At 18 years old, South African middle-distance runner Caster Semenya burst onto the track and field world stage when she took gold in the women’s 800m at the World Championships in Berlin, Germany.
However, her record-breaking run was immediately met with controversy and contempt rather than the celebration she rightfully deserved.
The backlash revolved around her speed and appearance.
That was followed by questions relating to her sex and gender.
Fellow athletes, the sports media, and governing bodies such as World Athletics alike all felt entitled to target Semenya and her body.
“Just look at her,” said Mariya Savinova of Russia, who would have her 2012 gold medal win over Caster Semenya stripped later after she was found guilty of doping.
Elisa Cusma Piccone of Italy took it a step further and denounced Semenya’s 2009 victory altogether.
“For me she is not a woman. I’m also sorry for the other competitors…It is useless to compete with this and it is not fair.”
“This?”
Caster Semenya is a woman. A Black (sports) woman falling into the all too familiar trap of having her womaness called into question and her body viewed as too much.
After the vicious attacks, Semenya was forced to undergo “gender testing,” a practice that has haunted women athletes since they began participating in elite sports.
There is an underlying assumption that gender testing protects women from hidden male competitors who want to sneak into competition for what we can only assume is “easier competition.” This theory is linked to the idea that testosterone, which everyone possesses but is most often associated with men, masculinity, and athletic superiority, gives one an athletic advantage.
Caster Semenya has a condition known as hyperandrogenism, which results in her body producing higher levels of testosterone. As a result, she was required by a 2011 ruling by World Athletics—then the International Association of Athletics—to take medications to reduce her naturally occurring testosterone levels in order to compete.
Semenya, a teenager at the time, felt as though she had no choice.
“It made me sick, made me gain weight, panic attacks, I didn’t know if I was ever going to have a heart attack…It’s like stabbing yourself with a knife every day,” she told HBO Real Sports. But I had no choice. I’m 18, I want to run, I want to make it to the Olympics, that’s the only option for me.”
There is a double standard when it comes to genetic predispositions in sport and in society—one that is very much decidedly raced and gendered.
Michael Phelps’ naturally disproportionately vast wingspan, double-jointed ankles, and ability to produce half the lactic acid of a typical athlete (lactic acid causes fatigue) made him better equipped for his sport. Yet he was not required to take medications to increase his naturally low levels of lactic acid.
I don’t mention Phelps as a medical comparison but rather to highlight the ways in which genetic differences are celebrated for a white man and a Black woman.
As a Black woman, Caster Semenya’s gender is already suspect—a lingering response to colonial narratives of Blackness, gender, and sexuality.
That the global institution of sport felt so threatened by Semenya, her body, and athletic ability at the age of 18 is alarming and infuriating.
“They thought I had a dick, probably,” said Semenya. “I told them: ‘It’s fine. I’m a female, I don’t care. If you want to see I’m a woman, I will show you my vagina.”
History has shown us that there is something innately terrifying about the athletic Black body.
We’ve seen this fear before in the treatment of Black men from Jack Johnson to George Floyd.
However, there is something even more troubling about being a “fast” Black woman.
To Be A Young, Gifted, Black and Fast Woman
Black women dominate track and field.
From Ed Temple’s Tennessee State University Tigerbelles, including Wyomia Tyus who became the first American to win consecutive gold medals in the 100-meters during the 1968 Olympic Games, to Caster Semenya, Sha’Carri Richardson, Allyson Felix, and Florence Griffith Joyner, Black women run.
Yet being a young, gifted, Black sportswoman comes at a cost.
It comes with accusations of doping or illicit drug use that get you barred from competing while others are not punished in the same way.
Or you are called a man by women who can’t beat you (or do so only when they dope themselves).
Caster Semenya, nevertheless, continued to win.
She won in Rio in 2016, with a time of 1 min 55.28 sec, a personal best and a new South African national record, as well as the fifth-fastest time in Olympic history.
Her continued success, however, only made the International Association of Athletics Federations push harder against Semenya and other women with high levels of naturally occurring testosterone on the premise that they should not be allowed to compete unless they take drugs to suppress those levels.
While these regulations may not have intended to target Black African women exclusively, it cannot be ignored that at the Summer Games in Tokyo in 2021, several of those barred from competing in middle-distance events were in fact, Black African women. Caster Semenya, (South Africa), Francine Niyonsaba (Burundi), Margaret Wambui (Kenya), Christine Mboma (Namibia) and Beatrice Masilingi (Namibia) were all unable to compete in their respective events due to naturally occurring high levels of testosterone.
After the Games, a bombshell dropped.
Turns out that the original study linking high testosterone levels and performance, which World Athletics used as the basis for their punishment, had flaws.
“To be explicit, there is no confirmatory evidence for causality in the observed relationships reported. With this in mind, we recognize that statements in the paper could have been misleading by implying a causal inference,” said World Athletics.
So based on flawed wording, Black sportswomen remain targets for simply existing.
Serena Williams’ displays of passion on the tennis court are read as the “Angry Black woman,” and she receives excessive fines whereas similar or greater displays by white men go unpunished. Black women runners have long hair and nails, and Australian journalists like Claire Lehmann suggest it’s due to them using steroids.
Misogynoir is alive and well within the realm of sports.
Black sportswomen deserve much better than they have received. They deserve to compete unimpeded by misogynoir, they deserve fair representation, fair pay, and to exist in their bodies as they are.
Let Caster Run!
Free Brittney Griner!
Period.
This story is brought to you by First and Pen in collaboration with Vanderbilt Sports & Society Initiative. The Vanderbilt Sports & Society Initiative was founded in 2018 by the late Vanderbilt Athletic Director David Williams to study the intersection of sports, race, gender, and politics. Follow the Initiative on Twitter @SportsSocietyVU and subscribe to the weekly e-newsletter by emailing Andrew.J.Maraniss@
