulation of such expressions created that effect of scientificity: “medical information, panel of medical experts, group of experts, medical commission, scientific exam, patient and doctor.”101 The names of doctors who were in the IAAF’s “medical commissions” were rarely specified, they represented “the commission” or “the team” and therefore formed part of the generalization process (“a team of doctors led by the medical director at the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), the Alsatian Gabriel Dollé;”102 “Arne Ljungqvist … president of the (medical) commission, professor.”)103 Because the IAAF formulated the investigation in medical and scientific terms, the media incorporated such a discourse. However, they didn’t call upon many scientists. Claire Fékété presented as the “paediatric surgeon at the Necker Hospital and Professor at the Paris V University”104 (Le Figaro and Elle), was mainly there to “explain” intersexuation from a medical perspective. The “doctor Pierre de Mondenard,” presented as “the author of the Doping dictionary (2004)”, was cited to support discourses about the presence of intersex people among athletes: “in 1964, during the Tokyo games, 26.7% of golf medal athletes weren’t authentic women.”105 We also read about Eric Vilain presented as “chief of the medical genetics service at the Los Angeles University (UCLA)” (Elle), Marc Fellous and, the “South African doctor Harold Adams” mentioned as he had “advised Chuene to take Semenya off the starting lists for the World championships.”106 We are reminded of the importance of “labels.” One of the speakers who was presented as a specialist in genetics was also a member of an intersex association, INSA (Intersex Society of North America) and two other speakers were on the IOC’s committees to decide on these questions. When experts were presented by news sources, the detail of their status wasn’t developed. However, these details show how important credibility “labels” were for the speakers in the case (Tavernier, 2004). Developing a medical point of view which was limited to the sports environment was a deliberate choice. This was actually noticed by L’Équipe in the following passage: “For the first time, a national federation didn’t want to stand behind common sense in such a case,”107 avoiding too many revelations before noting that “Semenya’s sacrifice may serve to keep intersexuality in the private sphere.”108 Therefore, the IAAF promoted science as the basis for questioning and testing. However, scientific speakers didn’t appear very much in the European media,109 and neither did discourses that would have questioned such scientificity.

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A dissonant approach and the questioning of science? The IAAF placed this controversy under the sign of science and made references to medicine in generic terms. The media therefore found it difficult to incorporate statements that went beyond the IAAF’s framework. Media sources therefore referenced doctors such as Fékété and Vilain who drew attention to the complexities of determining one’s sex. Le Figaro was a good example of this phenomenon since it published two articles in the same day within its “sports” section. One of the articles was written by Cécile Soler, a sports journalist, and the other was written by Yves Miserey, journalist in sciences and medicine. When I interviewed him, he explained: “our interest in this athlete was very opportunistic”. In the editorial board meeting, one of the assistant directors suggested the topic; it went through because of a lack of news that day: “we talked about it following the televised broadcast, where questions had started to be raised. Us daily papers, we usually come after on issues like this.” Yves Miserey was then asked to give “pseudo-scientificomedical insights” without having worked on the subject before. The article was made up of interviews, without further reading “especially since it’s not something that was broadly covered in medical journals.” Miserey mentioned that the article was “cobbled together” and that he was aware of being an “instrumentalized scientific journalist, allowing other journalists to talk.” Because of the journalist’s heavy workload, no discussions took place before publication, so the author “limited himself to scientific/medical aspects.” The two journalists who published articles on the same day in the sports section didn’t exchange or read each other’s articles beforehand. The scientific article demonstrated the complexity of determining one’s sex: “belonging to a certain sex isn’t just a matter of chromosomes”. The sports article (“Caster Semenya lacking in Femininity”) focused on the need to “determine the sex” without mentioning any scientific or medical challenges. The media faced a second challenge: including voices that questioned the legitimacy of scientific authority. Yves Miserey explained: “When I read the article again, I saw that the senior editor – who is a doctor – had added something in my paper … that shocked me: ‘is not deadly.’”110 According to this editor, “when it comes to medical questions, we must reassure the reader.” In this case, the construction of scientificity was tempered by a certain vision of medicine and the anticipation of the reader’s expectations. Yves Miserey added that, had he read more material, he would have “mentioned the sexualisation process in early childhood, as well as the news in Sweden surrounding the third sex …” He would have also alluded to “the possibility of indeterminacy.”111 This point of view, expressed a few years after the actual reporting of the story, shows how mind-sets evolved. For Miserey, journalists were there to “make believe.” None of the media sources expressed the fact that in “the field of medicine, uncertainty often exists,” as Claire Bouvattier, endocrinologist, explained.112 Therefore, scientists don’t have all the answers and can be “manipulated” by economic or political considerations (Moirand,

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2007). Scientists then play a large part in the construction of the “scientificity” of statements, in which any form of uncertainty is banned. Although Le Figaro mentioned how hard it was to “determine” the sex because of many factors113 and L’Équipe raised “philosophical questions,”114 these points didn’t have an impact on the rest of the content in both articles. For example, The Daily Telegraph also reported: But resolving whether a person is male or female is not a simple matter of physical examination – the method originally used by the International Olympic Committee when mandatory gender testing was introduced in 1968 before being phased out on ethical and scientific grounds 10 years ago. There are numerous “intersex” conditions that do not affect external genital appearance.115 Davies was also cited: We have to be very sensitive to this because there is a health issue and she is a human being who was born as a woman and who has grown up all her life as a woman but who is now in a position where this is being questioned.116 It’s interesting to see that the scientific authoritative argument seemed to prevent the very questioning of such authority. It also shows how difficult it is for the media to deal with dissonant comments. Due to an absence of many associations for intersex people, these two challenges – including dissonances and questioning scientificity – came into sharper focus. For example: Intersex South Africa117 and Gender DynamiX. Both talked about the high number of cases in South Africa and one of the directors noted that “the Semenya case is an ‘opportunity to start a debate’ about this in the country.” These associations didn’t have an “anti-medical” discourse.118 Some arguments defended by certain associations weren’t developed, such as the need to converge with feminists to fight for self-ownership and against the medicalization and psychiatrization of identities (Kraus, 2011), or the “protest against Genital Mutilation.”119 According to Elsa Dorlin (2011), the main disagreement between the medical community and associations had to do with the suppression of “gender dysphoria” disorders.120 This struggle relates to the body: “the sexual body has been a historical niche, which the church, the state, the medical field and the market have occupied one after the other (and/or at the same time)” (Dorlin, 2011: 22). This type of discourse positions itself specifically “against” the medical discourse. It was therefore difficult for media sources to include this point of view with other views, unless it happened to be the article’s main subject matter. A challenge made harder by the fact that intersex people are not all connected (few associations exist worldwide and there “are virtually no patient associations”121 in France). Furthermore, intersex associations have differing points of view,

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as is made clear in the French context: on one hand, a former European spokesperson of Organisation Intersex International campaigns for demedicalization and the acceptance of less structured genders. On the other hand, l’Association-Maison Intersexualité et Hermaphrodisme – Europe defends a medical perspective and the non-assimilation between intersex and transsexual people. Such a dissonance seemed to lead to a form of invisibility. But the silence surrounding these voices was also due to the media which tends to enhance the visibility of those in power (Molotch and Lester, 1997) such as the IAAF. Several researchers have yet to show the changes in the health system and medical care caused by patient associations (Chalamon 2009). Having proved the existence of a generic scientific posture and the difficulties of the media to question it – the invisibility of intersex people being an indication – we now aim to show how such a posture can be sustained by different types of designations. In this regard, the next chapters (by Salo and Sloop) focus on the silence about Caster Semenya’s case.

Perceptions and designations: from hermaphroditism to intersexuation By considering the Caster Semenya case in medical terms, the media did not take into account the cultural, social and political implications of the case. Yet, ways of designating are important (Moirand, 2007). When they had a chance to talk, intersex people expressed how they suffered. This occurred through language and through media representations (to the extent of mentioning a certain fear of journalists “my father was mostly afraid of illintentioned journalists who may take hold of my case…” Picquart, 2009: 21, see Nouvelles questions féministes, 2008; Dany Salomé, 2011). When surveying the different designations,122 we noticed that the media used the “hermaphrodit-” basis (hermaphroditism, hermaphrodite …) more often than the “intersex-” basis (for intersex, intersexuality, intersexuation …) (for more a developed historical perspective, see Chapter 4 by Salle and Brunet). The American medical term “DSD” was not used much by the media (one or two occurrences), nor was the expression “sexual or genital ambiguity” (two to four occurrences). Different associations don’t always agree on which terms to use. According to the Canadian Federation for Sexual Health: “the intersex community generally doesn’t appreciate the term ‘hermaphrodite’, which it considers outdated.”123 The Intersex Society of North America describes the term as a “mythological term”: The words “hermaphrodite” and “pseudo-hermaphrodite” are stigmatizing and misleading words. Unfortunately, some medical personnel still use them to refer to people with certain intersex conditions, because they still subscribe to an outdated nomenclature that uses gonadal anatomy as the basis of sex classification.”124

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The term “hermaphrodite” therefore seems to be used by the medical community, but not by the intersex community. However, the INSA requested that the term “intersex” stop being used as it was stigmatizing. Instead, it recommended the term DSD. But the OII (Organisation Intersex International) still uses “Intersex” (Kraus et al., 2008).125 For Tamet (2010), these terms have followed a chronological evolution: “this clinical situation was originally named ‘hermaphroditism’, then ‘sexual ambiguity’ and ‘intersexuation.’” As we saw in the European corpus, such evolutions seem to be the reflection of the power relations between the associative sector and the medical field (see also Chapter 6 by Rose for the Canadian corpus). In the majority of cases in the analysed corpus, hermaphroditism was evoked as a hypothesis, with the use of terms that were close semantically, such as “suspicious,” “suspected” or “supposed” (see Chapter 5 by Olivesi). We also found a mention of “the hermaphroditism problem.” In all cases, hermaphroditism was shown as a negative trait of which one was “accused.” The term was used descriptively when Caster Semenya returned in 2011:126 “Caster Semenya, the hermaphrodite back on the track”. Beyond Caster Semenya’s designations, the media surrounded hermaphroditism with an image of something that shouldn’t be talked about. All media sources shared the phrase “suspected of being a hermaphrodite.”127 The French television channel France Ô talked about a “supreme humiliation.” The term “intersexuality” wasn’t used by medical speakers. Instead, they referred to “pathologies” such as congenital adrenal hyperplasia, sex development disorder due to 5-alpha-reductase 2 deficiency,128 partial or complete androgen insensitivity. Guillot nevertheless recognized that “ … it is very difficult to liberate one’s self from the pathologization of the intersex question and to go towards an intersex culture” (2012: 47). It must also be noted that the press conferences and interviews with IAAF spokespeople took place in English, necessitating a translation into French. Eurosport is an example of how the French voice-over used the term “sexuality” instead of “gender” in Nick Davies’ interview in English, who therefore declared to the French audience: “We need to know and learn more about her real sexuality, it’s our duty.”129 Difficulties linked to designations were made obvious when certain media sources hesitated in their use of terms: “sparking a debate on the gender sex.”130 This reflexion about language arises among several medical stakeholders. When she described a colloquium with intersex people, doctor Claire Bouvattier explained: … the first person who raised her hand asked me “why are you saying ‘anomalies’ and ‘repair’?” I asked myself “what is she talking about?” and then I realized that when I said “anomaly” it was a sickness and when I said “repair,” it meant that it wasn’t normal. And yet, the weight of language is still largely overlooked, as is the confrontation between science and intersex people. Such a confrontation was to emerge through the figure of the researcher in social sciences.

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The emergence of a different kind of expert: the social scientist and bioethicist In Marie Claire magazine, the arrival of doctors in 1967 “inaugurated, with the contraceptive pill, the recourse to scientific expertise to legitimize contraception” (Pavard 2009: 105). The two opposing methods – represented by doctors on one hand and churches on the other – could therefore be compared and questioned. In this way, the scientific discourse was used to challenge prejudices inherent to the Judeo-Christian tradition. In the case of Caster Semenya, the medical field became a way to legitimize the validity of the difference between men and women. A rare number of media sources questioned this authoritative scientific argument and appealed to experts in humanities. Between 2009 and 2010, some experts were cited in the corpus: Anaïs Bohuon “historian”, Catherine Louveau “sports sociologist,” and Torbjörn Tännsjö, professor in moral philosophy at Stockholm University.131 Later on, in 2014, Katrina Karkazis, an American researcher in bioethics, was also mentioned. This voice subsequently developed when a parallel was drawn with Dutee Chand (100 meter race, October 2014), thus relegating Caster Semenya to a former example. The article132 entitled “Testosterone Operations” questioned medical authority: Is it normal for a woman to have to undergo surgery as drastic as the partial removal of the clitoris in order to compete at a high level? Are ethics in sports and medicine compatible with the act of encouraging athletes to endure such interventions, just to make them conform to biological norms established by sports federations? In a quote, taken from an interview with Katrina Karkazis, “senior research scholar at the Centre for Biomedical Ethics at Stanford University” in the New York Times,133 Karkazis asked “if sports ethics consents to “these policies happening behind closed doors”. She is described as being “outraged”, and denounces practices that are “not founded on science.” The sports world is qualified as being “obsessed,”, “hunting down” athletes for possible cheating. The non-medicalization discourse was also supported by Vincent Guillot in Le Monde Magazine.134 When talking about Dutee Chand who was “diagnosed as ‘hyperandrogenous,’”135 L’Équipe modalized the link to science. In the article, testosterone was described as “known to improve sports performances” but the author continued by saying explicitly: But such a link has been contested scientifically and opponents to this regulation highlight the arbitrary nature of such a rule and the test’s devastating psychological impact. To which the IAAF responded that they acted in this way to maintain “equality in the competition.”

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Libération noted that Dutee Chand was “supported” by “a researcher and activist, Doctor Payoshni Mitra” for whom “this policy is discriminatory and dangerous.” He advised Chand to avoid any surgery, not knowing what the possible repercussions could be.136 The media differentiated at this level (community claims based on values and norms). Another argument started being challenged: the need for categorizations to avoid cheating and inequalities, based on a view of sports that claimed to be naturally equalitarian. Social science researchers and bioethicists insisted on the fact that such a posture was socially constructed.137 Questioning the medical discourse has gained in legitimacy (Dreger 1998, Harding 1991). The role of science in the construction of sexual identities (Gardey, 2006; Laqueur, 1992; Fausto-Sterling, 2000) and the historicity of supposedly scientific conceptions of sex (Foucault, 1976) were uncovered by research, thus highlighting the fact that modes of production of scientific knowledge were situated (Haraway; Pickering, 1992; Pestre, 1995; Hacking, 1999). Advances in biological knowledge has rendered the identification of gender in intersex people more complex (Kraus et al. 2008), posing the question of “the place of medicalization in the articulation of sex/gender” (Macé, 2010:  512). The history of medical interventions on intersexuation (Kraus et al., 2000) shows how different definitions and views concerning the relationship between gender and sex have had an impact on the way intersex people are treated138 and cared for medically (Kessler, 1990). However, in many cases, media coverage tends to perpetuate medical and clinical paradigms (Karkazis, 2008:  263). This is an interesting point considering that the medical field stresses the fundamental biological difference between men and women, while not accounting for that difference in medical protocols. Both in the specialized press and within the general public, many studies have noted that “a person’s sex can change everything in regards to the efficiency of some and the symptoms of others. This is a crucial discovery by biologists, which is nevertheless completely ignored,” mainly because the female sex is under-represented at all levels of medical research.139 By linking social representations with medical diagnoses, we also looked at the role played by the media in scientific communication (Moirand, 2007). Karkazis showed how the links between the INSA141 and the media evolved. She also showed that the INSA imposed itself as a credible protagonist, as it argued that it brought “the patients’ perspective”142 when discussing issues with scientists. The media therefore played an important part in the dissemination of information. Activists improved in their ability to work with journalists and generate publicity (Karkazis, 2008). Journalists took on missions to search for the truth through the noble genre of the investigative piece. Because the IAAF positioned itself using the same two elements (truth and investigation), the media had to dig further. Its role expanded when the IAAF announced that the medical results would remain confidential: “There will be no public announcement surrounding the conclusions made by the group of scientists”143 (see also Chapter 9 by Sloop). Non-standard perspective had

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been the justification for reporting the “case.” To “solve” it, the media therefore called upon anonymous sources: “according to a source with whom I spoke”144 or it used media sources: “Australian newspapers have since said, citing an anonymous source involved in the IAAF tests,”145 “between leaks in the locker room and more or less secret investigations.”146 After it was announced that the results would be kept secret and that Caster Semenya would retain her medal, the Romanian daily paper added: “The press speculated that the athlete was a hermaphrodite based on the results of the tests, but this has not been officially confirmed by the IAAF.” The Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera surtitled “The IAAF is backing away: ‘this is not an official position’” with the following title “Caster Semenya is a hermaphrodite” and the subtitle “Rumours from the Australian press: no ovaries but internal male testes that secrete testosterone.” The challenge of accessing sources was mentioned by many media outlets and Le Monde talked about “generalized mayhem.” There were also numerous mentions of the media as information sources. Some media outlets then chose to differentiate themselves (Véron, 1988) from others: while they preserved an editorial line citing those same media outlets, they also added a critical dimension to their discourse with the use of expressions such as “cruel tabloids.” Institutions then reacted to the media: “The IAAF has noted statements in recent media articles regarding the athlete Caster Semenya, … We would like to emphasise that these should not be considered as official statements by the IAAF.” 147 The same thing occurred in televised reports retracing Caster Semenya’s story when she returned to competition: the controversy surrounding her and the announcement of her return was materialized through images of international newspaper headlines (particularly South African titles). In that way, both the accusations and the rehabilitation seemed to stem directly from the media.148

Conclusion Relations with the media are complex, but the media seems to play an essential role, even when it comes to the relationship between the medical world and patients. Various steps have been taken to work on the representations of sexual and gendered identities: The Inter-LGBT calls upon the responsibility of the media: it is urgent to learn to speak correctly about Trans people and to consider them with respect and goodwill. We must also question the conveyed stereotypes around the roles assigned to men and women by society. These stereotypes are at the root of unhappiness and sexism.149 Claire Bouvattier talked about the closed worlds of the media and of doctors and pointed to specific challenges: “journalists come and say ‘yes, it’s good to talk but now I’d like a family.’” Without images, some journalists have backed out of reporting the story, but the general shame surrounding

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genital organs makes it difficult to create images (Tamet, 2010). This is made even more difficult with the need to explain the scientific facts to a general audience. Nevertheless, in her book, Karkazis (2008) referred to a doctor’s testimony in which he explained that he had decided to change his treatment practice based on his clinical experience and on popular media coverage.150 Claire Bouvattier gave many examples for the anticipation of social norms in patient relations, in the classroom and in the types of sports played (see also Chapter 4 by Brunet and Salle). Finally, we shall end with methodological considerations outlined in this chapter and that merit further discussion: it is important not to infer representations based on a small corpus, one must include different countries in the corpus, analyze representations on a long timeframe, assign these representations to discursive frameworks (newspapers, press conferences, releases), acknowledge medical considerations, social aspects (parents, intersex people, associations) and political elements (imposed occidental norms of femininity) and go deeper into the sociological aspects surrounding the logics of the various involved parties.

Notes 1 Translated from French by Anne Losq. 2 Some protagonists, such as the International Olympic Committee, see media as a tool to change discriminatory representations. Resolution, Second IOC World Conference on Women and Sport, 2000. Fifth IOC World Conference on Women and Sport, Los Angeles, 2012. 3 I use here the media expression “Semenya’s case” without judgment. 4 Two sub-corpuses were created. The first one, an exhaustive corpus, is composed of all articles (of all types) that mentioned Caster Semenya between 15 August 2009 and July 2010, when her return to competition was announced. The second corpus, more fluctuant, consisted in the media coverage around Caster Semenya between July 2010 and December 2014. 5 Le Monde, Libération, Le Figaro, El Pais, Le Soir, The Telegraph, Corierre Della Sera, Romania Libera, Dagens Nyheter. 6 Most of the research on gender focused on mainstream media, mainly using as references national daily papers. Damian-Gaillard and Montañola, 2014. 7 Le Point (news magazine), L’Équipe and L’Équipe Magazine (sports press), Elle (women’s press), Jeune Afrique (weekly paper focusing on Africa), Tétu (LGBT paper), Eurosport (television channel specializing in sports), Paris-Match (magazine), LCI (television). 8 Ruth Amossy differentiates between the conscience of the pre-constructed, deconstruction and reconstruction (1991). 9 Our analysis now focuses on the initial articles published in each of the various media sources in the corpus. 10 Elle, 25/08/09. 11 L’Humanité, 21/08/09. 12 Le Monde, 21/08/09. 13 Libération, 21/08/09. 14 Le Figaro, 21/08/09. 15 L’Équipe, 20/08/09. 16 L’Humanité, 21/08/09.

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17 Libération, 21/08/09. “Unknown at the beginning of the season, Semenya had made a splash at the Junior African Championships on 31  July in Mauritius: alone the whole way, two laps around the track, just like in training – despite strong winds – in 1’56’’72, best world performance of the year, all age categories included. A year earlier, she had taken 2’04’’ to complete her two laps. At the Junior World championships in 2008, she had stopped in the initial series”. The same device is used in Le Figaro, 21/08/09 and Eurosport, 1’54. 18 After the race, the athlete wasn’t cornered by “journalists wanting to know more about this 18 year old phenomenon who had just crushed the 800 meter race in 1’55’’ … not even by her fans … ”, “but by a team of doctors led by the IAAF’s chief doctor” or also “she didn’t experience discomfort but caused great discomfort around her”. 19 Daily Telegraph, 19/09/09. “South African teenager Caster Semenya produced the fifth fastest 800 meters time in history to become a world champion at the age of 18 on Wednesday night, but she also found herself at the centre of a controversy over whether she is a woman or really a man.” 20 Daily Telegraph, 20/08/09. 21 Le Monde, 21/08/09. 22 Libération, 21/08/09. 23 Le Monde, 21/08/09. 24 Paris-Match, 20/08/09. 25 Le Monde, 21/08/09. 26 L’Humanité, 21/08/09. The image broadcast by television was one of Semenya dusting off her shoulders (www.wat.tv/video/eurosport-semenya-celebree-1qom h_2f1o7_.html, accessed August 2014). 27 Le Monde, 21/08/09. 28 Le Figaro, 26/08/09. 29 Aujourd’hui en France, 3/09/09. 30 Libération, 21/08/2009. Statement made by Pierre Weiss, general secretary of the IAAF. 31 Le Figaro, 26/08/09. 32 L’Humanité, 21/08/09. 33 Paris-Match, 14/01/10. 34 L’Équipe, 20/08/09. 35 Aujourd’hui en France 21/08/09. 36 Le Figaro, 21/08/09. 37 Elle, 25/08/09. 38 LCI, www.wat.tv/video/medecin-douteux-dans-entourage-1qsog_2exyh_.html (accessed August 2014). 39 This was the case for Caster Semenya’s agent or for “the South African team’s press agent”, both of whom appeared as key speakers. The second defends the notion that many athletes look like men, L’Humanité. 40 Elle refers to it as a “drama series” (“feuilleton”) 11/09/09. 41 The triggering event is unexpected and generates surprise; the rest of the story is then predictable. The moment of crisis is also a key market for media outlets, as they are placed in a competitive environment. 42 Le Monde, 20/08/09. 43 Libération, 21/08/09. 44 Le Soir, 20/08/09. 45 L’Équipe, 20/08/09. Following the IAAF’s expression “She is not ready to face this,” Le Figaro (21/08/09) adds: “She will nevertheless need to be. As long as the question of her sex isn’t resolved, her exceptional athletic abilities will take second place”. The media source doesn’t provide precisions or markers in regards to enunciation, and therefore endorses the statement.

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51 52 53 54 55 56

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Sandy Montañola Libération, 21/08/09. L’Équipe, 20/08/09. L’Équipe, 20/08/09. “To me, she is not a woman. The one who won, South African Semenya, I don’t even respect her anymore, to me she isn’t a woman, and I also regret it for the others” declared Elisa Cusma Piccione at the end of the final. “The gender test? – asks the Italian athlete – it was already a success with Pamela Jelimo, but they still manage to make these people win medals. It’s useless to play with these kinds of things, and it’s unfair.” Semenya’s competitors supported the IAAF’s discourse at different levels depending on the available frameworks and journalistic principles. For example, while statements made by the Italian athlete – who finished sixth in the competition – were mentioned in the French media, they were much more developed in the Italian daily newspaper Corriere Della Sera. “The IAAF’s role as the international governing body for the sport of Athletics is first and foremost to guarantee the fairness and integrity of the competitions that are organized under its Rules. Men typically achieve better performances in sport because they benefit from higher levels of androgens than women” IAAF, Medical Manual, Chapter  13, Special issues of female athletes. Hyperandrogenism Regulations, Explanatory notes, p. 1. Several authors have challenged the possibility of a real advantage. See Ritchie et al., 2008. Such representations influence the descriptions of bodies by the media, as was shown by Honoré (2007) when he highlighted the infantilization of Japanese players in L’Équipe with the use of terms such as “kiddos”. Le Figaro wondered about potential advantages in sports, 21/08/09. Le Monde, 21/08/09. In Elle, Heidi Krieger symbolized the effects of a Statebased doping system. As steroids led to the emergence of masculine traits, the athlete’s sex change was finalized in 1997. L’Équipe, in reference to Erika/Erik Schinegger. As early as 19 August, the Daily Telegraph explained: “The IAAF revealed that they have been investigating 18-year-old South African’s gender after her breakthrough performance when winning the African junior championship title at the end of July.” This term can be found in the IAAF’s press statements. www.iaaf.org/news/ news/statement-on-caster-semenya (accessed July 2015). Such diversity has largely been silenced and is specific to media enunciations (Marnette, 2004). South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee. African National Congress. We previously noticed that, in the French press, sporting authorities had the strongest presence (32.62%), followed by political authorities (17.73%) and Semenya’s family (13.83%). Other speakers represented less than 10%. Montañola and Olivesi, 2016. www.olympic.org/fr/cio (accessed July 2015), see the column “faire vivre les valeurs olympiques”  (“embodying Olympic values”), thus subscribing to the social discourse of sports as being beneficial. L’Humanité, 21/08/09. Jeune Afrique, 23/08/09. L’Équipe, L’Humanité, 12/09/09. L’Équipe, 12/09/09. Jeune Afrique, 23/08/09. L’Humanité, 19/09/09. L’Humanité, 19/09/09. L’Humanité, 26/08/09.

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71 Le Monde 25/08/09; Le Figaro 26/08/09. 72 Le Monde, 25/08/09, Reuters Image, www.lemonde.fr/sport/video/2009/08/25/ accueil-triomphal-en-afrique-du-sud-pour-caster-semenya_1231897_3242.html (accessed September 2014). 73 We also find this form when the “results” were announced. On the 9/11/10, Paris-Match titled “Athletics: Caster Semenya appears to be a woman” citing the BBC. It then titled, two days later: “The 800 meter World Champion appears to be a hermaphrodite”, citing the Sydney Morning Herald Tribune. 74 Le Monde and Aujourd’hui en France. 75 L’Équipe, 26/08/09. 76 Le Figaro, 21/08/09. 77 The “restroom” anecdote was relayed in many media outlets. 78 Aujourd’hui en France, 3/09/09. 79 Libération, 21/08/10. In their work on Semenya’s presence in American and South African mainstream media, Cooky et  al. (2013) uncovered the ways in which the media challenged the man/woman duality, while still confirming the athlete’s femininity with expressions such as “our girl.” This posture is described as uncommon in South Africa: “women who defy gender norms in south Africa are often the targets of hate crimes, curative rape, and homophobia” (43). Although the North sees testing as a neutral scientific process, the South sees in the test a reference to “scientific” knowledge that could be used to justify racial differences and legitimize colonialism. 80 L’Équipe, 16/10/09. 81 L’Équipe, 16/10/09. 82 Le Monde, 27/09/09. 83 L’Équipe, citing Karyan Maughan, journalist at Cape Argus. See also France 24. 84 Dagens Nyheter, 20/09/09. As early as 24 August, 2009, the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera presented a headline accusing the coach of conducting hormonal doping. 85 Le Figaro, 6/11/09. 86 Le Figaro, 6/11/09. 87 L’Équipe, 20/11/09. 88 www.wat.tv/video/eurosport-news-caster-semenya-1sx2n_2f1o7_.html (accessed August 2013). 89 L’Équipe, 8/09/09. 90 L’Équipe, 20/09/09. 91 Caster’s return was described as a “political rally” (L’Équipe). According to the party in opposition (Democratic Alliance), “The ANC is trying to draw attention away from its poor track record.” Later on, Thobeka Macgai – the instigator of an initiative to help Caster Semenya financially when the athlete had lost all her sponsors – was not mentioned in the media. Only The Canadian Press (which wasn’t part of our corpus of texts) titled on 28 October 2010 “Semenya can’t find sponsor, accepts help from Facebook campaigners.” 92 L’Équipe 20/08/09 therefore noted that the South African federation was conducting the tests “slowly”. The author then modalized by saying “a gold medal is always good to have.” 93 Romania Liberia, 9/9/09. 94 Romania Liberia, 9/9/09. 95 Libération, 21/08/09. 96 Libération, 21/08/09. 97 L’Équipe, 15/09/09. 98 Libération, 2/10/09. 99 Le Figaro, 21/08/09. 100 The Daily Telegraph, 19/08/09.

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Sandy Montañola Le Soir, 6/07/10. L’Humanité, 21/08/09. Têtu, April 2011. Le Figaro, 21/08/09. Le Monde, 21/08/09. L’Équipe, 16/10/09. In Le Monde, another specialized profession appeared. Ross Tucker, “expert in sports physiology at the Sports Science Institute of Capetown” commented on sports progression. L’Équipe, 16/10/09. L’Équipe, 16/10/09. They can be found in the American media explaining the IAAF’s choice: www. nytimes.com/2010/01/21/sports/olympics/21ioc.html?_r=0; www.nytimes.com/ 2014/10/07/sports/sprinter-dutee-chand-fights-ban-over-her-testosterone-level. html (accessed August 2014). In this sentence “it is estimated that one in 4,500 children presents this type of disorder each year in France, though we must point out that such disorders are not deadly.” This concept is developed by Ariel Levy in his long report named “Either/or” www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/11/30/eitheror (accessed August 2014, thanks to S. Camporesi for this reference). Interview with Claire Bouvattier (2014). Le Figaro, 20/08/09. L’Équipe, 20/08/09. The Daily Telegraph, 20/08/09. Ibid., 20/08/09. Le Monde, 27/09/09. We note the appearance of a panel of experts presented by the IAAF: “recognised leading experts in the field (science, law, ethics, sport, athletes, women’s groups and intersex organisations).” IAAF Medical Manual, Chapter 13, Special issues of Female Athletes. Hyperandrogenism Regulations, Explanatory Notes, p. 1. http://stop.genitalmutilation.org. In the DSM IV, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, American Psychiatric Association and the ICD, International Classification of Diseases, Macé shows how the same difficulties occurred around homosexuality to strike out its definition as a “mental illness” by the American Psychiatric Association. Interview with Claire Bouvattier (2014). For the French press. www.cfsh.ca/fr/your_sexual_health/gender-identity-and-sexual-orientation (accessed July 2015). www.isna.org/faq/hermaphrodite (accessed August 2015). We must add that the choice of terms is dependent upon cultural norms, of which we are reminded here: “For South Africa, as for any sane person, such a thing (hermaphroditism) doesn’t exist ” (Jeune Afrique, 28/09/09). Le Figaro, 30/08/11. France Ô. Defined by Orpha “the portal for rare diseases and orphan drugs”, www. orpha.net/consor/cgi-bin/OC_Exp.php?Lng=FR&Expert=753 (accessed August 2014). Eurosport, 1’54. Le Soir, 6/07/10. Dagens Nyheter, 24/09/09. Libération, 13/05/2014. 10/03/14.

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134 22/04/11. In which Caster Semenya was cited as an example of an intersex person. The article reflected on the different postures of organizations, depending on the lexicon they used. 135 14/10/14. 136 21/09/14. In August 2015, the CAS suspended the IAAF hyperandrogenism regulations www.tas-cas.org/fileadmin/user_upload/Media_Release_3759_FINAL. pdf (accessed August 2015). 137 Going beyond the French media, we can mention the contribution of Silvia Camporesi, bioethicist: www.huffingtonpost.com/silvia-camporesi/the-burdenof-proving-femininity-in-athletics_b_6940562.html and https://soundcloud.com/ bbc-world-service/what-makes-a-woman (accessed July 2015). 138 With a shared history between Stoller, Money, Remeir, Agnès 139 Sciences et vie, July/August, 2014, p. 49. 140 The INSA was founded in 1993 by Cheryl Chase and ceased its activity in 2008. Its objective was “changing the medical management of intersex infants” (Karkazis: 256). 141 The handbook of clinical guidelines for parents was published in 2006, p. 257. 142 Tétu, 21/11/09. 143 Jeune Afrique, 7/09/09. 144 Jeune Afrique, 23/09/09. 145 Tétu, 21/11/09. 146 www.iaaf.org/news/news/statement-on-caster-semenya 147 www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MqeoSxSy3w. Join the Thank You Mama movement at http://facebook.com/ThankYouMamaSA! P&G is a Worldwide Partner of the London 2012 Olympic Games and a sponsor of the SA Olympic Team. And most of all, P&G is the Proud Sponsor of Moms! 17 July 2012. 148 Press release, www.inter-lgbt.org/spip.php?article1242 (accessed September 2014). 149 Karkazis, 2008: 264.

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Rhetorical and power issues in the media 147 stéréotypes: fonctionnements ordinaires et mises en scène, Paris, L’Harmattan, pp.151–162. Hubé N. (2008), Décrocher la “Une”. Le choix des titres de première page de la presse quotidienne en France et en Allemagne (1945–2005). Presses Universitaires de Strasbourg. Jodelet D. (Ed.), (1994). Les représentations sociales, Paris, PUF. Kane M. J. and Buysse J. A. (2005), “Intercollegiate media guide covers as contested terrain: A longitudinal analysis”, Sociology of Sport Journal, no. 22, pp.214–238. Karkazis K. (2008), Fixing Sex. Intersex, Medical Authority and Lived Experience, Durham, NC, Duke University Press. Kessler, S.J. (1990), The Medical Construction of Gender: case management of intersexed infants, Journal of women in culture and sodew, Vol. 16, no. 11, Chicago, IL, University of Chicago. Koren R. (2004), “Argumentation, enjeux et pratique de l’‘engagement neutre’: le cas de l’écriture de presse”, Semen 17 §9. Koren R. (2008), “Pour une éthique du discours: prise de position et rationalité axiologique”, Argumentation et Analyse du Discours 1 §14. Kraus C. (2011), Am I my brain or my genitals? A nature-culture controversy in the hermaphrodite debate from the mid-1960s to the late 1990s. Gesnerus, 68(1), pp. 80–106. Kraus C., Gardey D. and Löwy I. (2000), “La bicatégorisation par sexe à l’épreuve de la science”, L’invention du naturel: les sciences et la fabrication du féminin et du masculin. Kraus C., Perrin C., Rey S., Gosselin L., Guillot V. (2008), “Démédicaliser les corps, politiser les identités: convergences des luttes féministes et intersexes”, Nouvelles Questions Féministes, 27(1), pp. 4–15. Laqueur, T. (1992), La Fabrique du sexe. Essai sur le corps et le genre en Occident. [Making sex, body and gender from the Greeks to Freud], Paris, Gallimard. Lerbinger, Otto. (1986), Managing corporate crises: strategies for executives, Boston, Barrington Press. Legavre J. B. (2007), “Je t’aime moi non plus. Les relations d’associés-rivaux entre journalistes et communicants, mémoire d’HDR”, in Sciences de l’information et de la communication, Université Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines. Lenoble B. (2004), “L’autopromotion de la presse en France (fin du XIXe-début du XXe siècle)”, Le Temps des Médias, no. 2, pp.29–40. Libaert T. (2010), La communication d’entreprise, Paris, Dunod. Lippmann W. (1922), Public Opinion, New York, Penguin Books. Löwy L. (2003), “Intersexe et transsexualités: les technologies de la médecine et la séparation du sexe biologique et du sexe social”, Cahiers du genre no.  34, pp. 81–104. Marnette, S. (2004), “L’effacement énonciatif dans la presse contemporaine”, Langages, 156, pp.51–54. Moirand S. (2007), Les discours de la presse quotidienne. Observer, analyser, comprendre. Paris, PUF. Macé E. (2010), “Ce que les normes de genre font aux corps/Ce que les corps trans font aux normes de genre”, Sociologie no. 4, pp. 497–515. Molotch, H. and Lester, M. (1997). “News as Purposive Behaviour”, Social meanings of news: A text-reader, 39, p. 193.

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Montañola S. (2007), “Représentation et stéréotypes dans l’image médiatique des boxeuses de haut niveau”, in Boyer H. (ed.), Stéréotypage, stéréotypes: fonctionnements ordinaires et mises en scène, Paris, L’Harmattan, pp. 215–224. Montañola S. (2008), “Reconfigurations des rapports sociaux de sexe: la médiatisation du corps sportif”, in Martin-Juchat F. and Galinon-Melenec B. (eds), Le corps communicant, le XXIème siècle civilisation du corps?, Paris, L’Harmattan, pp. 69–87. Montañola S. (2011), “La complexe médiatisation des sportives de haut niveau: le cas des championnats du monde d’athlétisme”, Sciences de la Société, no.  83, pp. 82–103. Montanola S. and Olivesi A. (2016), “Quels locuteurs pour quelles définitions de l’identité sexuée dans les médias? Le cas de Caster Semenya”, Le Discours et la langue, 8.2, forthcoming. Montañola S. and Souanef K. (2012), “Les études de lectorat et leurs discours: entre outil de gestion, mythe journalistique et instrumentalisation”, Sciences de la société, 84/85, pp.152–169. Montañola S., Romeyer H. and Souanef K. (2012), “Journalistes et communicants: cohabitation “forcée” et co-construction de l’information sportive. Les enjeux de l’information et de la communication, 13(1). Moirand S. (2007). “Les discours de la presse quotidienne (observer, analyser, comprendre)”, Linguistique nouvelle, pp. 71–99. Moscovici S. (1960), Etude de la représentation sociale de la psychanalyse. Paris, PUF. Moscovici S. (1986), “L’ère des représentations sociales”, in Doise W. and Palmonari A. (Eds), L’étude des représentations sociales. Neuchâtel: Delachaux et Niestlé. Mouillaud M. and Tétu, J.-F. (1989), Le journal quotidien. Lyon: Presses Universitaires de Lyon. Nouvelles Questions Féministes, (2008), 27, No. 1. Ollivier-Yaniv C. (2001), “L’indépendance des journalistes à l’épreuve du politique et de la communication: le localier, le chargé de communication et l’élu local”, Quaderni, 45(1), pp. 87–104. Pavard B. (2009), “Contraception et avortement dans Marie-Claire” (1955–1975): de la méthode des températures à la méthode Karman”, Le Temps des Médias, no. 12, pp. 100–113. Pestre D. (1995), Pour une histoire sociale et culturelle des sciences. Nouvelles définitions, nouveaux objets, nouvelles pratiques, Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales, Vol. 50, No. 3 pp. 487–522. Picard G. (2006), “Les médias au risque du management et du marketing”, Le Temps des Médias, no. 6, pp. 165–174. Pickering, A. (1992), ‘From science as knowledge to science as practice’, in A. Pickering, (ed.) Science as… Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, pp. 1–29. Picquart J. (2009), Ni homme, ni femme, enquête sur l’intersexuation, L’attrape-corps, La musardine. Pradié C. (2004), “L’irrésistible montée des études de marché dans la presse française (1920–1990)”, Le Temps des Médias, No. 3, pp. 126–137. Ritchie R., Reynard J. and Lewis T. (2008), “Intersex and the Olympic games”, in Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, No.101, pp. 395–399. Rieffel R. (2005), Que sont les médias? Pratiques, identités, influences, Paris, Gallimard coll.

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Rhetorical and power issues in the media 149 Révéret R. and Moreau J. N. (1997), Les médias et la communication de crise, Economica. Ringoot R. (2014), Analyser le discours de presse, Armand Colin. Robert B. and Verpeaux D. (1991), “Pourquoi et comment bâtir un plan de communication préventive” in Tixier M. (ed.), La communication de crise, Paris, McGraw Hill, pp. 81–103. Sacco F. and Germion G. (2001), “Le mythe de l’‘avantage génétique’ des sportifs africains” in Schweizerische Zeitschrift für ‘Sportmedizin und Sporttraumatologie’ 49(4), pp. 149–152. Salomé, D. (2011), Je suis né ni fille ni garçon, Eyrolles. Tamet J.-Y. (2010), “Malaise dans le destin de la différenciation sexuelle”, Le Coqhéron, 4 (203), pp. 11–15. Tavernier A. (2001), Paroles d’experts: rhétoriques journalistiques de recours aux paroles extérieures. Le Monde, Libération, Le Figaro: journaliste et sociologue, la construction d’un référentiel, Phd, université Lille 3. Tavernier A., Delforce B., Noyer J. and Legravre J. B. (2010), “Figures sociales des discours. Le ‘discours social’ en perspectives”, Editions du conseils scientifique de Lille 3, collection travaux et recherches, Université de Lille. Thomas C. (2008), “Journalistes cherchent bons communicants. L’exemple des rubricards Justice”, In Legavre Jean-Baptiste et Dauvin Pascal (Dir.) Les publics des journalistes, Paris: La dispute, pp. 19–43. Véron E. (1988), “Presse écrite et théorie des discours sociaux: production, réception, régulation” in Charaudeau P. (ed.), La presse. Produit, production, réception, Paris, Didier Erudition, pp. 11–25.

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“Caster Semenya – the ancients would have called her god”

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The international re-imagining and remaking of sex and the art of silence Elaine Salo

“I don’t give a damn about it.”1 This was Caster Semenya’s response to the media storm that broke over her apparent ambiguous sex status in 2009, shortly after she won a gold medal for the women’s 800  meter race at the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) meeting in Berlin. Even before Caster Semenya could celebrate her win at the official medal ceremony the news broke that she would have to undergo a series of medical tests to assess whether she was a bona fide member of the female sex. Caster Semenya’s response is one of the few statements that provides us with some insight into her perspective on the disturbing furore. One of the only other embodied statements we have from her was the hardship she experienced as sponsors vanished in the wake of the furore, and her determination to compete in international athletics, despite the claims that disparaged her personal integrity. Two years later, Caster Semenya demonstrated her determination to ensure her continued success on the track as she raced to second place in the women’s 800 meter race in the 2012 London Olympics. Caster Semenya elected to remain mainly silent throughout the entire affair about her gender and its aftermath. Caster Semenya’s silence about her experience, even today, seems open to interpretation and she leaves us somewhat uncertain about her true opinion about the undesirable position she found herself in, when she was cast as a spectacle on the spectacular global stage. I argue here that Caster Semenya’s silence became her only means to assert individual agency in the face of competing discursive regimes of power at the global and national levels. The International Association of Athletics Federations, and the South African sports administration, national sports scientists and politicians discursively dissected Caster Semenya like modern day Cuviers for their own ends. Caster Semenya’s body, the only material vehicle to the recognition of her personhood, was rendered immaterial, a discursive signifier to consolidating more powerful institutions’ claims in their creations of ‘truth’ in the process. Ultimately Caster Semenya’s interpretation of her experiential reality, as a young gifted woman athlete who rose from a humble rural background, to stardom on a global stage, was not

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“Caster Semenya – the ancients would have called her god” 151 allowed the space to be acknowledged. The media, sports administrators and sports scientists became Caster Semenya’s self-appointed representators, and the authorial voice of her experience. They picked over her embodied reality, guided by their own hegemonic frames of common sense truth making about gender and power in the sporting world. Caster Semenya remained silent, rather than begin to make sense of the complexities of her multiply located identity and diverse modalities of belonging, for others. Indeed her ability to live the disjuncture of time and space across the divided racial and gendered histories, geospatial and economic divides of rural and urban South Africa, while achieving international success on the athletic field continues to appear incredulous to those unaccustomed to living these divides. Even if Caster Semenya tried to interpret this reality to an uncomprehending global audience her attempts would have earned her further suspicion. The art of picking a careful, credible narrative of an extraordinary biography required the bridge of intersubjective histories lived across the socioeconomic, cultural and linguistic divides so commonplace in an unequal South Africa. That shared intersubjective bridge to facilitate the journey to credible meaning did not exist, and the discourse required to create it was inadequate or non existent. Silence became Caster Semenya’s strategy of managing and partly evading the disciplining power of global and local sports administrators and the sports scientists. These others claimed to speak for her but in effect their discourse became their particular disciplinary means to dissect, discuss and reflect upon the biological curiosity of the ‘hermaphroditic body’ to recreate their own perspectives about sex, gender, race and capacity to rule as well as national modalities of belonging in the postapartheid nation (Levy 2009; Hoad 2010; see also Rose and Liotard in this volume). The sports administrators, the media and the sports scientists usurped the media lacuna created by Caster Semenya’s silence, and filled it with their perceptions of the Caster Semenya event. In doing so they revealed their imbrication in a complex web of disciplining discourse emanating from two distinct sites of power, namely the global site of world athletics administration, and the national site of athletic governance and sports science in South Africa. The discourse about the Caster Semenya case that emanated from each of these two sites outlined the particular disciplinary aims of these global and local power regimes. All these experts drawn from the international athletic community, the scientific community, the media and prominent South African politicians added their voices in the national and international media as a means to discipline Caster Semenya’s body to contemporary dominant discourses first of binary categories of sex, gender and acceptable athletic personhood, and second about the capacity of Africans, and the accepted modalities of belonging in the postcolony. The disciplinary regime of discursive power that operated on Caster Semenya’s mute body at the global level aimed to police the norms of the acceptable feminine athletic person, and reinstantiate the heteronormative constructs of sex and gender. In contrast at the

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national level of athletics governance in South Africa two contesting discourses of power operated. The contestation, between the sports scientists on the one hand and sports administrators on the other, worked through the different significations each party imputed to Caster Semenya’s mute body, to convey their different perceptions about the capacity and credibility of black governance in sport in a postapartheid South Africa. A further debate, about the dominant claim to victimhood as the only dominant means of belonging in the postapartheid South African context, threaded through national politicians’ discourse, in response both to the IAAF’s decision on the Caster Semenya case, and to local detractors who questioned the credibility of Caster Semenya’s story. These diverse regimes of discursive power, which emanate from global and national sites of athletics governance, speak to the theoretical debates in three key areas in postcolonial scholarship: namely the debates about power, voice and agency in postcolonial and black feminisms; second the place and personhood of individuals such as Caster Semenya who happen to occupy a place on the spectrum of sex that does not fit the tidy binaries of male and female sex and their corollary categories of heteronormative masculinity and femininity. Third these discourses speak to our theoretical conceptions of temporal continuities and disjunctures, in African modernities, and how we construct gendered modalities of belonging in contemporary African societies. In Chapter 6 of this volume Fabien Rose presents a finely honed analysis on the discursive construction of ‘intersex’ and so it is not necessary to repeat his exploration of these constructs here. Instead I want to draw upon the theoretical debate about power and silence to parse the complex entanglement between these two actions more fully; and to locate my analysis of the Caster Semenya case in the existing literature. Second I examine the controversy that ensued regarding Caster Semenya’s rights to recognition as a person, and as a female athlete between the IAAF and the national South African athletics federation, that point to the disjuncture between the discursive modalities of acceptable athletic femininity in global athletic governance and those of its affiliated national bodies. I parse these multiple discourses in relation to African postcolonial debates about temporality, modernity and gender to show how each of these discourses reveal assumptions about femininity, sex, race, capacity and modernity, emanating from, and specific to the global location of the International Association of Athletics Federations, on the one hand, and the national location of sports administration in postapartheid South Africa on the other (to see how this “South African voice” is presented in European media see Chapter 7 by Montañola and Chapter 5 by Olivesi). Finally I ask what the national debates tell us about the meanings that elite South Africans may impute onto rural locations and rural people such as Caster Semenya that link to older geospatial prejudices and stereotypes and what we might learn about the assumptions of the ‘acceptable’ South African citizen in a democracy newly emergent in the glaring spotlight of the global stage.

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Power and silence as agentive strategy When the Caster Semenya case broke in 2009, I had just begun my tenure as director of the Institute for Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Pretoria, where she is currently studying and training. I considered inviting Caster Semenya to speak, and tell her part of the story to the university community. However, the media storm that broke over her head, and the ensuing responses from prominent South African politicians and sports administrators, only appeared to perpetuate the symbolic violence to which Caster Semenya was subjected, in the international athletics arena (Bourdieu, 1986). I watched the national television broadcasts in dismay as Caster Semenya remained almost sullenly silent at press conferences and others, national politicians and senior sports administrators spoke on her behalf. Hoad (2010) and Macharia (2009) have outlined the ethic of care in writing about the Caster Semenya case lest we contribute to the Cuvier-like dissections and observations that threatened her dignity and undermined her achievements as an accomplished athlete. I decided to respect Caster Semenya’s silence and not to issue the invitation to speak in keeping with Hoad and Macharia’s call to such an ethic of care and troubled by my own misgivings about the request. The complex meanings of silence and its silhouetted character vis a vis structures of power are central concerns to scholars writing from and about positions of marginality. Gayatri Spivak’s seminal essay, Can the Subaltern Speak (1999) posed a crucial question about representation, voice and discourse in scholarly research. Her contribution assisted in identifying the exclusive circulation of discourse about marginal bodies and how such representations are linked to an exclusive global political economy of knowledge / power systems. The subaltern is silent in the Western political economy of knowledge because these scholars operate within a closed cultural discursive regime and so remain deaf to the subaltern’s voice. Similarly Chandra Talpade Mohanty (1991) has argued that Westen cultural circuits of representation render a stereotypical image of postcolonial women as powerless and voiceless. In attempts to give voice to marginal women’s voices in scholarly and analytical discourse, Amrita Basu (1995; 2010) and Richa Nagar (2006) have engaged in alternative scholarly practices as a means of discursive agency. Basu has incorporated the writings of postcolonial women into scholarly collections whilst Nagar has enaged in collaborative research and writing with ordinary impoverished women as a means to render their voices audible (Nagar, 2006). All in all these attempts have sought to break the silence of marginal women in powerful circulating regimes of discursive power. Their actions underline black feminist Audre Lorde’s (2007) condemnation of silence as a mechanism of oppression of marginal women. Lorde notes that silence is imbricated with fear of power “In the cause of silence, each of us draws the face of her own fear – fear of contempt, of censure, or some judgment, or recognition, of challenge, of annihilation.”(2007:40). Silence, is often the necessary response to avoid

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power and speaks to the recognition of its naturalised presence even in the discourse available to marginalised groups such as black women. Such postcolonial and black feminist scholarship has in various ways identified the process of parochial exclusion that resides in discursive regimes of power, and the discursive practices that render visible marginal women’s vocal agency. However, in the impetus to give voice to and insist upon an audience for the voice of marginalised women in the margins, the literature does not pay attention to the possibility of silence as an agentive choice in a context where wider contexts of discursive power regimes can have real material effect. In Caster Semenya’s case such material effect was twofold. The professional sports establishment rendered her speechless even if she spoke up, or as she struggled to find the language to contest sophisticated political and scientistic discourse. In a context layered with multiple structural constraints, silence seemed to be Caster’s strategy that she used to confront the powerful athletic adminstration with their intentions to pathologise a body that defied their categories. She remained silent as they insisted upon surgical modification of her body to fit their normative expectations of athletic femininity. Her silence allowed her athletic victories to be foregrounded as the achievements of a superbly athletic, female body now deemed anarchic and threatening to the well ordered categories of gendered competition in the IAAF. Caster Semenya’s silence also suggested that the otherwise powerful global and national lingua franca, English, provided her with insufficient tools to communicate the personal experience of a life lived within and through the complexities of sex and gender. For if she did try to explain she may have encountered the anger that women such as Kathrine Switzer confronted, when they dared to excel in this previously male dominated space.2 Finally her silence could be interpreted as the most suitable response to traverse the ellipsis between simple villagers’ comprehension that Caster Semenya is acceptably feminine and an oustanding athlete, and the IAAF’s perplexing incredulity at such a possiblity. At the national level the professional discourse emanating variously from sports scientists, adminstrators and politicians all informed the complex layered meaning of black capacity to govern, as well as the means for people with indeterminate gender to claim citizenship and belonging in postapartheid South Africa. Caster Semenya’s right to speak on her own behalf was claimed by senior sports administrators and the sports scientists, as part of a wider debate about the capacity of black South Africans to lead national institutions such as the South African Athletics Federation or the meaning of Caster Semenya as the embodiment of women’s struggles in contemporary South Africa. Caster Semenya’s opinions about her remarkable journey to athletic stardom as well as to convince her competitors at local and national level that she was in fact female were remarkably silent. Her personal silence in the media about her gendered experiences was quite uncommon, and suggestive of the meanings of silence as agency. It also pointed to the possibility

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that the language to speak about living within the interstices of discrete categories of sex and gender may not yet exist.

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The IAAF and the negotiated settlement of ‘gender testing’ In 2009 Caster Semenya burst onto the international amateur athletics stage at the Berlin World Championships as she won the women’s 800 meters. As she basked in the glory of winning gold, her competitors complained that she was not a woman and should not have been allowed to run. Comments such as “These kinds of people should not run with us. For me, she is not a woman she is man” from Italian competitor Elisa Cusma Piccione and “Just look at her” from Mariya Savinova, reported in the international media, suggested that their visual perceptions of Caster Semenya did not meet their constructs of a normatively feminine athlete. That the reporters elected to foreground these responses also spoke to the latters’ role in creating the image of Caster Semenya as an impostor. The media reports of these responses were juxtaposed with the visual images Caster Semenya’s muscular body and her strong jawline, as well as her deep voice, her small breasts, her blackness and her dominance over her more experienced European counterparts that seemed to be so antithetical to acceptable femininity even for women athletes in Berlin. Her physical dominance, as an African woman, was enough to evoke contempt and to induce doubt in these competitors’ minds that she was feminine. Her racial difference as regards the performativity of femininity did not assist. Her hair neatly braided into tight cornrows, pulled away from her face, an otherwise ordinary feminine hairstyle amongst African women, yet so different in the European context, accentuated her strong facial features and only seemed to strengthen their doubts about her gender as well as her sex. Media headlines cast further doubt on the 18 year old’s integrity and sensibility of selfhood as they suggested that either Caster Semenya or the South African Association of Athletics Federations had cheated. Time magazine’s headlines read “Could this Women’s World Champ be a Man?” (Adams, 2009) whilst the South African national weekly City Press read “Caster may have been treated” (18 July 2010). As Anita Brady (2011) argues, the question whether the IAAF’s own categories of female, or their ethnocentric means of determining what counts as acceptably feminine did not arise at all in most media reports on the affair3 (see also Rose, Montañola and Olivesi in this volume). The international suspicions surrounding Caster’s gender and the embodied materiality of her sex continued even though Athletics South Africa, the national athletics federation, produced the bureaucratic evidence, her birth certificate, that proclamed her to be female. In addition, Michael Seme, her coach, referred the IAAF and the media to her roommates in Berlin who had reportedly seen Caster Semenya naked and witnessed the external evidence that she was indeed female. Yet these cultural indicators of evidence of her femininity and of her female sex were inadequate for the

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IAAF. Caster Semenya, it seemed, could not provide a performance that was adequate to meet the parochial IAAF normative requirements of gender, and so her sex had to be tested. Anita Brady suggests the Caster Semenya case supported Judith Butler’s argument, that sex like gender is produced by discursive regimes of gender and is contingent upon the latter’s cultural signifiers. Butler argues gender is not to culture as sex is to nature; gender is also the discursive / cultural means by which sexed nature or a natural sex is produced and established as “prediscursive” prior to culture, a politically neutral surface on which culture acts (Butler 1993 cited in Brady 2011:3) Sex is assumed to be a natural, immutable fact in the athletics world. However the discursive construction of sex and its contingency upon gender performativity set in place the unravelling of Caster Semenya’s sex, threatened to erode her deepest sense of self, and the biographic gendered markers of her lived self. Caster Semenya’s subjective experiences and her biography as an African woman, a member of humanity, was being discursively erased even as the anatomical ‘fact’ of her humanity was being determined through a deeply social process of discussion, debate and consensus management between the biomedical establishment. The irony of remaking Caster Semenya’s body through a process of discursive unravelling and reconstruction could not be more resounding (Brady, 2011). In short, the essence and limits of gender (in this case woman) and its contingent sex (female) had to be determined through the social act of expert discussion by gynaecologists, endocrinologists, psychologists and gender experts, thereby reproducing, and policing the discursive regimes of biomedicine that naturalise the ‘fact’ of the discretely sexed body and the associated embodied performativity of gender. Caster Semenya’s life had been rendered so unbearable she went into hiding to escape media attention, amidst concerns for her well being. The IAAF never made public the results of Caster Semenya’s gender tests (see Sloop in this volume), although it is now widely accepted that she is ‘intersexed’ rather than discretely ‘female’. Her status as ‘intersexed’ it seemed, produced, according to the IAAF, the seemingly ‘unfair’ natural advantage of producing more testosterone than the ‘average female range’ (this assumption is discussed in this volume by Camporesi and Maugeri). She could only be allowed to participate in future IAAF events as a ‘woman’ if she was ‘treated’ by acceptable medical procedures to fit neatly into the boundaries of testosterone levels that were considered ‘normal’ for females (Karkazis et al. 2012; see also Camporesi and Maugeri; Bohuon and Rodriguez in this volume). The medical act of remaking a natural body to meet the IAAF’s social demarcations of female sex was not questioned as a grotesque bungling, an invasive procedure on an otherwise healthy athletic body, much like female genital mutilation. Such treatment, Rebecca Greenfield writes, left

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Caster Semenya “looking more feminine – because she has to. Due to recent rule changes by the IAAF women who want to compete must have certain testosterone levels that do not exceed the male threshold.”4 This intervention appears to be ironic in the world of athletics where natural advantage is what produces world class athletes, and where the ‘unfair’ advantage of greater testosterone levels for female athletes has not been proven (Camporesi and Maugeri, 2010; Karkazis et al. 2012).

Back in the postcolonial nation/’hood. The national debates and the discourse of Africanity as homogenous victimhood The history of racial and socioeconomic divisions in South Africa and their effects on professionalism in sport provide an important backdrop to Caster Semenya’s race to world class athleticism. The Caster Semenya case broke in postapartheid South Africa as the struggle to transform athletic and professional sports after 32 years of international sporting isolation (SA History Online;5 Desai, 2010). Participation in sport in South Africa has been informed by racial and income divides. Here race continues to coincide with socioeconomic class for the majority of the population with the exception of a small black middle class and the black political elite. The last census data show a country still divided by race and income. White households continue to occupy the wealthiest stratum with income levels six times that of black households. The black population remain the majority of the impoverished in the country (Statistics South Africa, 2014). This unequal political economy continues to inform the profile of South Africa’s successful international athletes and the debates about transformation in sport. Sporting codes that required minimal investment in equipment, such as athletics, netball, soccer and rugby have been popular amongst the majority of black South Africans. On the other hand, swimming, tennis, horseriding, archery, golf and skiing have been considered sports codes reserved for the wealthy only. Racial segregation in educational and public sports facilities have contributed to the popularity of some sports codes amongst black South Africans and the relative absence of others. Yet access to the skilled levels of coaching and the freedom to invest the necessary time in honing athletic skills remain rare, even in those sporting codes such as track and field athletic codes that are popular in the townships. Consequently, years after apartheid’s demise, most South African sports codes have been dominated by the economically powerful white minority, and by men in particular, guaranteeing these two groups’ prominent representation at local, national and international levels. Soccer remains the exception to this pattern due partly to its popularity as a township street game and its history as a leisure activity, alongside boxing, in which subaltern black masculine identities are constructed. The debates about diversity and transformation in national sports teams participating at international level have been vociferous and complex and informed equally by debates about economic and geospatial transformation.

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Historically black sporting facilities in the segregated townships have been in poor condition with a lack of professional coaching staff (Desai, 2010). Consequently, even decades after political transformation, the majority of black athletes are unable to access the necessary sporting facilities and coaching expertise in many sporting codes, unless they move out of black residential areas and away from poorly resourced black educational institutions. Athletes who aspire to world class standards are obliged to move long distances from their respective township homes and villages to attend well resourced, historically white schools and universities. Moreover, they have to acquire the necessary financial resources and meet the set educational standards associated with middle class culture to attend these institutions. Such resources include the necessary finances to meet transport, educational and coaching fees, in addition to the sports equipment required by their respective sports codes. They are required to gain fluency in English or Afrikaans, the languages of power in South Africa, as well as the nuances of cultural capital that would enable them to navigate social engagements with middle class white counterparts. Caster Semenya’s journey from a small rural village in Limpopo Province, one of the poorest provinces in the country, to international acclaim as a world class female athlete is silhouetted by the story of her skilful navigation across the complexities marked by the socioeconomic, spatial and cultural divides. Such navigation requires the necessary double consciousness (Du Bois, 1903), subjective resonance of identity with context audience, and appropriate use of the most apposite codes and cultural signifiers in each specific context, adeptly enough to actively unmark the self, as a raw, rural person in Caster Semenya’s case. Such ability to code switch adeptly is an aspect of the subaltern’s skills suite that goes unremarked yet requires significant social and emotional investment and labor precisely to erase the aesthetics of raced, and rural Otherness. Consequently many accomplished black South Africans’ subjective experiences resonated with the knowledge of Caster Semenya’s struggle to traverse these spatial and social divides between the rural location and the rarified global athletics stage, enough to register the gross unfairness of the IAAF’s claims to end Caster Semenya’s ‘unfair advantage of elevated testosterone levels’ and level the playing field. The IAAF’s claims resonate with moral righteousness, which suggest that Caster Semenya deliberately cheated. However, such claims appear all the more unacceptable, cruel almost, when we measure them against Caster Semenya’s courageous struggle against the odds just to reach the starting line.

A struggle for legitimacy – transformation in South African sport The transformation of South African sport began very gradually at the level of senior administration, in the early 1990s, and proceeeded more gradually at the level of athletic representation in the various sporting codes. The 1992 Olympics team of 95 people had only eight blacks in it. Nelson Mandela

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indicated at the time that, while he would have liked a more representative team, the presence of eight black Olympians was, nevertheless, a start (Jeannsone, LA Times, July 1992). Even at the political level of sports administration the move to racial diversity and equal representation was slow, creating a sense of frustration amongst many black sportslovers. Desai and Vahed (2010) said the following regarding administration in cricket: White cricket administrators retained effective power to ensure that local and international business sponsorship would not be frightened off. It was the same on the playing fields, where teams were dominated by whites. The failure of black players to feature at provincial and national levels led to criticism by the late 1990s that the few black officials holding high positions were token appointments. (Desai and Vahed, 2010:179) In 2008 the ruling ANC (African National Congress) intervened in the selection of the Olympic men’s hockey team to ensure greater black participation. The South African website Politicsweb.co.za reporting on this action, stated “Once again the spectre of sports transformation has reared its ugly head. This time it is field hockey that is getting it in the neck” (Politicsweb, 22 May 2008). Such discourse is commonplace in white South Africans’ rejection of racial transformation in sport, fueled by fears of a drop in standards and in international competitiveness. Given these divides in sports, the term ‘Development’ has become a racial signifier for black sportsmen and women in the South African context. The development discourse ensured that many sports clinics were set up in black townships, mainly by private donors, to hone the skills of promising black sportsmen and women. However twenty years into the postapartheid era, as black sportsmen and women remain a significant minority in national sportscodes, it seems that the development discourse is being used to retain the old racial status quo in sports and black South Africans have become cynical about the discourse of development and outreach in all arenas. The Facebook posting of a young black South African is indicative of the growing cynicism of developmental speak so associated with sport: “In 2015 the creative ‘industries’ in SA still refer to the participation of black people, creators and audiences, as development and outreach. Basically no better than rugby” (Chimurenga Mag, Facebook posting 22 March 2015). The reference to rugby as the powerful signifier of white, male power in South African sport resonates amongst all South Africans. Historically rugby has been considered the sport in which the eminence and power of white, Afrikaner nationalism is fully displayed in all its physical glory. Struggles for transformation are not only about black athletes’ capabilities on the sportsfields. It is also about the legitimacy and capacity of black administrators’ abilities to run the oversight of sports administrative bodies such as the SAA efficiently and capably. The initial response from the South African sports scientist Ross Tucker, to the Caster Semenya case,

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suggested cheating on behalf of the South African Athletics administration. In a City Press article entitled “Caster may have been treated” he suggested that the South African Athletic Federation may have secretly treated Caster Semenya with male hormones to provide her with an unfair advantage over the other women athletes (City Press, 18 July 2010). The article stated that “Ross Tucker said that he ‘would be very surprised if Semenya did not go for some form of treatment’”. The possibility that Athletics South Africa were as bewildered as the IAAF as to what to make of the media claims about Caster Semenya’s sex was not even considered in Tucker’s responses. His suggestions that ASA deliberately cheated occurred against the national backdrop in which many whites question the capacity and legitimacy of black leadership in sport. The comparisons with East German and Russian athletes who participated in international sporting events at the height of the cold war are telling. These athletes performed under a constant veil of suspicion that they were treated with performance enhancing drugs to ensure their athletic dominance. Furthermore the Soviet Union and other eastern bloc countries were discursively cast as the Other, and their populations as primitive. Tucker’s reference to cheating reinforces and resonates with local debates about the capacity and ability of newly appointed black sports administration and reflects the wavering faith of many South Africans in the postapartheid black administrative leadership and in black ability to achieve international success through personal effort. Such deep seated doubt in black ability to lead and to be successful mirror apartheid racist beliefs that black people are innately inferior and are unable to compete equally with white counterparts. Ross Tucker’s immediate assumption that Caster Semenya and the sports administrators cheated their way to a gold medal resonate with the assumption of black inability and innate inferiority. Tucker’s claim exemplifies his social deafness to Caster Semenya’s credible story about black coaches who assisted in nurturing her athletic prowess and her progressive rise to world stardom. Tucker’s references ring particularly ironic and poignant in the face of this rural young woman’s tough journey to international athletic success. His response is threaded through with the subterranean struggles between competing African and white nationalisms; about black capabilities and the right of Africans to belong to, and be located within, the family of ‘modern’ nations, competing in international sporting arenas on equal terms. Such responses foreground all the hoary apartheid markers of race and the ability to rule in postapartheid South Africa, erasing Caster Semenya’s ultimate claim to be recognised as a person who happens to embody the rich variation in human ability and sexuality. In many ways Caster Semenya’s story is also the story of Katie and Charlotte Makhanya, two remarkable sisters, born into a rural family, who sought to carve their own life paths as black women across the racial and gendered divides in nineteenth century South Africa and the United States. Both sisters were choral members of the African Native Choir who toured Britain in the late nineteenth century performing before English royalty. Charlotte

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Makhanya, later Charlotte Maxeke, graduated from Wilberforce University, Ohio, in the United States in the 1890s. She returned to South Africa to work as a social worker, teacher and as a political activist for black people’s rights. Katie, her sister, worked first as a domestic servant (where she had to hide her cosmopolitan past and her ability to sing arias from Italian operas, from her employers) then as a medical doctors’ assistant for most of her life (McCord, 1995). Katie, Charlotte, Caster – beyond the frequently quoted Sarah Baartman case (see Chapter  5 by Olivesi) these are ordinary African women who achieved extraordinary accomplishments and who displayed enormous resilience and courage in the face of socioeconomic, racial and gendered constraints. The mis-recognition of Maxeke’s and Makhanya’s achievements in their time echo in Caster Semenya’s story, and speak more to the lack of western and the local elites’ imagination of black women’s achievements or of the gendered diversity of rural life in a marginal space such as Limpopo Province South Africa. For Caster Semenya silence seemed the only appropriate response to the apparent parochiality of the international governing body and the local South African sports scientists, who could barely comprehend her reality, and the local politicians who sought to gain political capital as they rose to defend her. In doing so, these sports scientists in their role as sports scientists, and local politicians continued to create the stereotypical image of Caster Semenya, as a naïve, black, rural woman who lacked the cultural capital to speak on her own behalf (see Chapter 1 by Liotard).

Unraveling the nation: natives, hermaphrodites and women The final issue I want to turn to is that Julius Malema and other black politicians from the ruling African Nationalist Congress responded defensively to the IAAF’s request for Caster Semenya to undergo gender tests. Neville Hoad (2010) has provided us with a careful, powerful engagement with South African politician Julius Malema’s contemptuous responses to the Caster Semenya case. In defense of Caster Semenya’s integrity as a woman, Malema challenged the legitimacy of Eurocentric terms in Africa by stating “Hermaphrodite, what is that? Somebody tell me, what is hermaphrodite in Pedi (Caster Semenya’s home language). So don’t impose your hermaphrodite concepts on us” (Malema cited in Hoad 2010:400). Hoad ponders whether there is any opportunity to claim the right to be for sexual and gendered minorities in South Africa in his analysis of Malema’s nativist response. He notes a cautionary sympathy for Malema’s position and some optimism for the opportunity that such responses create to claim recognition for the personhood of gender variant Africans in South African society. I want to argue here that Malema’s responses reinforce the strategic African claim to homogeneous sacrificial victimhood (Mbembe, 2001) in the face of perceived contemporary western imperialist onslaught. Malema’s response, in the context of contemporary South Africa where black gender

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and sexual minorities such as lesbian women and gay men are targeted in an epidemic of homophobic violence (Gunkel, 2012, Triangle Project) closes off the opportunity for the acknowledgement of Africa’s lived gendered and sexual diversity and instantiates instead the homogenizing nativist discourse of African authenticity that denies Caster Semenya’s lived experiences across the discursive binaries of the sex / gender system. Responses from other black South African government ministers, Winnie Mandela, Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma and then Minister of Women Children and Disabilities Noluthando Mayende-Sibiya were similarly indignant. Hoad (2010) has analysed the ironies of Madikizela Mandela’s references to the human rights of “hermaphrodites” eloquently enough, in the light of the former’s homophobic utterances during the Stompie Sepei6 trial. MayendeSibiya’s responses pertain here as relevant to my argument about historicism and the assumed linearity of modern nationalisms. In a letter to the United Nations Sibiya complained of the IAAF’s treatment of Caster Semenya and argues that the world athletic body is in breach of the UN Convention for the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the Beijing Platform for Action protocols which protect women’s human rights. Sibiya stated: “The questioning of her (Caster Semenya’s) gender is based on [a] stereotypic view of the physical features and abilities attributable to women. Such stereotypes demonstrate the extent of patriarchy within the world’s sporting community” (2009/09/19, see chronology in the introduction). Unlike Malema’s turn to cultural nativism, Sibiya insists upon the discursive construction of African women and African nations such as South Africa as equal modern nations and world citizens who have a right to the recognition of diverse feminine identities. Sibiya’s defensive move claims greater recognition to the diversity of African gendered realities than Malema’s claims to cultural nativism. However Sibiya’s defensive discourse, while foregrounding claims to national equality alongside western nations, reinstantiates and reproduces the self same binary limits of heterosexual variation in the African context. Ultimately she continued to speak on Caster Semenya’s behalf, reinforcing the creation of the athlete as the ultimate mute victim, unable to act on her own behalf. Mayenda Sibiya’s defensive discourse did not create an opportunity for Caster Semenya to speak openly about her integral lived experience between these heteronormative binaries of sex and gender. The defensive discourses of the South African politicians, which attempted to speak back to their detractors inside the country and in the global context of international athletics, continued to reinforce the respectable imagery of undifferentiated African societies and invariably did not allow for the possibility of Caster Semenya’s discursive claims to her lived African reality. It is no wonder then that Caster Semenya remained silent throughout the furore that roiled around her. Hontondji (2000) and Mbembe (2001)’s analysis points out that such defensive modes of representation, whether framed in Malema’s claims to cultural nativism or Sibiya’s claims to modernisation, erase the rich, lived realities of

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African heterogeneity. Their perspectives instantiate the severe limitations of postcolonial nationalist discourses and point to the need to develop more creative modes of representation in order to capture the diverse, rich modalities of belonging and possibly of citizenship in African societies. Until then Caster Semenya will elect to remain silent.

Beyond the posts – victimhood and sporting modernity in postapartheid South Africa I find Achille Mbembe’s commentary on temporality and modernity in the postcolony helpful in understanding the discursive sets in the national South African context I have set out above. Mbembe (2001) identifies historicism as the main challenge facing social science analysis in postcolonial societies. He notes that the problem encountered with historicism as it relates to social science analyses in Africa is twofold. The first problem is what he terms Afro-radicalism and associated instrumentalism; the second problem he describes as nativism or, ‘the metaphysics of difference’ (Mbembe, 2001:240). The first approach insists on a teleological reading of history where victimisation (by the erstwhile colonial powers) was followed by a triumphalist nationalism that has to be defended vigilantly. This defensive stance is especially crucial for the political elite who have risen to power on the wave of nationalist liberation. According to Mbembe (2001:252), this course of African history promotes a paradigm of victimisation… [in which] we find a reading of the self and the world as a series of conspiracies … The course of African history is… [made by] annihilating one’s enemies, politics is conceived of as a sacrificial process and history … is seen as participating in the great economy of sorcery. This dominant teleological reading of national history casts all Africans as homogenous victims of the colonial powers, and so silences any possibility of rendering African histories or societies as diverse, richly textured with heterogenous identities, and a myriad modalities of belonging often unshackled from the official narrations of colonial impositions of power. Mbembe does not reference gendered bodies in such postcolonial sacrificial victimisation or the representatives of triumphalist nationalisms. However one representative of such triumphalist nationalism, Jomo Kenyatta (1965), unequivocally located women’s silent gendered bodies as the surfaces upon which ‘culture’ is instantiated through the processes of female genital cutting. Through the processes of ritual body modification women are made into the victims par excellence, whom men have to defend against the colonist Other. The second problem of nativism is connected to the nineteenth century notion of race that associated the ‘human subject with the racial subject’. In the Enlightenment notion, race became the outward marker of the moral

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characteristics that distinguished modern humans from subhuman species. The modernist racial system of classification excluded Africans from humanity. In a defensive response, Mbembe argues, rehabilitative discourses that claim the specificity of African race, traditions, and customs challenge the negative value assigned to African-ness as a race. However, in doing so, these recuperative discourses reinstantiate the self-same foundational notions of modern European race theories that define Africans as subhuman. Also, the insistence on African particularity and difference, and a claim to authentic culture, have written race onto geographic territory (blackness and Africa): “blacks become citizens not because they are human beings endowed with political rights, [but] because of their colour and ‘privileged autochthony’. Racial and territorial authenticity are conflated” (Mbembe, 2001:256). Mbembe does not consider the intersectionality of race with gender or geospatial location onto his concept of nativism and historicism. In the defensive responses to modernist racist theories, authors such as Kenyan nationalist Jomo Kenyatta claim the masculine right as the agentive black African citizen speaking back, and speak on behalf of African women, who are implicitly constructed as their dependents. Mbembe’s ideas on historicism and nativism are helpful in considering how the postapartheid South African political elite have responded to the Caster Semenya case and in so doing cast Caster Semenya as the celebrated subjugated victim of IAAF racism whom they intend to rescue.

Conclusion I have tried to show how Caster Semenya’s body became the signifer of multiple discourses about the capabilities and capacities of black, gendered bodies in a postapartheid moment, set against a backdrop of South Africa’s re-entry into global sports. I argue that the discourses about Caster Semenya occur at the level of the global level of international athletics administration, regarding the appropriate biomedical boundaries of femininity and sexuality; so that Caster Semenya’s body becomes the signifier for the limits of acceptable feminine athleticism. The IAAF’s dominance as a powerful athletic administration muted any dissenting voices that challenged its constructs of sex and gender as parochial and ethnocentric. Second I indicate that Caster Semenya became a discursive tool to assert the dominance of African nationalist perspectives at the national level, and to assert the credible capability of black sports administrators as leaders. I argue that Caster Semenya is constructed as the sacrificial victim in these national debates, as black South African politicians define gender and sexual categories on Afrocentric terms. At all these levels, the opportunity to recognise the heterogeneity and rich diversity of African people such as Caster Semenya, and their ability to carve out meaningful lives across the socioeconomic and spatial divides, is lost. So too sadly our ability to celebrate Caster Semenya as a magnificent athlete is foreclosed.

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In an article entitled “Semenya. Per gli antichi sarebbe un dio” (Caster Semenya. The ancients would have called her a god) the Italian newspaper La Stampa (12 September 2009) redirects the otherwise fraught Caster Semenya case in a more productive direction. The reporter imaginatively recasts Caster Semenya as a contemporary Hermaphroditus, the sacred androgynous offspring of the Greek gods Aphrodite and Hermes (see Chapter 4 by Brunet and Salle for an historical perspective). In this manner the article celebrates Caster Semenya as a magnificent athlete whose physical prowess demands our admiration. Ultimately, despite all the deafening discourses about her, we have yet to truly listen to the opportunity when Caster Semenya speaks plainly about her extraordinary achievements as an ordinary young South African woman.

Notes 1 Levy A. Sports, sex and the case of Caster Semenya New Yorker November 1:46–59. 2 Katherine Switzer recounts the anger she encountered from male organizers and onlookers as the first woman competitor in the Boston marathon in 1967 in her biography, Marathon Woman (2007), New York, Carrol and Graf. 3 The IAAF’s reliance on biomedical discursive categories in order to delimit the boundaries of femaleness points to the inherently cultural constructs of these categories. This debate is beyond the scope of this paper. However, the influence of cultural assumptions on biomedical discourse has been discussed by anthropologists such as Emily Martin (1992) in her book The woman in the body. A cultural analysis of reproduction and philosopher of science, Donna Haraway (1991) in Simians, cyborgs and women. See also Bohuon and Rodriguez and Camporesi and Maugeri in this volume. 4 IAAF Regulations Governing Eligibility of Females with Hyperandrogenism to Compete in Women’s Competition – In force as from 1 May 2011(www.iaaf.org/ about-iaaf/documents/medical). 5 www.sahistory.org.za/ 6 Stompie James Seipei was a child activist in the South African anti-apartheid movement. He was kidnapped by the notorious Mandela football team allegedly on Winnie Mandela’s orders. He was brutally assaulted by his kidnappers and later died from his injuries. In 1991 Winnie Mandela was charged with being an accessory to his murder. In her defense, she argued that she had rescued the child from being potentially harmed by the priest Paul Verryn, a Catholic priest who professed to be gay, because homosexuality was “un-African”.

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Brady, A. (2011) “Could this women’s world champ be a man?”: Caster Semenya and the limits of being human. Antepodium Online Journal of World Affairs www. victoria.ac.nz/atp/articles/pdf/Brady-2011.pdf (accessed 20 March 2015). Butler, J. (1990) Gender Trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. New York: Routledge. Camporesi, S. and Maugeri, P. (2010) Caster Semenya: sport, categories and the creative role of ethics. Journal of Medical Ethics, 36(6), 378–379. Chimurenga Mag (2015) 22 March, www.facebook.com/chimurenga.mag?fref=ts. City Press (2010) Caster may have been treated. City Press 18 July www.citypress. co.za/sport/caster-may-have-been-treated-20100718/ (accessed 18 March 2015). Desai, A. (2010) The race to transform sport in postapartheid South Africa. Pretoria: HSRC Press. Desai, A. and Vahed, G. (2010) Beyond the nation. Colour and class in South African cricket, in A. Desai (ed) The Race to Transform: Sport in postapartheid South Africa. Pretoria: HSRC Press. Du Bois, W.E.B. (1903) The souls of black folk. Chicago: McClurg and Co. Greenfield R. (2012) Runner Semenya looks a lot more feminine than she did in 2009. The Wire. www.thewire.com/entertainment/2012/06/runner-caster-semenyalooks-lot-more-feminine-she-did-2009/53446/ (accessed 18 March 2015). Gunkel, H. (2012) The cultural politics of female sexuality in South Africa. New York: Routledge. Haraway, D. (1991) Simians cyborgs and women. The reinvention of nature. New York: Routledge. Hoad, N. (2010) “Run Caster Semenya run!” Nativism and the translations of gender variance in Safundi. The Journal of South African and American Studies 11 (4). Hountondji, P. (2000) Tradition Hinderance or Inspiration? In Prince Claus Fund Journal number 4. Jacobson, J. (2009) South African minister writes UN to decry treatment of Semenya and patriarchy in the sporting world. RH Reality Check hrealitycheck.org/ article/2009/09/14/south-african-minister-writes-un-decry-treatment-semenyaand-patriarchy-sporting-world (accessed 18 March 2015). Jeannsone, J. (1992) Barcelona 1992 Olympics: Forgive and forget Mandela urges. LA Times 26 July, http://articles.latimes.com/1992-07-26/sports/sp-53 07_1_south-africa. Karkazis, K, Jordan-Young, R., Davis, G. and Camporesi, S. (2012) Out of bounds? A critique of the new policies on hyperandrogenism in elite female athletes. The American Journal of Bioethics 12 (7). Kenyatta J. (1965) Facing Mount Kenya. London: Vintage Books. La Stampa Cultura. (2009) Semenya, per gli antichi sarebbe un dio. La Stampa, 12  September. www.lastampa.it/2009/09/12/cultura/semenya-per-gli-antichi-sareb be-un-dio-9feSMBTstYwjufRmUHMQ8L/pagina.html (accessed 20 March 2015). Levy, A. (2009) Sports, sex and the case of Caster Semenya. The New Yorker 1 November, 46–59. Lorde, A. (2007) Sister Outsider. Essays and speeches by Audre Lorde. Berkeley: Crossing Press. Macharia, K. (2009) On Caster Semenya. GUKIRA Blog. http://gukira. wordpress,com/2009/09/20/on-caster-semenya/2009 (accessed 18 March 2015). Martin E. (1992) The woman in the body. A cultural analysis of reproduction. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.

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9

Gender, silence, and a queer new world

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Caster Semenya and unfixed ambiguity John Sloop

One of the most remarkable aspects of the IOC’s (International Olympic Committee) symposium on gender and the IAAF’s (International Association of Athletics Federations) decision to allow Caster Semenya to compete was the initial reaction in the mainstream press where, more or less, the response was silence. By silence, here, I mean both that the decisions to reinstate Caster Semenya make no mention of earlier issues with her gender or of corrective measures and that the essays rarely question the decision or make an issue of Caster Semenya’s gender.1 Beyond what I have written before about silence in this case as a positive force, I want to think here about the ways bodies are understood or gender constituted in their definitions before the law. Moreover, I want to mediate on the role of cultural criticism in shaping and reshaping these definitions. In short, I wish to take up the Caster Semenya case from the moment of silence “before the law” (i.e., by rulings), the discourse created as a result of that silence, and the political role of criticism and the stance of the critic. I will begin by reviewing the argument I have previously made in print, then discuss the discourse following her reinstatement. Ultimately, this will lead to a discussion of the “meaning” of silence and the ways in which its power is always (partially) drawn back.

Before Caster Semenya reentered the competition In carrying out my original project, I searched for, and then read and analyzed, several hundred news articles, shows, and blogs about the case. While I realize that my categorization of the arguments is somewhat contingent on my own reading, I want to explore four themes (four ways in which Caster Semenya’s gender was understood) that emerge in mass cultural discourses.2 In order to understand the significance of the silence that followed Caster Semenya’s reinstatement, it is best to review the characterizations of Caster Semenya’s gender at the time of the original controversy (for a detail of the actors involved, see Chapter 8 by Salo and Chapter 7 by Montañola).

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Caster Semenya as male In this understanding of Caster Semenya’s body, there is a heavy focus on different aspects of gender performance. Notably, there is an emphasis on discussions of the so-called “gender test” Caster Semenya would undergo. A “test” implies something that one can pass or fail; as a result, this metaphor reaffirms the gender divide. Moreover, fellow competitors add to this characterization in their assertions. For example, Elisa Piccione Cusma was widely quoted observing, “For me, she’s not a woman, she’s a man” (Ellis, 2009) and Mariya Savinova asserted that Caster Semenya would never be able to pass a gender test: “Just look at her” (Clary, 2009). In this logic, then, internal features define gender and manifest in behavior and attributes, as well as physical signifiers (facial hair, voice, etc).3 Caster Semenya’s desire for particular types of rough and tumble play, the choice of clothes are also cited as evidence. For example, The Sunday Times of London (McDougall and Lewis 2009, p. 10), in an essay that assumes Caster Semenya as, at least, not fully female, reports that “In a school photograph taken shortly before her 15th birthday, Semenya stands awkwardly … she is dressed in men’s pleated trousers and an unflattering shirt. Her friends wear knee socks and skirts”. These questions are of course only raised due to Caster Semenya’s speed as a runner. As Judith Halberstam (1998, p. 5–6) notes, we ultimately are more frightened of, more critical of, tomboys than sissies because tomboys upset hierarchical structures. Caster Semenya as female In this characterization, with Caster Semenya framed as “female,” the discourse centers on the visual body to the degree that the “truth” of genitalia is the primary signifier of gender.4 For example, Caster Semenya’s great aunt is quoted repeatedly as noting, “I cleaned her up myself the minute my sister’s daughter in law delivered her, so if anyone knows her sex, it’s me” (e.g., Sunday Herald Sun, 2009). Teachers discuss multiple cases of rival teams making her go to the restroom to check to see if she’s a girl. Caster Semenya’s father, Jacob is quoted saying “I don’t know what a chromosome is.… we live by simple rules. This is not natural”.5 While the focus in this characterization is on the visible body, it is worth noting that the coverage does nothing to ‘feminize’ her physical activities. Her father is quoted in Australia’s Herald Sun thusly, From the time she could walk, Caster only wanted to play with boys. Her three elder sisters wore dresses, as little girls do, but Caster refused … I knew she was different to the other, and even now if you speak to her on the telephone, you might mistake her for a man, but I used to change her nappy, and I know she’s a girl. (Sunday Herald Sun, 2009)

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While this juxtaposition is interesting and potentially transgressive, it continues to (A) maintain bigenderism, and (B) the You magazine spread which cast Caster Semenya as a “glamour girl and loves it” also continues to maintain a bigender distinction.

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Caster Semenya as hermaphrodite In this characterization, Caster Semenya is represented as a “third sex” between male and female and hence reifying male and female as gender categories. While referred to as intersexed elsewhere, many reporters refer to her as a hermaphrodite and leave it to the reader to imagine the body behind the term. For example, IAAF Secretary General Pierre Weiss observes, “It is clear that she is a woman, but maybe not 100%” (Swart and Lelliott, 2009). Further, geneticist Aditi Parikh is quoted as saying that while “We like to think of people as just being male or female, actually there’s some people that fall in between” (Earthtimes, 2009, September 11). Ultimately, the discourse of this category reifies “male” and “female” while “othering” Caster Semenya (in short, while most people are “normal,” Caster Semenya is not).6 Caster Semenya as “intersexed” It is in this category (see Chapter 6 by Rose) that I argued we see the largest cause for optimism in the initial reactions to the case. Here, gender is figured as complex, contingent, and identified by individual subjects themselves rather than by external signifiers. For example, exercise physiologist Ross Tucker says that gender/sex is so complex that there is no single way to determine gender (Africa News, 2009). Alice Dreger, a bioethicist who has written about intersexuality, claims in the New York Times that, Sex is so messy that … those doctors are not going to be able to run a test that will answer the question. Science can and will inform their decision, but they are going to have to decide which … characteristics of sex matter to them. Their decision will be like the consensus regarding how many points are awarded for a touchdown … it will be a sport decision, not a natural one. (2009, p.1) As another example, we find people like Andreas Krieger (who won a 1986 European Shot Put title as Heidi Krieger and then transitioned) observe that only Caster Semenya should be allowed to define Caster Semenya’s gender (Sunday Times, 2009, August 23).

Caster Semenya’s return: the elephant in the room7 On July 5, 2010, the IAAF decided to allow Caster Semenya to reenter competition as a female. Significantly, the organization made this announcement

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Gender, silence, and a queer new world 171 with no discussion of Caster Semenya’s “gender tests” or any treatments that were needed to allow her to return to competition. Repeatedly, we learn that the IAAF announced that it had decided “to accept the conclusion of a panel of medical experts that she [Caster Semenya] can compete with immediate effect” and that the organization would make no further comment because “medical details of the case remain confidential” (The Star (Johannesburg) and Independant).8 While some of these reports remind readers that Caster Semenya had been banned because, according to rumor, “a gender test showed her to be a hermaphrodite”(Independent, 2010, July 6) or to have testes (Hart 2010a) others simply note that she has been cleared to return (2010b; 2010c) The general silence of these reports and the initial statement provides us with an interesting and fascinating additional moment to highlight the movement of gender and to, as critics, interpose our own naming of this silence. In Dana Cloud’s rather material analysis of silence, she begins with the claim that “Silence is audible only in relief from the sound of voices” (1999, p. 177). Placing a twist on this claim, I would note that silence is audible not only in relief from the sound of voices but with the support, the naming, of other voices. That is, silence about an act leaves a space for a cultural argument over the meaning of the act. To point, when the IAAF moved to reinstate Caster Semenya in mid-2010 without an explanation, we see the opportunity to name the silence or, significantly, in not naming the silence, to naturalize Caster Semenya’s gender by virtue of her own naming of it. Below, I investigate, on one hand, the discursive effects of a legal decision that goes unexplained, and, on the other, the role of the cultural critic in working with this silence. I do so with a few assumptions about law and gender in mind: drawing on the classic essay, Women Before the Law, I assume with Vicki Schultz that gender and subjectivity are of course constituted by legal decisions. In a twist on Althusser’s discussion of becoming a particular subject through “hailing,” Schultz observes that laws constitute all of us – directly hailed or not – as citizens in particular ways. Moreover, some legal decisions constitute individuals as gendered subjects. While gender is an assumption of all legal discourse, there are numerous cases in which legal decisions explicitly define gender. Julie Greenberg (1999) notes that legal decisions dealing with transgendered and transsexual individuals have consistently maintained a bigendered model, even while altering who can fit under each category. We know, of course, that legal discourses work in a more complex manner than this, and we know that law works as more than simply a definitional category on its own. Indeed, legal decisions are generally discussed, reconstituted and made sense of in public (see Chapter  4 by Brunet and Salle). Patricia Ewick and Susan Silbey (1995: 34) note that, when we think of law, we think that “we stand before it, we engage with it, and we struggle against it.” Too often, in cultural work, we focus on the ways in which we stand before it, and are made sense of through it rather than the ways in which we struggle with it, not just in

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courts but in public discussions. To quote Austin Sarat et al. from Everyday Practices and Trouble Cases (1998, p. 3): “Law does not just happen to the everyday; it is produced and reproduced in everyday encounters.” In Caster Semenya’s case, there is an interesting separation of a legal definition for gender in general and a decision made about a specific case without references between the two. In January 2010, the International Olympic Committee held a symposium to offer policy recommendations to define gender. The symposium was held with no direct connection to the Caster Semenya case (the lack of connection was made explicit), as if one had no effect on the other (and as if one was not the impetus for the other). Ultimately, the panel recommended that women be able to compete if the levels of testosterone usage were below 10 nanomoles/lit. (this is usage, so while most women only produce 2.5 nanomoles/lit., others produce more but are insensitive to it, that is, their bodies are not receptive to its usage). In effect, the entire definition of male and female would be set by the IOC and the IAAF based on the amount of testosterone which was being used by any individual body (again, three caveats: 1. Men, of course, would never be tested for having low testosterone; 2. Women would be tested only if suspicions were raised by interested parties; and 3. Men would not be tested for “high” testosterone).9 As Ruth Beerman (2011) notes in her analysis of the IOC’s decision, ultimately, the definition was one that was rhetorically justified on grounds that defended “community” over the body of the individual (i.e., the very need for this testing was about the need for order and stability within the “community” of sport). When the individual was mentioned at all, it was in the midst of medical concern (i.e., over production of testosterone can be indicative of a harmful condition for the individual); however, even then, the cause of the individual was placed below the needs of the community’s sense of fairness (which meant the division of gender). As a result of this decision, essays that discuss her inclusion in Olympic and IAAF events take one of two primary tracts. They either include explanations that cast her as having a body that requires medical alteration in order to adhere to a definition of femininity or, perhaps more significantly, they provide no explanation (i.e., no comment on the reinstatement, no comment on Caster Semenya’s “gender problems”), but simply report the fact of her reinstatement. Because Caster Semenya was reinstated with immediate effect and with no explanation of what, if anything, she was doing (or was done to her) to meet this new definition of “female,” there are of course numerous ways people attempt to speak toward, or understand, the meaning of the decision, the meaning of Caster Semenya’s body. While the ambiguity of silence never allows a complete verification of any one particular version of reality, those who speak for it attempt to do so. From the beginning, then, there was speculation about the outcome of Caster Semenya’s tests. Indeed, The Guardian’s journalist Andy Bull (2011) claims that Caster Semenya’s own silence about her condition upon returning to race was an indication that others were

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Gender, silence, and a queer new world 173 actively constructing rumors and speculation about her gender. At the time of Caster Semenya’s return to the World Championships, two years after her original victory, Rick Broadbent of The Times (London) noted that in the races since her return, she was “noticeably slower, which many will put down to hormone treatment that she is believed to have had.” (2012a) Elsewhere, reporters observe that her times “add to rumors that she has been undergoing treatment to rebalance her hormones and bring her within the IAAF’s new parameters.” Mark Woods, in The Herald (Woods, 2012), claims that the elephant in the room is the question of whether or not these treatments will end the reign of Caster Semenya as a champion. The Vancouver Province’s Simon Hart seemingly drops all speculation when he reports that the case was resolved because of actions taken by Caster Semenya: “The treatment for such a condition would involve surgery or, more likely, hormones, and would explain why it has taken so long to resolve her case” (Hart, 2010b). Similarly, London’s Independent claims that the decision came when it did because Caster Semenya “had been receiving ongoing treatment for an intersex condition” (Hart, 2012). Indeed, The Daily Telegraph (London) pushes this to the forefront of their coverage, noting that the “treatment” of her “condition” would “involve surgery or, more likely, hormones, and would explain why it has taken so long to resolve her case. Either way, the treatment could have a major impact on her physical capability in the future” (Hart, 2010a). Finally, NPR’s coverage on July 6 is perhaps the clearest example of the problems of a silence left to be filled by others (Goldman 2010; see also Chapter  5 by Olivesi). Herein, NPR’s Tom Goldman notes that the announcement by the IAAF, “leaves us with tons of questions, because no medical or sports or governmental officials are commenting … and so we can only speculate and ask what did they find out about her gender.” And what did they find, according to Goldman: “We’re left to believe the Australian press reports from last year that said tests revealed Semenya has no womb or ovaries.” Goldman goes on to note that someone he spoke to, someone “quite knowledgeable about the international track scene” has told him that “Semenya has been getting hormone therapy like other athletes whose gender is ambiguous” and that this is “womanizing her more,” making her “less of a dominant athlete.” Moreover, during the Olympics, an essay in the Weekend Australian by Rick Broadbent notes that it is “widely accepted that she has undergone hormone treatment to bring her within the new sexual boundaries” (2012b). When Caster Semenya first returned to racing, she did so by entering two low key races and was successful, winning the first two. After these races, she returned to Berlin, the racing scene where she was first removed for “gender testing.” This race, of course, was the impetus for increased prodding of the silence about the meaning of her gender. While, admittedly, a number of reports in such places as the Daily Telegraph, the National Post, and the Independent left her reinstatement “silent” or “un-remarked,” others highlighted the return with significance. For example, at Berlin, competing athlete

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Jemma Simpson notes that “One of the issues with some of us is that no one really knows what the outcome of the gender inquiry is”(Hart, 2010d). While Simpson notes that she and her fellow athletes feel OK about the decision, she also notes that the silence is problematic: “It would be nice to be reassured more than anything” Similarly, British athlete Jenny Meadows notes that she’s “happy to compete against” Caster Semenya if the IAAF says she’s female. But she adds that the IAAF said “they would never release the results ot the tests. We’ll never know what’s happened” (Express, 2010). In these discourses of her fellow athletes, the questions are raised again that, rhetorically, demand a response, and this response, as we have seen, almost always reverts to a discussion of hormones meant to “feminize” Caster Semenya. The silence around the case, then, encourages a body of discourse that configures Caster Semenya’s body as imperfect and in need of alteration in order to fit a definition of gender provided by law. Indeed, once the “legal definition” of gender is provided, once gender is codified, there are only a few instances of it being challenged (one by Alice Dreger, one by Caster Semenya herself, and once in the Toronto Star). Otherwise, in popular representations of the case, the legal ruling becomes the meaning of gender. Standing before the law, a person is a woman if her body uses fewer than 2.5 nanomoles/lit. of testosterone. Hence, Caster Semenya is positioned as an imperfect woman who, when treated or corrected, is able to approach the “ideal” model of gender. Relatedly, it is in her relative failure as a runner that Caster Semenya becomes more acceptable as a female. That is, the questions about her gender for the most part only survive the period of time when she is victorious in minor races. For example, when Mariya Savinova, who earlier had said it was obvious that Caster Semenya could not pass a gender test, came in first place at the World Championship 800 meters in South Korea in September 2010, besting Caster Semenya, she stood on the stage with Caster Semenya and embraced her with kisses. The International Herald Tribune reports Caster Semenya saying, “I think there are no questions now. For me, it’s a closed issue. The IAAF has a statement on that, so I have nothing more to say about it.” As Birrell and Cole (2003) note in their study of Renee Richards, when it became clear that Richards could not successfully compete, could not win, at the level of pro Women’s tennis, other players and reporters were more willing to accept her claims to femaleness. The problems with such a configuration are clear. As Caster Semenya gets closer to the new IOC definition of gender, she also meets the social definition by no longer being as successful, as fast. As if to underline the ways in which victory equates to gender suspicion, when Caster Semenya took Silver in the Olympics, there were accusations that she had come in second to escape more scrutiny of her gender. In both The Scotsman and in the Sunday Express, we see reports of, for example, BBC TV pundit Colin Jackson claiming that Caster Semenya placed herself in second, rather than in first, because she “did not want the attention that went with gold after all the controversy surrounding her gender.” Even in

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Gender, silence, and a queer new world 175 “defeat,” then, suspicion lingers (The Scotsman, 2012, August  14; Squires, 2012) (see Chapter 1 by Liotard). When discussed, then, the IAAF’s decision is read as a sign that Caster Semenya has been “medically corrected” to fit the legal and assumed cultural definition of female. However, a second theme, and one that is somewhat awkward to document “appears” repeatedly. Indeed, in far over half of the essays and reports gathered for this chapter, there is no discussion as to why or how she was reinstated, no discussion or how or why she was reinstated, no mention of procedures and policies (although some minor blushes at the fact that a “gender row” had occurred). The issue of silence – before the law, before judgment, or before expectation – is an interesting one. Silence, indeed, is powerful. In my initial publication when the reinstatement was occurring, I found myself putting on the hat of the “optimistic critic” and offering a positive read of the silence. Let’s think for a moment about what silence references ideologically; it assumes common sense, it assumes that something fits within the common sense of ideology. As a result, I assumed that the relative silence around Caster Semenya denoted something positive (i.e., she was accepted as female as she wished and with no questions asked). While there were places to offer critique (i.e., the definition of female itself), that critique would not alter Caster Semenya’s own stated desires for identity. So, regardless of the fact that I may not particularly embrace the legal meaning of gender offered by the IAAF, the silence signified Caster Semenya’s seamless fit within that definition, a definition that seemed to work well for her (at least, for her, as someone interested in competitive racing). However, as time passed, it became evident that there were multiple issues with a stance that celebrated the silence of this particular legal decision (not the least of which is that, the closer we got to the Olympics and the further from the reinstatement, the more often the discussion of the gender “row” was raised again). One issue is the fact that this legal definition is, at base, a reaffirmation of bigender norms as they exist; the second is that decision in effect reaffirms the power of the law itself to define gender, to make Caster Semenya’s body (and, therefore, our bodies) matter in particular ways, ways that may not be of interest to many others in culture, ways that may be harmful or problematic to others making claims.

The critical stance A number of critics and theorists have offered guidance on the particular stance individuals might take as critics, as people attempting to rethink the ways particular legal decisions offer a definition of gender which hails people into particular positions that they, as individuals or as a group, find constraining, hampering one’s ability to live a “fulfilling” life. I am thinking here of Larry Grossberg’s call for an “impure politics.” According to Grossberg (1997), critics should take on a politics that must always be understood as a

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tactical negotiation of norms and normativities, never free from the power relations that authorize them but also not subservient to them. “Impure politics” understands and accepts the needs for definitions and simultaneously looks for strategy and compromise, because a practitioner of impure politics knows that change can only occur through strategy and compromise. In short, the most important part of a legal decision is not necessarily in the decision itself but in our practice and discussion of that decision. Any legal decision will have exclusions that are not welcome by some, but are welcome but others. A critical stance, especially about decisions such as this one, especially when the decisions are made without comment, cannot simply express dissatisfaction that a category still exists (i.e., “It’s not fair that Semenya still must fit a definition of women”). It cannot be one that argues and shakes its head, hoping that perhaps gender should be so queered that anyone can call upon any category it wishes (i.e., “Semenya, like anyone, should be whatever she claims to be”). Not only organizations and citizenship could not work this way – these demand definitions; these demand rules – but individuals also cannot fully live this way. As Shane Phelan (2010) puts it, The question, then, is not “queer or not” or “how to make citizenship queer,” but how to queer citizenship – how to continue the subversion of a category that is nonetheless both crucial and beneficial for millions of people around the world. The categories of male and female remain crucial identities for many people (not just those for whom the categories are assumed but also for those who wish – and I use this term a lot – a “politics of home” (Prosser, 1995), a way to understand themselves that maintains the category while we operate together to see what else there could be.10 Judith Butler, in Undoing Gender (2004), offers some similar insight in turning from pure optimism at silence, to a space of critique. Returning to Althusser’s metaphor of the police officer’s “hailing” of the subject, Butler reminds us that we often think here of the law as fully disciplining us, as a call to subjectivity that then leaves us without agency. Instead, Butler tells us, we must remember that hailing recognizes agency within the category of the hailing. We cannot ignore or disengage from the law or legal decision; we cannot exist outside of them, but we can recognize that its practice also happens outside of the decision. That is, few people hold a privileged enough position to simply take their toys and go home when they do not like a legal decision, when they do not like the law’s hailing. If Caster Semenya simply had said, “I will not be further questioned about my gender; I will not submit to treatments,” it would have radically altered her life. She would be deciding to no longer compete, to always live under gender suspicion. Her decision to continue to compete, under conditions which changed the meaning of gender, is an understandable one. As Butler puts it, “We must be undone in order to

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Gender, silence, and a queer new world 177 do ourselves; we must be part of a larger social fabric of existence in order to create who we are. Freedom requires unfreedom and autonomy is implicated in subjection” (2004, p.  101). The politics of change is not a politics of all or nothing; it is a contingent politics of gender. One that often accepts the categories that are offered, that are necessary, while continuing to speak with agency from that very location. Beyond completing celebrating the silence with which the legal decision was met in some quarters or completing undermining the discussion around the critique in terms of its upholding of the male–female bifurcation (now defined by testosterone), this “impure politics” accepts the definitions offered by these categories, it appreciates and respects the decisions made by some to compete under these definitions, and then it begins to set the grounds for critique of those categories by underlining the contingency of these definitions. In the same way that Alice Dreger offered the analogy of the field goal as a definition of gender, we undo the legal decision by accepting it, by operating under it, and by making consistent note to its contingency and to the very contingency of the ways in which women and men stand before the law. Indeed, we can find cause for optimism in some of the discourse that occurred near the Olympics. In a Toronto Star essay called “Policing Femininity an Olympian Struggle,” we see an interesting troubling of gender in that, first the essay points out that cases similar to Caster Semenya’s are “emerging all over the world” and while the essay traces out comments about Caster Semenya in some rather predictable ways (e.g., rehearsing Elisa Cusma Piccione’s “She’s not a woman” claim; discussing her physical body), it also includes the voice of Bruce Kidd, a Canadian sport policy advisor who critiques the policy for defining woman by their speed (i.e, the assumption that if women are fast, “they can’t be real women”) and Kristen Worley, a Canadian cyclist and activist who wants to avoid questions of gender altogether and base sports on speed. And while those arguments are ones that trouble gender publicly, Caster Semenya herself leads the way toward a different form of impure politics. In Africa News (2012), Caster Semenya released a statement as she trained for races in which she acknowledged the difficulty of the gender tests and accepted the definitions and decisions offered by the IAAF. Nonetheless, Caster Semenya noted, “I am not defeated and am definitely not dejected. I will not be defined by any institutions or perceptions of others but by what I am and what I stand for.” Further, in a television documentary made in London and broadcast in South Africa, Too Fast to be a Woman (2011), Caster Semenya notes that she will accept the definitions offered by the IAAF in order to compete but adds, “What makes you a lady? Does it mean if you are wearing skirts and dresses you are a lady?” In her own way, Caster Semenya accepts the legal categories which allow her to speak, to talk, to compete, and helps remind us of their articulation with cultural meanings, and of their categories, and she helps us undo gender through the doing of gender.

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Conclusion For critics interested in the public articulation of gender in general, the case of Caster Semenya provides one interesting contemporary global nodal point to illustrate its articulation. The mix of the comments of multiple experts with the development of a “legal” constitution provides a rich location for gender to be temporarily solidified in order to be yet again argued over in multiple cultural locales. In this chapter, I have illustrated the ways in which silence – the unwillingness to explain how gender was determined for Caster Semenya – has both progressive and constraining effects. That said, it is one role, perhaps the most important role, of we cultural critics to criticize this type of public discourse through the perspective of an ongoing impure politic.

Notes 1 I want to be clear here that when I note that critics can place their own meaning on this silence, I realize that my seeing the silence in this case as “progressive” is a rhetorical choice. While I do believe that much of this silence signals a “positive” change in culture regarding gender, others may see it somewhat differently. These arguments were originally made in John M. Sloop, “‘This is Not Natural:’ Caster Semenya’s Gender Threats,” Critical Studies in Media Communication 29 (2012): 81–96. Portions of this chapter summarize arguments made in that essay. 2 Fuller explorations of each of these themes can be found in my earlier essay. Ibid. 3 Interestingly, the IAAF triggers gender testing in a similar way (www.iaaf.org/ about-iaaf/documents/medical). See particularly the scoring sheets for hirsutism: “Hirsutism scoring sheet according to Ferriman and Gallwey” (Grade 0 at all sites indicates absence of terminal hair). 4 I want to point out that, in my earlier essay on this subject, I argued that one could see as “liberating” the fact that those who defended Caster Semenya as female were very cognizant of, and agreed with, the signifiers of masculinity and yet firmly held the gender roles. While still affirming bigenderism, they allowed signifiers to be confusing. 5 Of course, the question of “natural” or not is an interesting one. As Margaret Zuk observes, “nature” provides a wider variety of bodies; we then characterize them through discourse. 6 See also Ariel Levy’s “Either/Or” article for The New Yorker: www.newyorker. com/magazine/2009/11/30/eitheror (accessed April 13, 2015). 7 The Herald: www.heraldscotland.com/sport/13032741.Semenya_back_in_front__ but_under_new_cloud (accessed October 25, 2015). 8 See also “South Africa’s Semenya Can Race Again” (July 6, 2010) Xinhua News Agency. 9 As noted by Vanessa Heggie (2010), there should be such a threshold for men. 10 I’m also thinking here of Patricia Williams’ observation that we each need to be legible, understood in law by categories, before the ability to disrupt those categories we find problematic. Or, I can turn to Rosemary Coombe’s argument in “Contingent Articulations: A Critical Culture Study of the Law” that legal concepts and culture must work back and forth in order to show the radical instability of legal decisions while also respecting them, thus allowing for an ongoing understanding of their contingency.

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References Africa News (2009) Controversy over athlete’s gender test grows. (September 11). Africa News. Africa News (2012) Kenya; Russian Force Ends Jelimo’s Reign. (August 11). Africa News. Althusser, L. (2001) Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses, Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays. Trans. Ben Brewster. New York: Monthly Review, pp. 121–176. Asian News International (2010) S. African gender row runner Semenya set to race against women. (July 6) Asian News International. Beerman, R. (2011, November). Which bodies get to play? Using community values to resolve community/individual tensions in international sport. Paper presented at the National Communication Association Conference, New Orleans, LA. Birrell, S. and Cole, C.L. (2003) Renee Richards and the construction and naturalization of difference. Sport: Sport and power relations, London and New York: Routledge. Broadbent, R. (2012a) Smooth Semenya puts controversy behind her with Olympic debut. (August 8). The Times (London). Broadbent, R. (2012b) Semenya’s Battle to Outrun Prejudice. (July 28). Weekend Australian, Sport: 38. Bull, A. (2011) Caster Semenya saving her best for last after easing into 800m final. (September 2). The Guardian. Retrieved from www.theguardian.com/sport/2011/ sep/02/caster-semenya-800m-world-championships (accessed October 14, 2015). Butler, J. (2004) Undoing gender. New York: Routledge. Clary, C. (2009). Gender test after a gold-medal finish. (August 20). New York Times: B13. Cloud, D. (1999). The null persona: Race and the rhetoric of silence in the uprising of ’34). Rhetoric and Public Affairs. Vol. 2(2): 177–210. Coombe, R. (2000) Contingent articulations: A critical cultural studies of law in Law in the domains of culture. A. Sarat and T.R. Kearns (eds). Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Dreger, A. (2009) Sex verification: More complicated than X’s and Y’s. (August 22). New York Times, Sports: 1. Earthtimes (2009) South Africa says an IAAF ban on Semenya would lead to “war.” (September 11). Earthtimes. Retrieved from www.earthtimes.org/articles/ news/28254.south-africa-warms-iaaf-ban-on-semnay-would-lead-to.html (accessed April 13, 2014). Ellis, J. (2009) Semenya’s case raises bigger issues than just gender. Political Machine. (September 11). Retrieved from www.politicsdaily.com/2009/08/21/runner-castersemenyas-case-raises-bigger-issues-than-just-gend (accessed April 13, 2014). Ewick, P. and S. Silbey. (1995). Subversive stories and hegemonic tales: Toward a sociology of narrative. Law & Society Review. Vol. 29: 197–226. Express (2010) “Meadows Happy to take on Semenya.” (July 7). Retrieved from www. express.co.uk/sport/othersport/185442/Meadows-happy-to-take-on-Semenya. Goldman, T. (2010) All Things Considered National Public Radio (NPR). (July 6). Greenberg A. (1999) Defining male and female: Intersexuality and the collision between law and biology, Arizona Law Review. Vol. 41: 265,. Grossberg, L. (1997) Bringing it all back home: Essays on cultural studies. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press.

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Halberstam, J. (1998). Female masculinity. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press. Hart, S. (2010a) Semenya given the all-clear after gender test row. (July 6). Daily Telegraph (London): 2. Hart, S. (2010b) Semenya set to be cleared to run. (July 6). Province. Hart, S. (2010c) Semenya set to start racing within weeks after 11-month layoff. (July 6). National Post: 6. Hart, S. (2010b) Semenya loses as doubts grow. (August 28). Daily Telegraph: 18. Hart, S. (2012) Caster Semenya on track for 800m Olympic gold medal after setting blistering time in her semi-final in London. (August 10). The Telegraph.. Heggie, V. (2010) Testing sex and gender in sports; reinventing, reimagining and reconstructing histories. Endeavour, Vol. 34(4), 157–163. Independent (2010) Semenya “Cleared to Resume Racing” (July 6). McDougall, D. and Lewis, R. (2009) Boy, can she run. (August 23). Sunday Times (London), News: 10. Phelan, S. (2010) Sexual strangers: Gays, lesbians, and dilemmas of citizenship. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Prosser, J. (1995) No place like home: The transgendered narrative of Leslie Feinberg’s Stone Butch Blues. MFS Modern Fiction Studies Vol. 41(3): 483–514. Sarat, A., M. Constable, D. Engel, V. Hans and S. Lawrence. (1998) Ideas on the “everyday” and the “trouble case” in law and society scholarship: An Introduction” in Everyday practices and trouble cases. A. Sarat, M. Constable, D. Engel, V. Hans and S. Lawrence (eds). Evanston: Northwestern University Press: 1–13. Schultz V. (1992) Women “before” the law: Judicial stories about women, work and sex segregation in the job in Feminists theorize the political (Judith Butler and Joan Scott (eds). New York and London: Routledge. The Scotsman. (2012) London 2012 Olympics. Caster Semenya rejects fear of winning claim. (August 14). Silkstone, D. (2009) “Caster Semenya’s running success is down to push-ups: Coach.” Sydney Morning Herald (21 August). Retrieved from www.smh.com.au/news/sport/ caster-semenyas-running-success-is-down-to-pushups-coach/2009/08/21/12503 62193619.html (accessed October 14, 2015). Sloop, J.M. (2012) “This is not natural:” Caster Semenya’s gender threats. Critical Studies in Media Communication Vol. 29(2): 81–96. Squires, N. (2012) Semenya: I didn’t run from the win. Sunday Express, Sport: 3. The Star (Johannesburg) (2010) Semenya Free to Compete as Woman. (July 1) (Johannesburg): 1. Sunday Times (2009) Gender test runner prey to “misogyny.” (August 23). Sunday Times, Features: 19. Swart, W. and Lelliott, J. (2009) They’ve made Caster a freak. Sunday Times (June 6). (South Africa), Sport: 1. Too Fast to be a woman (2011) Documentary directed by Maxx Ginnane. Rise Films,. Toronto Star (2012) Policing femininity an Olympian struggle. (June 9). Insight: 1. Williams, P. (1992) Alchemy of race and rights: Diary of a law professor. Harvard University Press. Woods, M. (2012) Semenya has been on Sharp’s mind in one way or another. (May 5). The Herald (Glasgow), Sport: 14. Xinhua News Agency (2010) South Africa’s Semenya Can Race Again. (July 6). Zuk, M. (2002) Sexual selections: What we can and can’t learn about sex from animals. Berkeley : University of California Press.

Afterword

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Silvia Camporesi

I am very grateful to Aurélie Olivesi, and Sandy Montañola for inviting me in the first place to participate in the workshop at the University of Lyon in April 2013, and then to contribute to this volume. It is an honour to have the final provisional word. The workshop organised by Olivesi, Montañola and Richard was instrumental in opening my mind to the different narratives inherent in Caster Semenya’s case, beyond my own analytical lens of philosophy of sport. Indeed, Caster Semenya’s case speaks not only of sport, but also of gender, race, and post-colonialism. As Fabien Rose writes in his contribution to this volume, discourses about Caster Semenya say little about the athlete, and a lot more about the culture in which Caster Semenya became an object of discourse and in which the intersex hypothesis became a “truth.” This volume brings together all these different voices to paint the first complete picture of Caster Semenya’s case, and prompts a reflection on women and sport that seems more necessary now than ever before. The understanding that emerges from this volume is a sort of pointillist painting in which the final broader narrative only emerges from more detailed ones. Not only does it bring together authors from different disciplinary backgrounds, from sociology to anthropology to philosophy to media, but it also brings together very different academic traditions: Canada, France, Italy, US, and South Africa. As Olivesi and Montañola write in the introduction, the media discourse around the Caster Semenya case was essentially polyphonic, bringing together many different voices and reflecting the complexity of the case. This seems to be the only possible way to do justice to such a complex case. As elegantly put by Olivesi in her contribution, the Caster Semenya case has emerged as a “discursive moment” in collective memory and it has opened up and reconfigured discourses on fair competition, gender in sports and gender identity. The Caster Semenya case led to an aporia (an irresolvable internal contradiction), which has not led (yet) to the emergence of a new stable norm. Hence, the final word of this volume in this afterword can only necessarily be provisional, and might equally be viewed as a preface to future conversations in gender and sport.

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I started working on Caster Semenya’s case in 2009, with my co-author Paolo Maugeri. My interest in her case was prompted by my double interests in ethics and sport, the first a professional one as a bioethicist, and the second a personal one, as a former track and field runner in the 800 meters. I must admit I was never fast enough to run past regional track meets in the region in Italy where I come from (Emilia-Romagna), but I remember running with Elisa Cusma Piccione, who was the one who triggered doubts about Caster Semenya’s gender-based eligibility to compete at the Berlin World Championships in 2009, leading to the eventual investigations, by saying, “She is a man. She should not run with us” (Kimmel, 2009). Ironically, Elisa has become quite famous with this sentence, which is quoted in several contributions in this book, and she also appears to have been indirectly quoted in the response letter by Bermon and co-authors to our critique of the IAAF policies (Karkazis et al., 2012) in which they write that the assumption for the regulations is that “women should compete against alike” (Bermon et al., 2013, Camporesi and Maugeri, in this volume, p.50). There are many other levels of unfairness inherent in Caster Semenya’s case, which are unpacked in this volume. First of all, as highlighted by Bohuon and Rodriguez, and by Camporesi and Maugeri, the regulations raise issues of inconsistency and presuppose a thin conception of fairness (with the assumption of “unfair advantage and of the level playing field in competition”) which is overturned by the very fact that they deprive women of the opportunity to compete with their own bodies in a way that other genetic and biological advantages do not. Notwithstanding what the IAAF and IOC have said about the non-existence of links between Caster Semenya’s case and their policies, the conclusion that the regulations were drafted as a response to her case is the only plausible conclusion, as pointed out by Anaïs Bohuon and Eva Rodriguez. The same authors also show how the regulations on hyperandrogenism reinforce the way in which this myth (of the level playing field) has been constructed, and still today propagates confusion between doping, masculinization of female athletes, suspicion, and proven cheating. Philippe Liotard in his contribution to this volume has shown how the case of Caster Semenya condenses many levels of transgression into one: of age (too young to run so fast), of race (South African), of gender (challenging the binary division), and sexual (doubts of homosexuality were raised). Liotard’s contribution is unique in drawing the comparison between Pistorius and Semenya, which is essential to unravel the underlying tensions (gender, race, ability/disability) of the case and demonstrate how the media have treated very unfairly one (Semenya) and very generously the other (Pistorius). Liotard’s work draws on his concept of a “sportive economy of bodily differences” to show how sport perpetuates the segregation of the body into categories and reproduces social norms. Liotard also notes how it is somewhat “ironic” that both athletes (Pistorius and Semenya) come from South Africa, which imposed racial segregation during the brutal

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apartheid. Now two athletes from South Africa in different ways challenge and blur the borders of segregation in sport. Elaine Salo, who at the time of the conference in 2013 was based at the South African Institute for Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Pretoria, and Philippe Liotard were among the very first scholars demonstrating in Semenya’s case how the narratives of gender and race go together, and how we cannot disentangle them. Both Salo and John Sloop have analysed the meaning of silence in their contributions. According to Salo’s contribution in this volume, “silence became her only means to assert individual agency in the face of competing discursive regimes of power at the global and national levels” (p.150). Salo wants the readers to “pay attention to the possibility of silence as an agentive choice in a context where wider contexts of discursive power regimes can have real material effect” (p.154). Sloop’s critical cultural approach to the case has highlighted different ways in which Caster Semenya’s silence can be analysed: In her own way, Caster Semenya accepts the legal categories which allow her to speak, to talk, to compete, and helps remind us of their articulation with cultural meanings, and of their categories, and she helps us undo gender through the doing of gender. (p.177) It should be underlined how all the athletes targeted so far by IAAF and IOC guidelines come from the Global South, and since the burden of proving eligibility is on the athlete, so too are the associated financial costs. The policies are unfair at this level as they reinforce a systemic disadvantage in athletes from low-income countries who use their earnings to support not only themselves but also their families. Furthermore, the medicalization of hyperandrogenism is unnecessary, but it remains a condition imposed by paternalistic regulations for re-entry into competition. Very alarming, as highlighted by Sonksen and co-authors (2014) is the fact that four athletes targeted by the regulations at the London Olympics were submitted to feminizing surgeries including partial cliterodectomies, as reported in Fenichel et al. (2014). It is also important to note how the trigger itself for testing is unfair, as perception is explicitly used as a trigger for testing. As pointed out in the contribution by Fabien Rose, perception becomes explicitly an appropriate tool of detection for “sex.” Women who do not conform to heteronormative (and Western) standards of femininity, such as Caster Semenya, become targets for others’ perceptions, which in turn trigger investigations. Mariya Savinova famously said “Just look at her.” This assumption is illustrated by a table produced in appendix 2 of the IAAF policies, showing various signs of “virilization” on various body parts (upper lip, chin, chest, abdomen, arms, thigh and back), which are supposed to constitute traces of hormonal nonconformity (IAAF, 2011: 22). Titled “Hirsutism scoring sheet according to

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Ferriman and Gallwey,” this scoring sheet puts pressure on the female athletes to perform femininity, as highlighted by Elaine Salo in her contribution to the volume, thus reinforcing the gender performativity in track and field developed by Judith Butler and highlighted by John Sloop. The contribution by Laurence Brunet and Muriel Salle offers a unique comparative historical overview of the legal panorama for intersex people, and shows undoubtedly how we are moving towards laws that prohibit surgeries on children to fix disorders of sex development. The first example of this law in Europe was promulgated in Malta in 2015, banning sex reassignment surgeries or treatment on minors on the basis that they lack medical justification and can be postponed until the child is old enough to assert informed consent. Another decisive step in this direction has been the adoption by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe of a resolution in 2013 devoted to the right of intersex children to physical integrity, which goes hand in hand with an explicit condemnation of medical and surgical treatments imposed on children where they are not vital to the child’s health. As their chapter demonstrates, the world of competitive sports is surprisingly detached from these recent progressive legal developments by requiring women to have to undergo androgen suppressive therapies or other sexual “normalization” surgeries in order to compete which are increasingly discouraged or banned worldwide. From this point of view (and many others) the world of competitive sports is still living in the nineteenth century. With my co-author Paolo Maugeri I wrote an editorial for JME in 2010 explaining why the answer to the construction of categories in sport was not to be found in the result of a scientific or medical test, but that ethics should play a “creative role”: the answer is not in nature, it is constructed by us and by the values that we want to see in competition. As we reiterate in our contribution to this volume, deciding who competes in what category must be the result of a co-productionist move: the production of gender and the production of the concept of “fairness” go hand in hand. Instead, by saying that testosterone is the master molecule of athleticism and is the dividing line between the two categories of competition, we should be wary that, as put by Judith Butler almost 20 years ago, “the language of biology participates in other kinds of language and reproduces that cultural sedimentation in the objects it purports to discover and neutrally describe” (Butler, 1999: 149). As argued by Bohuon and Rodriguez in this volume, “the sexed categories of men and women, supposed to incarnate natural categories, do not cease to be fabricated by all of the means and technical measures possible, thus revealing the necessarily artificial character of natural categories” (p.40). We could therefore say that Caster Semenya’s case represents an instance of a double performance: gender performance in track and field (along the lines of gender performativity developed by Butler), and athletic performance, in a paradigmatic instance of co-production (citing from Sheila Jasanoff, 2004) of gender and fairness in track and field.

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The co-production of gender and fairness is also evident in the media coverage of Caster Semenya’s case as analysed in the contributions by Rose, Montañola, Salo, Olivesi and Sloop. The language used by the media is perhaps the main language where that cultural sedimentation is reproduced and reinforced. This cultural sedimentation of pre-established discourse is unpacked in the contributions by Fabien Rose and Sandy Montañola. Rose shows how in Canadian and Quebecois media the confusion between gender and sex was so high as to invent a neologism in French that can be translated in English as “sexual gender,” which is symptomatic of the prevalent conceptual confusion in the media where sex and gender were used almost interchangeably. This conceptual confusion is also reflected in the terminology used in the documents of official sports committees and associations such as IAAF where it is evident that the IAAF clearly favoured the use of the term “gender” over “sex,” and that suggest that the federation nonetheless failed to grasp the concept of gender as something distinct from sex. Montañola’s study on representation in a corpus of journalistic articles and interviews composed of titles from the European press that range from 2009 to 2014 shows how a question can become a shared public problem in which the involvement of individuals is partly based on some of the preestablished stances they uphold. It shows how Caster Semenya’s media coverage then became a moment of “discursive struggle” within a framework of pre-established discourses. Caster’s presence in the South-African magazine You is the perfect illustration of the use of a de-legitimization device of her being female. As shown in this volume, narratives of medical imperialism and of a mythical level playing field reinforce each other in the search for a mythical “level playing field.” IAAF and IOC regulations are permeated by out-dated discourses of a binary switch of sex determination (i.e., male or female) and by the necessity of a clear and precisely measurable dividing line. Testosterone is portrayed as a “male” molecule and its effects are said to confer “masculine traits,” but testosterone is found also in women’s bodies. The question that the IAAF and IOC pursue is that of how to classify athletes according to this “binary switch,” but that is the wrong question to ask as it presupposes the existence of a clear male/female division. Instead, the very description of bodies in terms of binary switch should be questioned, and this is what we are starting to see with Dutee Chand’s case. The bottom line is that we are still afraid of women who run, kick, hit, tackle, punch, cycle, or otherwise perform better than men, because they, as pointed out by Sloop in this volume, upset pre-established hierarchical structures. Caster Semenya’s case would never have happened if she had not run fast enough. Another example is the Chinese swimmer Ye Shiwen who, at the London Olympics, swam faster than the male swimmer over the same distance, and for this reason was subjected to doping tests. In that case the trigger was not that she looked too masculine (many people did comment,

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however, that she looked quite young) but that she swam surprisingly fast and came from China, a country that has been the subject of “gene doping” rumours, in another interesting instance of suspicion based on nationality. So if women run or swim as fast as men, instead of questioning perhaps the gender segregation (which society and the IAAF regulations have said ensures fairness), we say that women are not women or maybe that they are doping. As pointed out by Bohuon and Rodriguez in this volume, the regulations on gender segregation reinforce the way in which the myth of the level playing field has been constructed to ensure fairness in competition, and propagate confusion between doping, masculinization of female athletes, suspicion, and proven cheating. As I am writing this afterword (May 2015), two important things have happened or are about to happen. The first is that on May 19, 2015 the BBC conducted Caster Semenya’s first ever interview (Smith, 2015). With this momentous interview it might be said that she has broken the silence analyzed in this volume in the contributions by Sloop and by Salo. But has she really broken the silence? In the interview Caster says that she could “not have survived had not it been for her family.” She adds that the debacle she had to go through was “upsetting” and “humiliating” but she also said that she has learnt from it; in particular, she has learnt not to care about what other people think. We could perhaps say that her interview fits within one of the “quest narratives” described by Arthur Frank, where the quest throughout her hardship is to find her “new” self (2013). She is described by Ben Smith (the interviewer) as “an athlete at peace with a new coach, a new training group and a new hairstyle,” and with a future full of “hope” for a “new beginning.” The interview is not critical at all of the IAAF guidelines, and does not speak of what happened in the six years since her disqualification from the Berlin World Track Championship in 2009. We could plausibly say that the silence has only partially been broken. The second is that we are all awaiting the verdict of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne to the appeal of Dutee Chand. Dutee Chand, Indian sprinter, was disqualified from participating in the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in July 2014 on grounds of her levels of testosterone being outside the limit imposed by IAAF and IOC regulations. She has appealed and said she will not change her body. She has been able to appeal thanks to financial backing from the Indian Ministry of Sport. CAS has temporarily allowed Dutee to compete in the Asian Championships in early June, but she has to sit out of other international events pending the Court of Arbitration for Sport’s final decision (Zeenews India, 2015). As pointed out by Olivesi, thanks to the reconfiguration of Caster Semenya’s case as a discursive moment in collective memory, subsequent cases such as Dutee Chand’s case can now be considered using renewed representations. The answer to the eligibility of women with hyperandrogenism or with other disorders of sex development to compete in the female category cannot be sought in science or medicine. This is why Caster Semenya’s case

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produced an aporia that has not been solved yet. I am cautiously optimistic though that this aporia can be solved creatively with the input of ethics. As pointed out by Montañola in her contribution, we are starting to see the emergence with Dutee Chand’s case of a questioning of the medical discourse’s legitimacy as the only legitimate discourse to answer the question of when it is fair to compete as a woman, with appeals to experts in the humanities and ethics. Who counts as an expert becomes the next question, though. Not only are endocrinologists or gynaecologists being asked for answers, but so too are the social scientists and bioethicists (Camporesi, 2015; Swan, 2015). Moving beyond the case and broadening our analytical gaze, we can see that in elite sport, where discourses of fairness and fair play are reproduced every day, women are still not allowed to participate with the same rules – for example in baseball, soccer, hockey, and others – where we uphold gender segregation on the basis of some kind of “different way of playing of women” that is an obvious construction and reiteration of gender performativity in sport (Edwards and Jones, 2009). It is a bit disheartening to see that there is still so much work to do, but a note of cautious optimism can be struck in resonance with Olivesi and Montañola’s contributions. That is why a volume such as this is so important, as it brings together narratives of gender, philosophy, media studies, anthropology and post-colonial studies, which form an intricate and potent analytical bundle. As we start disentangling the different levels of unfairness we start unravelling the case, until it will become obvious that the only possible solution is to eliminate the IAAF regulations.

Post-scriptum to the afterword While writing the afterword to this volume in May 2015, I was optimistic that Dutee Chand would win her appeal to compete. In one sense this wish has been fulfilled, as on July 27, 2015, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) announced the suspension of the IAAF regulations on hyperandrogenism (CAS Press Release, July 27, 2015). The suspension clears the track not only for Dutee Chand, who can now return to competition, but also for other female athletes with hyperandrogenism. But a closer look at the CAS Interim Award paints a “different picture of clear skies overhead for Dutee Chand, but clouds looming in the horizon” (Camporesi 2015b). Indeed, the CAS panel in charge of the procedure has concluded that there is “presently insufficient evidence about the degree of advantage that androgen-sensitive hyperandrogenic females enjoy over non-hyperandrogenic females” (paragraph 522, CAS Interim Award), and has suspended the “Hyperandrogenism Regulations” for a maximum period of two years in order to give the IAAF the opportunity to provide the CAS with scientific evidence about the quantitative relationship between enhanced testosterone levels and improved athletic performance in hyperandrogenic athletes.

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The IAAF was quick to note that the CAS Panel’s ruling stated there is “a sound scientific basis to the Regulations” [emphasis mine] in that endogenous testosterone is “the best indicator of performance differences between male and female athletes,” and the court’s acceptance that hyperandrogenic female athletes may have a competitive advantage over athletes with testosterone levels in the normal female range (IAAF Press Release, July 27, 2015). What this means is that if IAAF is able to provide a body of evidence deemed “satisfactory” to the CAS panel, the IAAF regulations will be reinstated. But, as Paolo Maugeri and I argued in our contribution to this volume (Chapter 3), adopting such a line of argumentation grounded in science falls ultimately prey to scientific assumptions. Instead we argued that, even if testosterone did confer an athletic advantage, which could be proven by the IAAF upon submission of further evidence, this advantage would not be unfair. As a matter of fact, in our essay we took as premise of our arguments the assumption that higher levels of testosterone do confer an athletic advantage and argued that, even on the basis of this premise, the medicalization of athletes with hyperandrogenism is unwarranted, as it ultimately results in inconsistent policies and, more importantly, in markedly discriminating attitudes towards athletes’ pathologized bodies. Hence, even if IAAF were able to prove that there is a correlation between higher levels of testosterone and a competitive advantage, this would not constitute sufficient grounds for the reinstatement of the regulations. We should be critical of the proviso the suspension has been granted on and prepare to fight for women’s right to compete based on true grounds of fairness.

References Bermon, S., Ritzén, M., Hirschberg, A. L. and Murray, T. H. (2013). Are the new policies on hyperandrogenism in elite female athletes really out of bounds? Response to “Out of bounds? A critique of the new policies on hyperandrogenism in elite female athletes”. The American Journal of Bioethics, 13(5), 63–65. Butler, J. (1999). Gender Trouble. New York and London: Routledge. Camporesi, S. (2015a). The burden of proving femininity in athletics: Why Dutee Chand should be allowed to compete. Huff Post Sports March 25, 2015. http:// www.huffingtonpost.com/silvia-camporesi/the-burden-of-proving-femininity-inathletics_b_6940562.html (accessed October 22, 2015). Camporesi, S. (2015b). Clear skies overhead for Dutee Chand, but clouds loom on the horizon. Huff Post Sports July 30, 2015. www.huffingtonpost.com/silviacamporesi/clear-skies-overhead-for-_b_7896924.html (accessed July 31, 2015). Camporesi, S. and Maugeri, P. (2010). Caster Semenya: Sport, categories and the creative role of ethics. Journal of Medical Ethics, 36(6), 378–379. Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) Interim Award on Hyperandrogenism Regulations (2015). July 27. www.tas-cas.org/fileadmin/user_upload/award_ internet.pdf (accessed July 31, 2015).

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Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) Press Release on Suspension of Hyperandrogenism Regulations (2015). July 27. www.tas-cas.org/fileadmin/ user_upload/Media_Release_3759_FINAL.pdf (accessed July 31, 2015). Edwards, L. and Jones, C. (2009). Postmodernism, queer theory and moral judgment in sport some critical reflections.  International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 44(4), 331–344. Fénichel, P., Paris, F., Philibert, P., Hiéronimus, S., Gaspari, L., Kurzenne, J. Y., Chevallier, P.,  Bermon, S.,  Chevalier, N.,and Sultan, C. (2013). Molecular diagnosis of 5α-reductase deficiency in 4 elite young female athletes through hormonal screening for hyperandrogenism. The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, 98(6), E1055–E1059. Frank, A. W. (2013). The wounded storyteller: Body, illness, and ethics. University of Chicago Press. IAAF Press Release Commenting on CAS suspension of hyperandrogenism regulations, (2015). July 27. www.iaaf.org/news/press-release/hyperandrogenismregulations-cas-dutee-chand (accessed July 31, 2015). Jasanoff, S. (Ed.). (2004).  States of knowledge: the co-production of science and the social order. London: Routledge. Karkazis, K., Jordan-Young, R., Davis, G., and Camporesi, S. (2012). Out of bounds? A critique of the new policies on hyperandrogenism in elite female athletes. The American Journal of Bioethics, 12(7), 3–16. Kimmel M. (2009). The bigotry of the binary: the case of Caster Semenya. Huff Post Entertainment August 24, 2009. www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-kimmel/thebigotry-of-the-binary_b_267572.html (accessed October 22, 2015). Sonksen, P., Ferguson-Smith, M. A., Bavington, L. D., Holt, R. I., Cowan, D. A., Catlin, D. H., Kidd, B., Davis, G., Davis, P., Edwards, L. and Tamar-Mattis, A. (2014). Medical and ethical concerns regarding women with hyperandrogenism and elite sport. The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, 100(3): 825–827. Smith, B. (2015). Caster Semenya: What I dream of is to become Olympic champion BBC Sport www.bbc.com/sport/0/athletics/32805695 (accessed June 26, 2015). Swan, R. (2015). Stanford bioethicist fights gender tests for female athletes. San Fransico Chronicle August 4, 2015. www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Stanfordbioethicist-fights-gender-tests-for-6425161.php?t=a5b3f531c43cce98c9&cmpid=e mail-premium (accessed October 22, 2015). Zeenews India (2015). Dutee Chand allowed to take part in Asian Championships in June (2015) Zeenews India March 31, 2015, http://zeenews.india.com/sports/others/ dutee-chand-allowed-to-take-part-in-asian-championships-in-june_1570644.html (accessed June 26, 2015).

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Index

Adams, H. 132, 155 Africa News 170, 177 African media 6, 90–8 African National Congress (ANC) 159; response to IAAF gender tests 9, 161–3 “African voice” 94–5, 127–31 Afro-radicalism 163 age, transgression of 18–19 agency 176–7; power and silence as agentive strategy 153–5 Agnes 107 ambiguity 17, 68, 74, 77, 172 American Psychiatic Association (APA) 107–8 androgen-suppressive therapy 48, 54 androgenization of sex and fairness 47–9 androgens 29, 33, 34; see also testosterone androgyny 61–2 anti-doping policies 34–40 apartheid 13, 14–15, 95, 128, 151–2, 157, 160, 163 aporetic norm 96–7; see also norms aporia 90, 98, 186–7; constructing 93–6 appearance 16, 17–18 Argentina 5, 76 Association-Maison Intersexualité et Hermaphrodisme – Europe 135 athletic sex 33 Athletics South Africa (ASA) 8, 9, 10, 155, 160 Aujourd’hui en France (le Parisien) 95, 129 Australia 5, 73–4, 101 autonomy, respect for 55 Baartman, S. 6, 95, 161 Barbin, A. (Herculine) 69, 108–9

Barr’s body test 29 Basu, A. 153 Beijing Platform for Action 162 Belle Epoque 63; see also nineteenthcentury France Bergmann, G. 92 Berlin 36, 92 Berlin World Championships 1, 8, 14, 15–16, 104, 150 Bermon, S. 49, 50, 182 bioethics 137–9 birth certificates 68–9, 72–3 black athletes 158–9 black sports administrators 159–60 Blondet, C. 92 bodily integrity 80–2, 184 body norms 15–16; transgressions 13, 15, 18–22, 182 Bohuon, A. 137 Boigey, M. 19–20 Bolt, U. 123 Bouvattier, C. 119, 133, 136, 139, 140 Brady, A. 155, 156 Broadbent, R. 173 Brouardel, Professor 69, 70 Bull, A. 172–3 Butler, J. 32, 114, 156, 176–7, 184 Canadian media 6, 102, 185 categorization 184; sexual 27, 60–88; sportive economy of bodily differences 5, 13–26, 182 Chand, D. 3, 10, 39, 54–5, 97, 137–8, 185, 186–7 changing sex designation in vital records 74–7; see also birth certificates cheating 2, 16, 38, 91–3, 159–60; see also doping children: invisibility of intersex children 77–80; right to bodily integrity

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Index 80–2, 184; sex designation on birth certificates 68–9, 72–3; sex reassignment treatments prohibited 82, 184 China 186 Chuene, L. 9, 130–1 chromosomes 30, 47, 80 City Press 95, 97, 155 civil law systems 71, 84; see also law class hierarchies 67 clothing 17–18 Cloud, D. 171 collective memory 89, 90 Colombia 80–1 common law systems 71, 84; see also law complete androgen insensitivity syndrome (CAIS) 48 Convention for the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) 162 Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) 80 Cooky, C. 89–90 co-production of gender and fairness 184–5 corrective rape of lesbians 22 Corriere Della Sera 139 Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) 3–4, 10, 14, 39, 186; suspension of hyperandrogenism regulations 3–4, 10, 187–8 cover girl makeover for You Magazine 106–7, 131, 170 cricket 159 crisis communications 127 critical stance 175–7 curiosity, legitimization of 104–7 Cusma Piccione, E. 21, 47, 126, 142, 155, 169, 177, 182 Dailliez, G. 65 Daily Telegraph 123, 134, 173 Daniels, W. 8 Davies, N. 93, 131–2, 134 Debierre, C. 61, 65 deed of public knowledge 75 defensive discourse 161–3 delegitimization 120, 127, 130–1 Delforce, B. 118 Democratic Alliance (DA) 131 Denmark 76 Desai, A. 159 development discourse 159 Diack, L. 9

191

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) 107–8, 114 Dingeon, B. 29–30 disadvantaged athletes 56, 158 discursive moment 6, 89–100, 181 discursive regimes of power 6–7, 150–67 discursive struggles 120 disorders of sex development (DSD) 1, 108; see also intersex disorders of sex differentiation 47–8, 79, 135, 136 dissonances 133–5 doping 5, 20, 28, 91; and gender verifications 34–40, 185–6; see also cheating; gender verifications/tests Dorlin, E. 134 Dreger, A. 170, 177 dynamometer and spirometer test 29 East German athletes 160 economy of bodily differences 5, 13–26, 182 Elle 97, 122, 124 embryology 64–6 endogenous testosterone 36–8 enhancement medicine 35 Equipe, L’ 16, 89, 91–2, 125, 129, 130, 132, 137 Erard, C. 20 erythropoietin (EPO) synthesis 35 ethic of care 153 ethics 4–5, 55, 93, 95, 119, 182, 184, 187 ethical conflict 90, 92–6 ethical reconfigurations 90 Euronews 89 European Court of Human Rights 82 European media 185; discursive moment 90–8 European Union (EU) 81–2, 184 Eurosport 136 exogenous testosterone 36–8 fairness 4, 111, 182; androgenization of 47–9; co-production of gender and 184–5; hyperandrogenism policies 46–59; unfair advantage 50, 51–4, 156–7; unfairness in policy implementation 54–6 “false woman” 17, 20 Fékété, C. 132, 133 Fellous, M. 132 female characterization of Caster Semenya 169–70 femininity 20

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Index

feminizing surgery 137–8, 156–7, 183, 184; see also normalization surgery Figaro, Le 92, 123, 129, 133 fluidity of sexual identities 72–7 Foucault, M. 63, 69, 101, 108–9 framing 122; differences 89–90 France: declaring and registering sex in the 19th century 67–71; law on vital records and indeterminate sex 72–3, 74, 75–6 Garfinkel, H. 107 Gender DynamiX 134 gender dysphoria 77, 107–8 gender segregation 13–26, 182–3, 186, 187 gender transgression 19–21, 182 gender verifications/tests 4–5, 17, 27–45, 111–12, 155–7, 169; Caster Semenya 1, 2, 8–9, 16, 33, 101, 111, 155–6; development of 29–33; and doping 34–40, 185–6; justification of the tests on Caster Semenya 106–7; press conferences and legitimization of 124–7; secrecy of results of Caster Semenya’s tests 109, 138–9, 171, 174; use of science to justify 131–3 Germany 73, 79, 81 Germonprez, F. 69, 70 Geyer, M. 107 Goldman, T. 173 Gqola, P. 94, 95 Greenberg, J. 171 Greenfield, R. 109 Griffin, P. 21–2 Grossberg, L. 175–6 Guardian, The 172–3 Haeckel, E. 65, 66 hailing 176 Hämäläinen, M. 51 Hart, S. 173 Hébert, G. 20 hematocrit 34–5 Herald, The 173 Herald Sun 169 Herculine Barbin 108–9 hermaphroditism 22; hermaphrodite characterization of Caster Semenya 170; media use of term 135–6; nineteenth-century France 61–71; see also intersex Hermaphroditus 165 Hinckle, C. 114

Hingis, M. 21 Hirsutism Scoring Sheet according to Ferriman and Gallwey 103–4, 183–4 historicism 164 Hoad, N. 153, 161, 162 hockey 159, 187 Holmes, M. 108 homosexuality: lesbian, gay, butch 21–2 hormonal sex 33 hormones 29, 33, 34; testosterone see testosterone Huguier, P.-C. 61 human rights 80, 81, 94, 162 Humanité, L’ 122, 123 humiliation 8, 95, 128, 136 Hyman, F. 52 hyperandrogenism 23, 33, 34, 36, 38, 142, 144; IAAF and IOC policies on 5, 10, 22–3, 46–59, 103–4, 182, 183–4, 185; suspension of regulations 3–4, 10, 187–8 implicit norms 95–6 impure politics 175–7 income inequality 157 Independent, The 173 instrumentalization, deconstructed 129–30 International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) 1, 5, 93; chronology of the Caster Semenya case 8–9, 10; gender verification policy 102–3; gender verifications/ tests see gender verifications/tests; hirsutism scoring sheet 103–4, 183–4; hyperandrogenism policy 5, 22–3, 46–59, 103–4, 182, 183–4, 185; and Pistorius 14; press conferences and legitimization of investigation 124–7; reinstatement of Caster Semenya 2, 10, 38, 168, 170–5; suspension of hyperandrogenism regulations 3–4, 10, 187–8; use of science to justify gender testing 131–3 International Olympic Committee (IOC) 10; gender definition symposium 9, 172; gender verifications/tests 29–30, 33; hyperandrogenism policy 5, 10, 22–3, 46–59, 103, 182, 183, 185 international re-imagining/remaking of sex 6–7, 150–67 International Ski Federation (FIS) 17 intersex/intersexuality/intersexuation 1, 2, 156; function of the intersex

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Index hypothesis 107–10; hypothesis and Caster Semenya 6, 101–17; law, medicine and 5, 60–88; media use of the term 135–6; perception of Caster Semenya 170; rhetorical and power issues in the media 134–6; suspicions of Caster Semenya 91–2 intersex activist movement 80 intersex associations 134–5 Intersex Society of North America (INSA) 132, 135, 138 Intersex South Africa 134 investigation, legitimization of 124–7 invisibility of intersex children 77–80 irony 129–30 Jackson, C. 174 Jackson, L. 113 Jaulin, A. 66 juxtapositions 129 Kambule, M. (aka Phat Joe) 92 Karkazis, K. 137, 138, 140 Kenyatta, J. 163, 164 Kidd, B. 177 Kobe World University Games 31 Koren, R. 119 Krieger, A. 170 Lacassagne, A. 70 Laqueur, T. 66 law: contemporary 71–2; medicine, law and intersex 5, 60–88; prohibition of sex assignment surgery on minors 82, 184; regulations, ethics and 94–5; silence and unexplained legal decision 7, 168–80; see also common law systems; civil law systems legitimization: of curiosity 104–7; IAAF gender verification testing 124–7 level playing field, myth of 49–51 Levy, A. 56, 105, 151 Lewis, C. 97 Lewis, S. 17 Libération 122, 123, 138 Liotard, P. 20 Loir, J.-N. 64, 67–9 Lorde, A. 153 Louveau, C. 137 low-income countries 183 Macharia, K. 153 Macur, J. 55 Madikizela-Mandela, W. 128, 162, 165

193

Makhanya, C. 160–1 Makhanya, K. 160–1 male characterization of Caster Semenya 169 Malema, J. 130, 161–2 Malta 76, 82 Mandela, N. 158–9 Mandela, W. 128, 162, 165 Mäntyranta, E. 51–2 Marfan syndrome 52 marginalized women 153–4 Martinez-Patiño, M.J. 31–2 masculinity, problematic 123–4 masculinization 20, 32 Mauresmo, A. 21 Mayende Sibiya, N. 9, 162 Mbembe, A. 163–4 Meadows, J. 174 medicalization 138; sexual medicalization of performance 34–6; unnecessary 54–5 medicine 187; challenging medical authority 77–82, 133–5, 137–9; gender verifications/tests 131–5; law, medicine and intersex 5, 60–88 Mendez Report 81 Meyerowitz, J. 107 Miserey, Y. 119, 132 Mitra, P. 56, 138 Mohanty, C.T. 153 Monde, Le 91, 93, 128, 137, 139 Mondenard, P. de 132 Moses, E. 36 Murray, T.H. 56 Nagar, R. 153 Napoleonic Code 68 nativism 161–2, 163–4 natural advantage 34, 156–7 natural order 40, 48, 71–2 negative formulations 96 New Yorker 104 Nihoul-Fekete, C. 79 nineteenth-century France 61–71; see also Belle Epoque non-deliberate cheating 92–3 non specific sex designation 73–4 non-standard perspective 120–3 normalization surgery 77–82, 137–8, 156–7, 183, 184 norms 6, 15, 18, 19, 21, 61, 95–7, 120, 122, 128; aporetic 96–7; body see body norms; implicit 95–6 NPR 173

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194

Index

Olympic Games: Berlin 1976 36; London 2012 157; Caster Semenya’s silver medal 10, 150, 174; South African team for the 1992 Games 158–9 one-sex model 61, 66, 82 ontogenesis recapitulates phylogenesis theory 64–5 Ovid 61, 62 oxygen-carrying capacity 51–2 Parikh, A. 170 Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe 81–2, 184 pathologization of difference 47–9 PCR/SRY method 29–30 perception 103, 183 performance advantage 51–2 Phat Joe (aka Kambule, M.) 92 Phelan, S. 176 Phelps, M. 52 physical advantages 28; regulation of 34–6 physical hermaphroditism 63 Pistorius, O. 14, 182 Plato 61 Poppesco, B. 68 post colonial 6, 95, 98 power: gender and 32; issues in media coverage 6, 118–49; regimes of discursive power 6–7, 150–67; and silence as agentive strategy 153–5 press conferences 8, 106, 124–7 problematic masculinity 123–4 property advantage 51–2 protosexology 62, 63 Prussian Code 69–70; see also law psychological hermaphroditism 63 psycho-social sex 75 queering of gender 176 quest narratives 186 questioning of science 133–5 race 113, 157, 163–4; racial categories 67; racial transgression 18–19 Rambion, M. 96–7 rape, corrective 22 Ratjen, D. 92 “real woman” 16, 21, 29, 30–1 Récamier, J. 64 regimes of discursive power 6–7, 150–67 registration of sex: accommodating

indeterminate sex 72–4; changing vital records 74–7; history of 67–72 Rehm, M. 17, 23 respect for autonomy 55 return rally 130 Révenin, R. 63 rhetorical issues 6, 118–49 Richards, R. 174 Romania Liberia 131 rugby 159 Russian athletes 160 Savinova, M. 21, 155, 169, 174, 183 Schultz, A. 91 Schultz, V. 171 scientificity 131–9 segregation 13–26, 182–3, 186, 187 self-determination 76–7 self-identification 54 Seme, M. 9, 10, 105, 128, 155 Semenya, Caster 1, 2, 5–6, 14, 28, 38; acceptance of IAAF definitions 177; appearance 16, 17–18; 2009 Berlin World Championships 1, 8, 14, 15–16, 104, 150; characterizations of her gender 168–70; chronology of her “case” 7–10; cover girl makeover by You magazine 106–7, 131, 170; gender verifications/tests see gender verifications/tests; human rights 94; interview with Ben Smith 10, 11, 186; legitimization of doubts about 104–7; media speculation on corrective treatments 109, 173; London 2012 Olympic silver medal 10, 150, 174; reinstatement 2, 10, 38, 168, 170–5; return rally 130; silence 150–1, 153, 154; suspicions of 91–3; transgressions 13, 15, 18–22, 182 Sepei, S.J. 162, 165 sex assignment surgery 77–82; prohibited 82, 184 sexism 19, 22 sexology 62, 63 sexual categorization 27, 60–88 sexual dichotomy 61–4 sexual differentiation 64–7 sexual identity 5; fluidity of sexual identities 72–7 sexual medicalization of performance 34–6 sexuality, transgression of 21–2 silence 7, 183; Caster Semenya and

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Index unfixed ambiguity 7, 168–80; international re-imaging/remaking of sex 6–7, 150–67; power and as agentive strategy 153–5 Simpson, J. 174 single-sex model 61, 66, 82 Smith, B. 10, 11, 186 social order 71–2; see also norms social representations 3, 4; mediatized 5–7 social science 137–9, 163 socio-discursive approach 118–20 socioeconomic disadvantage 56, 158 Soir, Le 125 Soler, C. 133 South Africa 151–2, 157–64; ANC response to gender tests 9, 161–3; apartheid 13, 14–15; homogenous victimhood 157–8; sports codes 157–8; transformation in sport 158–61; victimhood and sporting modernity 163–4 “South African voice” 94–5, 127–31 Spain 76–7, 119 speculum, vaginal 64 Spivak, G. 153 sportive economy of bodily differences 5, 13–26, 182 sports codes 157–8 Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee of South Africa (SASCOC) 9 Stampa, La 165 stereotypes 20–1, 53, 118, 152 steroids 20 Stofile, M. 94 storytelling 123 Sullivan, C. 52–3 Sunday Times 129, 169, 170 surgery 72, 74, 77–82, 138 suspicion 16, 91–3 Sweden 74, 119 Switzer, K. 154, 165 Switzerland 81 Tännsjö, T. 137 Teazers 113 Teetzel, S. 54 terminology: confusion and common understanding of gender 102–4; media 135–6 tests 4, 16, 36, 39, 91, 101, 104, 126 testosterone 36–9, 49, 156–7, 172, 185; endogenous vs exogenous 36–8

195

testosterone/epitestosterone (TE) ratio 36–7 third sex 74, 170; see also hermaphroditism Time Magazine 155 Times, The 173 Times of India, The 54 tomboy 32, 105, 129 Too Fast to be a Woman 177 Toronto Star 177 trans persons 75–6, 107 transgressions 13, 15, 18–22, 182 triggering event 120–7 Tucker, R. 159–60, 170 two-sex model 61, 66, 71, 82 undefined sex 72–3 unexplained legal decision 7, 168–80 unfair advantage 50, 156–7; hyperandrogenism as 51–4 United Kingdom 77 United Nations Convention for the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) 162 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) 80 unnecessary medicalization 54–5 vaginal speculum 64 Vahed, G. 159 Vancouver Province 173 victimhood 163–4 Vilain, E. 39, 97, 132 visual doubt 106, 113–14 visual evidence of sex 101–17 vital records 67–71; accommodation of indeterminate sex 72–4; approval for changing sex designation in 74–7 voice 17; South African 94–5, 127–31 Vonn, L. 17, 23 Waldeyer, H. 65 Weiss, P. 8, 9, 92, 106, 125, 170 Wilhelm, E. 63 Woods, M. 173 World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) 35–6, 37 World Anti-Doping Code (WADC) 16, 27, 35 World Athletics Championships 1, 8, 14, 15–16, 104, 150 World University Games 31 Worley, K. 177

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Ye Shiwen 185–6 You magazine 106–7, 131, 170

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Zapiro cartoon 129 Zuma, J. 8, 94, 95 Zuma, N.D. 162