From Monsters to "Women": Science, Sex, Sport, and the Story of Caster Semenya

Abstract

My dissertation examines the various rhetorical techniques used to administrate gender and sex in the context of sport. Since the 1960s, the category of female has been treated as a prize to be won, reserved only for those who passed a variety of tests and who, quite literally, carried cards attesting to the authenticity of their sex. Given these restrictions on the category of the "female athlete," I conclude that women in sport have always been a rhetorical creation. I use the controversy over South African runner Caster Semenya as an entry point to explore these techniques in their various forms from 1966 to the present day. In 2009, Semenya was subjected to a variety of gender tests - from stripping her of her clothes, swabbing her mouth for chromosomal analysis, or extracting blood samples for genetic analysis - each of which had a long history in sport, many of which had been officially banned, but all of which still influenced whether or not she counted as a female. By analyzing the long history of these gender tests and their application to Semenya's body, my dissertation examines some of the most enduring practices of female naturalization in public memory. Caster Semenya's story figures as an important reminder of the political and very material grip that past technologies and policies still hold even after their formal abandonment and the role of rhetoric in the creation of gendered and sexed identities.