Caster Semenya and the middle sex
Times Online
19 November 2009
http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/families/article6922193.ece (http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/families/article6922193.ece)
The way we cope with Caster Semenya, the South African athlete of disputed sex, is to tell ourselves that she is nothing like us, nor anyone we know, nor anything we are likely to know. She is, in the court of public opinion, a freak, no matter what the news is from the International Association of Athletics Federations tomorrow.
So would it surprise you to know that every other day in Britain a baby is born looking different enough that doctors cannot instantly tell its sex? Would it make you feel less safe in your opinions if you knew that for 1 in 4,000 expectant parents a year, there is no answer to that first question: is it a boy or a girl? That almost certainly someone you know has started off his or her life like this? That, when you take into account the more subtle disorders of sexual differentiation, it becomes apparent only at puberty or later, as is the case for Semenya, and the rate doubles again? That children with physical problems such as this are one of medicine's best-kept secrets?