Caster Semenya

The tragedy in which that young lady is featuring is still ongoing.

Imagine the embarassment. She has been examined, and her private information has been 'leaked' to the media. And of course now it is in the public domain. She is a neither woman nor man. Or she is both a man and woman. And we all know it.

How would you feel if this was public knowledge?

How does the IAAF feel about it? They have effectively destroyed the life of a young person, because they have to prove that she is not 'cheating'. As a sop, they are leaving her with the medal that she won. So, is she a man or woman? Will she be allowed to compete anymore?

I was talking to Julius, and he told me something horrible. That traditionally, children born with ambiguous genitalia are killed soon after birth. His story tells of the trials he went through. What about Castor...

Yeah, our unbending world can be very, very cruel.

My prayers to Castor Semenya as she passes through this time of shame. Hope South Africans can still find the strength to stand by her. Just as she is.

gug

Intersex and the LGBTI cause

I have been trying to make people understand why the Intersex people are important in the whole LGBTI politics thing. Kind of hard to explain, to many people. I am a gay man. I don’t want to be a woman. I don’t think of myself as a woman.

And many other kuchus stop there.

Explained it this way to my lover. When society looks at the Intersex, they see human beings that they cannot ‘classify’ conventionally. And medical science comes out and says, hey, wait, the reasons are ‘bona fide’. This person is neither man nor woman, and these are the physical, verifiable facts. And us kuchus are the same. But, and it is an important difference, we don’t seem to have physical backing for our differences. We look like everyone else, and since we cant ‘proove’ our differences, we are taken stigmatized for being different.

Ok. Am not fresh enough to pull it off. Explain what I mean, I mean.

Maybe this article explains it better…!

From our friends in Kenya, an analysis.

Kenyans and the man-woman thing: Thanks Semenya!

Caster Semenya of South Africa celebrates after she won the women's 800 metres final during the world athletics championships at the Olympic stadium in Berlin, August 19, 2009. REUTERS

By CABRAL PINTO

Posted Monday, September 7 2009 at 16:54

Kenya’s own Janeth Jepkosgei lost the recent 800 metres race at the World Championships in Berlin to Caster Semenya of South Africa. Kenyans seem to be waiting for the answer to the question, “Is Miss Caster Semenya a woman?” If the answer is in the negative then our own Jepkosgei gets the gold medal. I want to urge Kenyans to simply go beyond the gold medal and bring the Semenya controversy close to home. How do we deal with our Semenyas in various fields of excellence? Shall we disown them or glorify them?

If Semenya is intersex – has sex organs of both gender – is the IAAF going to make a scientific decision or a social decision? Who has the right to determine her gender if she is intersex and has decided she is a woman? Does this issue not tell us that we are dealing with a complex issue, may be the end of gender as we know it?

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Intersex grown ups

We tend to dismiss the issue of difference by casting it in moral or cultural arguments. I know that many intersex babies in Kenya have operations the moment they are born, here the decisions being made by the parents. As one would imagine, the majority of these babies end up being male. Problems crop up later when the adults want to reverse those decisions by their parents. It is also common knowledge that intersex grown ups who seek operations after making their own decisions invariably find surgeons who ask them to seek the permission of their parents, their adulthood notwithstanding! It is not that as Kenyans we do not know this problem. We do. We seem to refuse to treat it with the humanity it deserves.

We are also a very homophobic nation, although I believe we have not reached the horrific levels of Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni and Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe. Do we regard LGBTIQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer) people as human beings who are simply different? Can we on any legal or moral basis argue that gay people should be killed on the basis of their sexual orientation? Should we condone discrimination in whatever form on the basis of sexual orientation? What do we do when our relatives are gay? Do we announce from the rooftops that they are sick and unmitigated sinners? Why should we play God in these matters? The foremost bastions of homophobia in many countries seem to be religious institutions although I am sure they have no problems pocketing the offerings of gay people.

God's role

We need, as a nation, to correct the issue of discrimination. As we discuss a new constitution we may want to discuss these issues of difference and discrimination. Most of the gay groups in East Africa are founded by young people who crave for understanding and respect for their rights to be different. Cursing people who are gay, killing them, discriminating them in jobs, housing and in health will not make them disappear. If we are, indeed, religious we need to accept God’s role in the creation and in the difference and at least discuss the issue. I believe the first place where we should start this discussion is in the family and cultivate understand that can perhaps permeate to the rest of society.

One final word of advice to all Kenyans who want to stand up and be counted in the struggle for equality and rights of the sexual minorities is the realisation that you do not have to be gay to protect gay rights.

I wonder if Semenya was Kenyan we would have flocked the JKIA to welcome her. Her family, relatives and the wilder society in South Africa glorified her victory. May be Semenya’s controversy will keep Kenyans thinking through these broader issues and not the gold medal. Thank you Semenya!

(cabralpinto2009@gmail.com)

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Gosh, the article is so good that I have ‘borrowed’ most of it here. Follow the link for the full article.

gug

Thurs Afternoon

It’s a day of wind

and quiet thoughtfulness.

What is there to think about? A lot, I think. Just had a surprise encounter with a former boyfriend. The circumstances were formal, and interesting. And, they revealed something about him that I didn’t expect.

Ok. He is positive. HIV positive.

That revelation is always a threat. Knowing that a person is positive. Knowing that one is, or is not, or how they think about it. Why? Because I am human. Because we are all human. And sometimes, many times, we are confronted by our own fears and prejudices. Or remnants of the same.

So, didn’t talk much with the guy. Didn’t share, didn’t ask what has been happening. In truth, I was not tongue tied by the surprise realization. Was too brief an encounter. But it makes me remember myself. Who I am.

And the many ways that we humans exclude others, on the barest, most minimal grounds. So, it is a matter of fact that most HIV positive kuchus don’t want to come out. They don’t want other kuchus to know. Because they are also human beings, and they know that fellow kuchus will stigmatise them just because they are positive. Cant blame only Ugandans. Happens in other countries too. Life is rough, raw and interesting. Kuchu life that is. Always something small, interesting to throw into the fray.

Reminds me of Castor Semenye. A good, interesting, uplifting modern tale of good.

A nation has rallied around her. At the moment when she could have been shamed and thrown to the gossip columns, her country mates have turned the tables. World wide sympathy and an outpouring of love for the young lady has turned the IAAF into the ogre in this story. I laughed when someone sent me a petition to sign, to ‘keep the IAAF out of Caster Semenye’s pants’. Hilarious.

The anger, the outrage is justified.

No, I don’t mean the old catch all phrases, blaming ‘colonialists’ ‘racist’ etc. It is pure and simple a case of trying to throw out a member of the human race from the family of humanity. So, according to the IAAF, she may be too much woman. But most likely she is not man enough. She will not conform to the small labels of man, woman.

But, and this is the beautiful thing, a nation, her nation has come out to rally around her, to say, and demand that that doesn’t matter. Instead of it Caster languishing in bitterness alone, she has known the love of her family, her village, her town, her people. Surely, Caster will be strong whatever the ogre, IAAF decide. And, it will be a difficult decision, if Castor is inter-sex. They will have to stand up and tell us how Castor is neither man enough to be a man, nor woman enough to be a woman. But somewhere in the middle. Do remember that one Indian athlete committed suicide on being called neither man nor woman.

The question that pops into my mind would be, does the IAAF have any inter-sex category where she can compete?

But it is a beautiful story, a fairy story that is still on going, that has yet to get to a conclusion.

Have a wonderful day.

gug

Inter Sex: Neither Man, Nor Woman.

UPDATE

Yeah, I like this Black Looks article about the same issue...

SA Feminists speak on Caster Semenya, sex tests and gender mix

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Not a man. But not a Woman, either. So, what is she/he?

No, don’t laugh. Because the question that I ask is something that is a daily occurrence. We tend not to think about it. It is automatic. A child is born, and we ask, girl or boy? Our minds have been wound like that. It must be a girl or boy. It cannot be neither of the two and it still is a human being. At least, that is ‘common sense’. Or is it?

The Inter-sex. Neither male nor female.

I first faced this when there was a hullabaloo about Julius. The only male who attended Gayaza High School, one of the premier girls’ (if not THE premier) girls’ college in Uganda. Oh yeah. The guy went ahead and wrote his amazing story in a book, “From Julie to Julius”. A real live story of an inter-sex person living and working in Uganda. Remember Nsubuga Aldrine, the guy who railed against homosexuality in football in Uganda? He was incensed at the questions on Julius’s sex. He had known the guy as a guy, and he was a friend, Aldrine insisted. The guy was a guy’s guy, and let those who questioned his manliness go to hell. To give him his due, Aldrine did defend a friend, from the malicious gossip of the Ugandan society.

I have talked to Julius. He was (or is) a staunch Christian. Attending Kampala Pentecostal Church, the mega church in the middle of Kampala. And when Julius wanted to get married, the church asked him for ‘proofs’ of his maleness. Needless to say, the wedding did happen, but not with the blessing of KPC, now Watoto Church.

Ok, so, now I begin my rant. Or, to educate a tiny, big lil sis of mine, here is the whine.

In the large, wide, heterosexual world ‘sexual minorities’ do not exist, we are punished for being different. That is not a whine. That is reality. That is what happens on a daily, hourly basis. It is not that we don’t exist. It is that we are not thought to exist, and as such, we are excluded from church, from the things which you a good, healthy, heterosexual takes for granted.

So, Julius became a scandal. Like Caster Semenya is at the moment.

Just like good old gug is a scandal. Oh, for gug, it is because he is a male who falls in love with other males. Other men. Different from usual? Of course. But does it happen? Yes, it does. And because it is not common, because it is not the norm, that does not mean that the majority should have a right to persecute and exclude me. Just because I am different.

Now, there ends the whine. Flick, flick, flick. The mud does feel sticky. Flick it off.

Now, now, now. Princess, consider the beauty of our world. The diversity, and what is as it is. You have heard of that runner, the one who is under investigation. So, what will happen after the investigation, and the debate by the experts. Will Caster Semenya be a man or a woman? What will the panel of experts decide? What will happen when the Caster gets to the point of getting married? What will the church say?

What does this say, what challenge do you face here? To stop thinking in staid, old boxes. Life is life. It is not clear black and whites. It is the very shades of the rainbow. It is grays and greens and whites and blacks. It is pale greens and dark oranges, purples and pinks. Life is not an absolute. And, life is beautiful as in-absolute as it is.

I think it is Spiralx who once commented that straight people are boring… And the gay are ‘fabulous’. I think what he meant was that those who consider themselves straight tend to think in a box that is boring. Talk sex, children, parentage, etc, etc. Nevender will come charging with the Bible in hand, to condemn and hit me with it. Me, I will dance and tease him with words. He will not understand me. Because, in his world, god made them male and female. And male has sex with females. Not male with male, not female with female. So, when one who is neither male nor female steps out of God’s creation, what will Nevender say? Do you still read this blog, dude? If you do, what do you say? Should KPC have married Julius? Or not? Is Caster Semenya a man or woman? Is Caster part of God’s beautiful, rainbow varied creation? Yes or no? A challenge to your box of thinking.

To me, proof that the creator never thought in terms of absolutes. Julius, and Castor are, beautiful human beings. Whatever sex a ‘panel of experts’ labels them, they are human beings, like you and me. And, they deserve all the blessings (and curses) that our humanity and our legal systems endow us with. Not to be excluded. Not to be shamed. But to be affirmed. To be held close to heart. To be understood.

Here is to love of all human beings.

gug