Is she a man?

[Elle Driver]

She does not look feminine I agree, but all the coverage is pretty disgusting imo. As has been said here, if it were a doping case she would still be unnamed. Ok the SA federation did not cooperate with doing the testing a couple of weeks ago, but to name her now is still unacceptable imo.

Absolutely agree. How mortifyingly embarrassing for her. She most know it's being discussed and debated but this level of coverage and indeed, publicly naming her - - not justifiable at all. Why could they not have waited until they knew for sure, in their conclusions, after all the evidence?

[lobby]

Absolutely agree. How mortifyingly embarrassing for her. She most know it's being discussed and debated but this level of coverage and indeed, publicly naming her - - not justifiable at all. Why could they not have waited until they knew for sure, in their conclusions, after all the evidence?

Indeed - or at least wait until she had run the final! It's outrageous that this allegation was raised such a short time before a major race

[bean80]

it's been really interesting me as a story and I feel so sad for her situation. I agree that Fatima Whitbread also looked like a man but was her body type as masculine as serveya's?

[parkejm]

if they use hormone levels to define sex she may have had higher levels of Testosterone than the other female tennis players.

I'd be buggered if they do this, I have very high testosterone levels - one of the symptoms of PCOS

I agree that the way this has been conducted is totally out of order. I can't help thinking that she wouldn't have got as far as she has if her gender was that ambiguous. I don't know the ins and outs of being intersex though.

[*SarahR*]

I would have thought that one of the things that they would do is to karyotype to check what chromosomal make-up she has. E.g. I can remember learning about a condition where you can be XXY (Kleinfelters possibly?).

I think that having high levels of testosterone would be a manifestation of another condition iyswim.

I am v rusty on all this kind of thing though!

[Damsella]

Well she's gone into the I'm A Celebrity jungle now, so there'll be a lot more speculation! I wonder if she'll be doing a "Mylene Klass" bikini shot or two



http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz...e-Clement.html

[Damsella]

Oh yes, she is She is one fit person!

[Faith]

It's whitbread in the jungle, not Semenya (who the op was about).

I feel for Semenya, with it being so public. I get the feeling she has some chromosomal issue, so she's physiologically female, but not necessarily genetically. The issue is its such a sliding scale- there's many points between one clear sex and true hermaphrodite, so how does that effect her competing internationally? Is it enough to have/ not have a penis, or are we going to start testing all our athletes for medical conditions that may give them an advantage?

[Damsella]

It's whitbread in the jungle, not Semenya (who the op was about).

D'oh!

I'm not sure how you could be physiologically a female, but not genetically? But yes, I guess gender can be more of a sliding scale than we were previously aware of. And where do you draw the line, or stop the testing...

[Faith]

D'oh!

I'm not sure how you could be physiologically a female, but not genetically? ..

There's loads of syndromes. Klinefelter, sarahr has already mentioned, where you're physically male but have xxy chromosomes, turners, where you have only one x, and androgen insensitive syndrome, where your body doesn't recognise testosterone when it develops, so although you have xy chromosomes, you develop as a female in the womb, so are physiologically female. And those are only the common ones I can remember off the top of my head.