Intersection of Gender and Race: Caster Semenya

The gold medallist in the 800m at the World Track & Field Championships in Berlin is 18-year-old Caster Semenya of South Africa. Semenya demolished the field in the finals of the 800m by running 1:55.45, more than two seconds ahead of the defending world champion Janeth Jepkosgei of Kenya.

Afterwards, there were questions raised about the winner's gender:

Semenya, a muscular 5 feet 7 inches and 140 pounds, was an unknown before she ran a blistering time at the Africa Junior Championships three weeks ago. She did not speak to media after the race.

[...]

Weiss said it could take several weeks to get the results of the investigation, which he said included testing of Semenya in both South Africa and Berlin. Without that evidence, the IAAF could not keep Semenya from running here.

"We entered Caster as a woman and we want to keep it that way," South African team manager Phiwe Mlangeni-Tsholetsane told the Associated Press. "Our conscience is clear in terms of Semenya."

The issue of gender testing is so controversial that the International Olympic Committee suspended widespread gender testing in 1999, reserving the right to do psychological, gynecological and chromosome investigations "if there is a valid suspicion," IOC medical director Patrick Schamasch said in an e-mail.

Of course, what they are actually talking about is sex, not gender. Gender consists of the socially constructed meanings, characteristics and associations with the state of being male or female. Sex is the state of being either male or female. Neither are binaries, they exist on a spectrum.

Interestingly, the Los Angeles Times goes on to summarize the controversy over the determination of sex in track and field over time.

There have been controversies about gender in track and field for several decades.

An autopsy after her 1980 death found that Stella Walsh, who won the 1932 Olympic gold medal in the 100 meters for Poland, had male genitals and mixed male and female chromosomes. She retained her gold medal and a silver she won in 1936.

At least two women have been banned from track and field since 1967 because they failed chromosome tests, although one was reinstated. An Indian distance runner lost a 2006 Asian Games silver medal after failing a gender test.

As recently as the 1987 Mediterranean Games in Syria, only a visual inspection was used for gender verification. By that time, mouth swabs to reveal chromosomes were the accepted method, but questions about their accuracy led to the IOC ban on using them exclusively to determine gender

How do you think the line should be drawn between "male" and "female"?