when gender matters

http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/trackandfield/news/story?id=4411235

I don't know how many people are aware of this, but Caster Semenya (South Africa), winner of the 800m race in this year's World Championships may lose her medal. It all depends on whether a gender test says she's actually female or not.

What the hell? I don't really agree with them dividing every sport into male and female categories, but if they didn't do that I know no woman could ever get to the top of any sport (due to a mix of social and biological reasons. Also, look at the numbers, it's pretty much a fact).

I just read in Time magazine that Ms. Semenya has "three times the testosterone as the average woman". Of course they neglected to mention how much more testosterone you need to have to be statistically significant. According to this sketchy site , women have 70 units (it's ng/dl) of testosterone while men can have from 280 to over 1000 of the stuff. Okay, so three times 70? That's only 210, still lower than what's normal for men. Shoddy jouralism there, Time.

Something else that's important - So what happens if you're not a man or a woman? Obviously they're not trying to prove that she's a man, just that she's not a woman. That's pretty much all that they CAN prove, seeing as she lacks a penis. What even happens if you fail a gender test? Do you have to run in the Special Olympics now? You can laugh off people thinking you're in the wrong bathroom, but losing a gold medal should really trigger some re-thinking of why sex and gender matters.