Her Question: In Case of Semenya
Even though I understand that those in the medical community call me an intersex person because of the way my internal organs are structured, I do not call myself intersex. That identity doesn’t fit me; it doesn’t fit my soul.
-Caster Semenya
The New York Times(dated October 21, 2023) introduced an essay by Caster Semenya, who achieved the title of double champion in the women’s 800-meter race at the 2012 London Olympics and the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics in Brazil.
Her story was astounding. She is a woman who not only said, “I’m not a man; I’m a woman,” but also emphasized, “I’m still a woman.” She faced demands for a ‘Gender Test’ to verify whether she was male or female, likely due to her identity being perceived as less feminine because she is an athlete with muscles and a deep voice, unlike other women.
She documented her story in a book titled “The Race to Be Myself” and laid it out in the world’s largest newspaper, The New York Times. It is clearly an ‘accusation.’ What did she accuse? She accused a world that does not see women as women. She accused the World Athletics Federation for demanding that she lower her high testosterone levels, medical professionals who easily recommend surgeries to make women more feminine, countries and athletes thirsty for medals, using drugs that should be prescribed for those who need male hormones for illegal purposes to enhance performance, and media that judge based on outward appearances and amplify it through packaged data. Thus, the world she accuses is a phantom created by money and a science that negates even what God has given, tarnishing even the Olympics.
So why has the world become like this? What has made the world like this?
I decided to read her confession, her book, “The Race to Be Myself.” She says herself that she is no longer the 18-year-old girl desperate to run, stating that she had achieved her dreams.
What she dreamed of, becoming a world champion, and winning a gold medal at the Olympics, she achieved. But why did she write a book, and why did she bring up the moments of deficiency, the humiliations she had to endure, and the pains of being criticized, to the world? It is her attempt to make a declaration to the world.
It is her own “Be Myself.” I read her expressed regrets. She was talking about the regret of why she couldn’t protect herself at the crucial age of 18. She regretted why she couldn’t refuse the Medical Test she was forced to take and why she had to endure mental and physical torture for four or even six years due to estrogen. She realized that it was an act of giving up her identity that she was born with. She questions why she didn’t refuse the doctor’s prescription regarding the results of the Medical Test when she was 18. She didn’t take the I.A.A.F. to court for demanding a gender identity test. But at that time, she couldn’t do it. It was the reality back then. It was the plight of not just her but many women of color from impoverished backgrounds.
Despite that reality, she accepted the humiliation, pain, and physical torture, and after two years, she was able to meet the conditions of the I.A.A.F. and return to the track and ran with all her might. So she achieved her dream of becoming a world champion. But why is she revisiting those humiliations, pains, and shivering agonies again? What is it that keeps her awake now?
“It’s a question.” If she had asked the question, her life for more than six years would have been different. If she had questioned the new identity she didn’t believe in, she wouldn’t have spent a majority of her professional life as someone else.
She now asks herself the questions she didn’t ask at the age of 18. After enduring all kinds of humiliations, pains, and tortures, and with irreparable regrets, she is now pouring out questions like, “Why must I go and mutilate it to conform to someone else’s rules?”
The distorted gaze towards her still exists. It is the gaze that sees her victory unfairly, not because she had been training and running well, but because people felt she had an unfair advantage.
However, she can now speak about herself accurately, acknowledge the thoughts of others, and refuse unjust demands. Even if the medical community refers to her as an ‘intersex person’ rather than a ‘woman,’ she firmly states that she doesn’t identify herself that way. Why? Because it’s not my identity, and it doesn’t match my soul.
Now, let’s pause here. Why am I introducing the case of Caster Semenya? The controversy over Semenya’s gender identity was a global sensation at the time and has since been quiet. It is unfortunate to learn about her pain now. But does the medical community have any faults there, or the media, or our society?
That’s it. She became aware of fundamental perspectives surrounding her at the most critical age of 18. She couldn’t question the demand to verify whether she was a woman or a man. Even if the results of the gender identity test showed different levels from typical females and demanded a reduction in testosterone levels, she didn’t ask, “Why should I use medication?” Even though using drugs to win a competition is illegal, why should she use drugs on the body given by heaven? Isn’t that illegal? She didn’t ask, “Why should I harm myself to comply with someone else’s rules?” She didn’t ask why she had to mutilate herself for the sake of following the rules of others. She is now pouring out those questions that she couldn’t ask at the age of 18 and couldn’t ask thereafter, even after more than ten years of enduring all sorts of humiliations, pains, and tortures, and with irreversible regrets.
So, have I, or even we, experienced the same question that Semenya received, “Who are you?” in the civilization of the 21st century, represented by artificial intelligence, that humanity is currently enjoying? Have we ever accurately answered that question? Or even before that question, have we ever questioned the technological civilization that shook humanity upon entering the 21st century, asking, “What exactly are you?” and “What are you here for?” About the Internet? About Microsoft’s Windows? About the map drawn by Google? And about the iPhone that handed us computers and eventually conquered humanity?
Humanity simply thought that the internet was ‘convenient.’ Or perhaps, without realizing it, we missed the questions in the fascination of being transported to a new world. Or maybe we were afraid of falling behind if we didn’t quickly grasp the new world shown by the internet. It might be more accurate to say that humanity’s appearance on the cusp of the 21st century was one that was entirely without regard for the rules of ‘the new world.’
That’s why we named the 21st century as the ‘Digital Age,’ and we called the life we had lived in the past the ‘Analog.’ Because of those standards, humanity’s life was sharply distinguished overnight.
The realization that the internet industry could be a source of profit for humanity came with the advent of the iPhone. Because a payment system was established with the creation of the App Store in the iPhone ecosystem and for the use of music through iTunes. Until then everything on the internet had been no profits. The internet did not bring any profits to humanity for a decade.
“However, if it is based on the internet, it has become a ‘technology company,’ and all the technology companies that enriched human life in the past era were stamped as ‘chimney companies.’ It proves the fact that the chimney companies, which were stamped at the time, fell into ruin in the stock market overnight.
The reason the author tells the Semenya story is also because of the fact that she clearly answers the question of ‘Who are you?’ or more precisely, ‘What are you?’ with ‘I am a woman,’ while looking back on her pitiful past life.
In modern civilization today, the focus of big tech companies is entirely on humans. If in the past, ‘chimney companies’ transformed and developed materials into wealth, now there is fierce competition among big tech companies to measure human behavior countably and generate data. The subject of scientific research has shifted from matter to humans. The fact that humans have become the subject of scientific research has not yet become mainstream in the scientific community. This is in line with the fact that the medical community has not been able to make the human body a subject of research due to ethical issues. However, whether in science or medicine, it is a fact that humans have ultimately become their subjects of experimentation. They emphasize that it is not humans but the results of human behavior that are the subject of research. They process the results of human behavior as data, extract meaning through statistics, and extract meaning from it. Then, do ‘I’ and ‘you’ exist in those statistics? Unfortunately, the methods of the scientific community or big tech view humans as a group rather than respecting individual humans. They ostensibly emphasize ethics, but humans have long since become their subjects of experimentation.
The problem is this: if the subject of research has shifted from matter to humans, the methodology of research, or in other words, hypotheses are supposed to be premised for research. The fact that these hypotheses have not changed from the past approach is the issue. In simpler terms, if the subject of research has changed to humans, then the questions should be different, but they are asking the same questions to humans as they did to matter. The consciousness of respecting human dignity as an important absolute value in medical acts has completely disappeared, and if it does not exist, it is no longer worth mentioning in science.
In 2009, when Semenya first faced her identity issues, she had two doctors. One was a gynecologist, and the other was a personal physician. The task of the gynecologist was to derive the test results according to the ‘gender identity test’ proposed by the World Athletics Federation, and the personal physician’s duty was to manage within the scope of drugs or treatments given to Semenya, so it can be said that he did not actively prevent Semenya from taking medication. However, the common point of the two doctors was that despite being experts in the medical process, they agreed to prescriptions that harmed health. As a doctor, they may have doubts about Semenya’s gender identity. However, agreeing to surgery or hormone therapy to lower testosterone levels is not the duty of a doctor who is supposed to protect the athlete’s health. If they had a conscience, they should have strongly suggested to the World Athletics Federation that harming Semenya’s health was not acceptable. Semenya’s personal physician told her to take medication only during the four years of the Olympics and immediately retire from her athletic career. That was not something to say to the athlete but something that the doctor should have strongly recommended to the athletics federation.”
