News and Events => Opinions & Editorials => Topic started by: Shana A on September 17, 2009, 08:57:04 AM Return to Full Version
Title: Caster Semenya Ambiguous gender identity in another can trigger anxieties about
Post by: Shana A on September 17, 2009, 08:57:04 AM
Post by: Shana A on September 17, 2009, 08:57:04 AM
Caster Semenya
Ambiguous gender identity in another can trigger anxieties about our own unconscious homosexual fantasies, says psychoanalyst Coline Covington
By Coline Covington
FIRST POSTED SEPTEMBER 17, 2009
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/53626,news,why-the-world-is-scared-of-hermaphrodites-like-caster-semenya (http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/53626,news,why-the-world-is-scared-of-hermaphrodites-like-caster-semenya)
I see it all as a joke, it doesn't upset me. God made me the way I am and I accept myself." This was Caster Semenya's response to accusations made following her exceptional victory in the women's 800m final at the recent world athletics championships that she is a man, not a woman.
However, Semenya made this statement when she was convinced she was a woman. Now it seems the facts are not so clear and leaked medical tests, conducted under the aegis of the IAAF, indicate that the 18-year-old South African winner has both male and female sexual characteristics. The 'joke' has turned nasty. Semenya has been transformed from star to monster in the eyes of the world - seen, mistakenly, as neither man nor woman but as hermaphrodite.
Ambiguous gender identity in another can trigger anxieties about our own unconscious homosexual fantasies, says psychoanalyst Coline Covington
By Coline Covington
FIRST POSTED SEPTEMBER 17, 2009
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/53626,news,why-the-world-is-scared-of-hermaphrodites-like-caster-semenya (http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/53626,news,why-the-world-is-scared-of-hermaphrodites-like-caster-semenya)
I see it all as a joke, it doesn't upset me. God made me the way I am and I accept myself." This was Caster Semenya's response to accusations made following her exceptional victory in the women's 800m final at the recent world athletics championships that she is a man, not a woman.
However, Semenya made this statement when she was convinced she was a woman. Now it seems the facts are not so clear and leaked medical tests, conducted under the aegis of the IAAF, indicate that the 18-year-old South African winner has both male and female sexual characteristics. The 'joke' has turned nasty. Semenya has been transformed from star to monster in the eyes of the world - seen, mistakenly, as neither man nor woman but as hermaphrodite.