2009 World Championships in Athletics – Women's 800 metres

Caster Semenya is an athlete who has identified herself as a woman and has her whole life. However, it changed when she was required to do a gender testing. In this test, she found out that she had no ovaries or uterus, but she did have testes that could produce testosterone. Because of this result, there was a huge debate whether she would be allowed to race as a woman because she had a huge advantage over the others. However, Dr. Myron Genel, a professor at Yale University, states that she is a female born with a birth defect. Normally, in the world there is 1% of the population that are born with a disorder of sexual development. Many of these people can show the physical characteristic of both genders or have a chromosomal disorder. Furthermore, it is not usually noticeable in a girl until she hit puberty or she is trying to have babies, or in Caster’s case with a gender testing. But she is not alone, in 2000, the Journal of The American Medical Association reported that 27 of the 11, 373 had a disorder of sexual development. In some cases, it can be treated with surgery. But many doctors recommended for the patient to be older because their gender usually becomes noticeable at an older age. Thomas Beatie was…

Semenya whose celebrity status was the result of media speculation and the efforts of outside sources and with little input from Semenya, herself. In this paper I will be examining Dr Jaime Shultz’s article, ‘The accidental celebritisation of Caster Semenya’ which focuses on this notion of media representation as the basis for Semenya’s ‘celebrity’. Castor Semenya is a South African women’s track and field athlete who won the women’s title for the 800-metre dash in the 2009 World Championships…

Usain Bolt,born 21 August 1986) is a Jamaican. He is the first person to hold both the and since became mandatory. He also holds the world record as a part of the . He is the reigning world and Olympic champion in these three events. Due to his unprecedented dominance and achievements in sprint competition, he is widely considered to be the greatest sprinter of all time.An eight-time , Bolt won the 100 m, 200 m and 4 × 100 m relay at three consecutive Olympic Games, although he subsequently…

Despite the fact that testosterone levels are associated with strength and muscle size and therefore cannot be used to universally “rank” athletic capabilities across different individuals (Jordan-Young and Karkazis, 2012), the IOC still equates a “masculine appearance” with “maleness”. This cultural thinking endorses the persistent scrutiny of female athletes who do not conform to hegemonic standards of beauty and…