8.26.2009

Can we just agree that defining who is female is stupid?

OK, so Semanya Caster is a really good athlete, and she's boyish looking, some would say. This must mean that she is somehow not a woman, according to the athletics officials.


What they mean is, not woman enough. Gender is not this or that. It is a continuum, like everything in nature. Who gets to decide where on that continuum "female" begins? Is female about chromosomes? Is it hormones? Is it physical structure?

I don't see anyone testing male athletes to see if they have an unfair advantage because their bodies produce more testosterone. Maybe they are too "male."

What if she has a chromosomal variation? She should never compete? How silly. Every world class athlete has some kind of variation that makes him/her great, even if it's just uncommon devotion to training. I just keep thinking of Kurt Vonnegut's "Harrison Bergeron," where we're all handicapped like race horses to be exactly the same.

Obsession

Donating a kidney has left me a little obsessed with the whole "people are dropping dead for no good reason when there are plenty of extra kidneys in the world" issue, and rather than go on about that here, I started KidneyMama.com, so catch my kidney news and rants over there.