Hamburg - The case of 800 metres world champion Caster Semenya is becoming a major ethical and political issue - but she would not be the first athlete whose gender is not fully clear. Stella Walsh of Poland was the 100m Olympic champion in 1932. After her death in 1980 in the US an autopsy revealed that she had male genitals and both male and female chromosomes, a condition known as mosaicism.
Indian 800m runner Santhi Soundarajan was stripped of her silver medal at the 2006 Asian Games after failing a gender test. She was later diagnosed with the Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome: a genetically male condition but resistant to androgens (male sex hormones) which makes the body appear externally female.
As far as Semenya is concerned, only a complicated process involving gynecologists, geneticists, endocrinologists, psychologists, internal medicine doctors and other specialists, as well as lawyers, will decide the sensitive issue.
The ruling athletics body IAAF requested a gender verification test after she burst onto the scene this season, lowering her personal best by eight seconds. Tests on Semenya, who has a masculine appearance, were conducted in South Africa and Berlin.
Women normally have two X chromosomes; men an X and a Y chromosome which means that only athletes with two X chromosomes are eligible for women's events.
However, the IAAF (and other sports federations) have no provision for the various intersex conditions, which could include Semenya's.
Australian news reports said on Friday the test results showed evidence that Semenya was a hermaphrodite, that she has no ovaries but internal testes which make her produce three times the average amount of the male hormone testosterone than "normal" women.
South Africa appears to have more intersexed people than other countries. The Intersex South Africa organization says on its website that "one person in every 50 has sex organs that doctors think are not typical" and that "it is believed that one in 500 people are born intersexed."
The IAAF has to determine whether Semenya has an unfair advantage over other women, and it will want to know whether she knew of her condition and whether she is ready to undergo surgery.
Gender tests were mandatory at Olympic Games 1968-2000 after several Eastern Bloc athletes had raised suspicion. By now the tests only take place in suspicious cases, with officials mainly concerned about athletes who seek an advantage through a gender change.
