Caster Semenya is the South African track and field star who recently was engulfed in controversy at the recently concluded World Track and Field Championships.
Turns out, there are some who are questioning her gender, and subsequently, tests are being conducted to see if she is really a woman.
It’s not as cut and dry as it appears.
Consider the possibility of androgen insensitivity syndrome (AIS), where, according to this piece in TIME.com, is “a condition in which a genetic male is resistant to androgens, the male sex hormones that include testosterone. In such cases, the testes never descend from the abdomen and the genitalia may resemble female genitalia.”
With one’s body insensitive to testosterone, more is subsequently produced. But there is little data as to whether this increased level of testosterone confers an athletic advantage.
In fact, if Miss Semenya really had AIS, it’s likely that she, along with her doctors and family, isn’t even aware of it. According to Rob Ritchie, a urological surgeon at Oxford University, “It is quite common for neither an individual with AIS nor her parents to realize that she is genetically male. Indeed, AIS is sometimes diagnosed at fertility clinics only when women seek help because of their inability to become pregnant.”
This is a sensitive situation for Miss Semenya, whose life may be irrevocably altered by the test findings. Add in the fact that the world is speculating about whether she is indeed a female or not, will only add to the challenges that are not of her own doing.
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{ 14 comments }
Educate me. Is she really the right phenotype for AIS? Is the phenotype highly variable? Because back in the day when I studied such things, the appearance of AIS individuals in genetic textbooks was almost hyper-feminine; There was good muscle tone, but they were visually, gorgeous women with nicer than normal curves, long legs, and sparse body hair…. Semenya, in contrast, looks like a male.
Jamie Lee Curtis was born with AIS; anyone have any difficulty considering her as female? http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Sy4cijDUAgY/R5C5yOLiECI/AAAAAAAAE88/G8OxGatOgrU/s400/jamie_lee_curtis_gallery_30.jpg
SaraW – Excuse my ignorance but what exactly is a “visually, gorgeous women”? Do other class female athletes have “normal curves”? What makes you think Semenya doesn’t have “long legs”? What makes you think she doesn’t have “sparse body hair”?
Thank goodnes Semenya’s identity is not subject to your opinion.
Jeremy, my point is that textbook photos of AIS individuals look hyper-feminine, and not like malse. Semenya has a straight waist, no breasts, in contrast the book subjects had wider hips, breast development and, in my perception, more coltish legs. Their facial features were in every respect feminine and there was, according to the text, no deepening of the voice as Semenya is noted to have.
It may very well be that AIS is not complete in all individuals and that hormones from undescended testes may result in some secondary sex characteristics of males. It’s a specific enough inquiry. You might answer it instead of pretending Semenya does not have a feminine appearance.
Also, in the textbooks I refer to, the condition was described as “testicular feminization syndrome”. Is AIS a more umbrella term ?
Are any of the text book examples world class track athletes? What would the rigours of intense interval and strength training have on any woman’s body …including one diagnosed as AIS? Women’s professional and international level olympic sports are repleat with examples of women with divergent phenotype.
K7AAY – “…..Jamie Lee Curtis was born with AIS……”
We don’t know that. The only people who know that would be Jamie Lee, her parents, her doctors, I guess her husband, etc…….
They’re not saying. You may well be right. I thought that was an admitted fact as well, but official status is “undetermined”.
I appreciate your point, though.
SarahW:
testicular feminization syndrome = androgen insensitivity syndrome
Androgen insensitivity syndrome is the modern, accepted term. Describes the condition more accurately IMHO as well.
Jeremy,
SarahW is asking the right question. Typically, AIS results in a very tall, very classically “feminine” appearance (large breasts, sparse body hair, etc.). This is certainly not the picture Caster presents.
No need to get your hackles raised.
Thanks for answering that part of my query, here below I answer my own: There *is* a partial or incomplete form of AIS.
I had not heard of this before, but it explains a patient I had many years ago, a married woman who was known to have no uterus. She had an abdominal tumour which was first diagnosed as dysgerminoma of ovary, but on review was found to be actually a seminoma of undescended testis.
P.S. – K7, the story that Jamie Lee Curtis has AIS is apocryphal. Depending upon your source, she was alternately a hermaphrodite at birth.
And yes, Cherry, that sounds about right. Mullerian structures fail to form, but there remain undescended testicles in the abdomen.
There are 7 stages of AIS, stage 7 being termed Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (CAIS) and the others classified as Partial Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (PAIS). PAIS people’s bodies can still use some of their testosterone, while CAIS people cannot. The lower numbered stages of PAIS may not have perfect external female genitalia. Semenya obviously does not have CAIS, but PAIS. What stage of PAIS he has, we don’t know. But he needs to have his testes removed because there is a strong tendency for them to become cancerous. I don’t think he was trying to fool anyone. In all likelihood, neither he or his family knew of his condition. Because he doesn’t have CAIS, it is probably unfair for him to compete as a woman because his body can still produce and utilize more testosterone than a female.
I hear that the latest idea is that she/he is hermaphrodite, but I don’t know how this conclusion was reached. This is the same label that the patient I mentioned was given at the time; however, as she appeared externally to be definitely a woman, I think she must have CAIS. Ms. Semenya looks more like a man.
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