Pseudo Hermaphrodites Categories

In our society today we only have two categories male and female then what about the in-betweens hermaphrodites and pseudo-hermaphrodites which categories do they fit in. In truth they don’t fit into any of these categories because they are consider out of norms. Hermaphrodites have both the male and female organs due to them having both the xx and xy chromosomes but in our society you can only be one. In most recent events the sex of a female South African athlete Caster Semenya has been in question because a gender test revealed that Caster is both man and women and the medal that she won might be stripped away due to these results. Caster Semenya was born in South Africa and has been running ever since she was young, even at a young age Caster has been always teased as a tomboy because she liked playing sports with boys and had a boyish look but that never stopped her from running and playing with them.
So why that Caster Semenya was accepted as a woman in her village and questions about her gender was never raised except that she was a tomboy but now that Caster won the gold medal at the 2009 world championships in athletics, but now all these questions are popping up about her gender during her greatest moment for an 18 year old.
Caster was then force to do a gender test to prove that she is female or she will be stripped of her medal. Caster’s gender test came out that she was a hermaphrodite but does that really matter. Caster was raise by both of her parents as a girl and her village accepted her as a girl so why should she be subjected to this humiliation by the world’s standards of how a girl should look like and be stripped of her medal that she earned through her hard
work. I consider Caster Semenya to be a woman but in her gender testing it shows that Caster doesn’t have ovaries and has internal testes so she could also be a man. One of the reasons why Caster was subjected to do a gender test was because she looks like a man and didn’t have a women’s physique and also testosterone levels too high for a woman. Testosterone is a hormone in building muscles and Caster has three times the level of testosterone in a woman so that might have given her the benefits in winning the race. In most cases hermaphrodites are a touchy subject and in a lot of places and cultures to not talk about them since hermaphrodites are considered freaks of nature to a lot people and in professional sports where there’s only man and woman, for the winner to be an hermaphrodite it raised a lot of questions concerning the medal and should the winner be disqualified. Most people would be in distress over such matters but Caster Semenya told You magazine “God made me the way I am and I accept myself. I am who I am and I’m proud of myself”. Caster has such courage to stand up be proud of embracing herself while in many cases people might not embrace themselves as being something other than male or female.

bibliography

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testosterone http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caster_Semenya http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermaphrodite http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-south-africa-runner21-2009aug21,0,5294672.story http://www.everymantri.com/everyman_triathlon/2009/09/caster-semenya-is-a-hermaphrodite-according-to-published-reports.html
http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/beijing/blog/fourth_place_medal/post/Embattled-track-star-Caster-Semenya-gets-new-coa?urn=oly,187999