Thursday, September 17, 2009

Re: Caster Semenya

Just think about this, quietly and to yourself, for as long as you need to:

Are you, personally, certain that you have all the sexual organs associated with your gender and none of the sexual organs associated with the other gender? Both internally and externally? Are you sure?

Some people are sure, I know. If you've had a tubal or a c-section or exploratory surgery to diagnose the cause of your infertility, you probably know for certain. But not everyone knows for certain. I don't know for certain. I know I have breasts and a vulva, both of which appear within the range of normal to medical and intimate examination. I know I have a vagina and a cervix, or something that resembles a cervix closely enough that no doctor has ever commented upon giving me a pap smear. I know I have something the behaves enough like a uterus that it produces menstruation that is regulated with birth control pills, and stands up to the palpation part of a standard pelvic examination. I can't tell you for certain that I don't have secret internal testes. I can't tell you for certain that my uterus is fully operational (I've never been pregnant). But I'm a woman, there's no question of that. I just...am. Even if I found out I had internal testes, I'd still want to put on lipstick before leaving the house.

Can you say with absolute certainty that you have lady parts, all your lady parts, and nothing but lady parts? (Unless, of course, you have gentleman parts). If so, could you say so with equal certainty at the age of 18? If you found out tomorrow that you have some bits that aren't consistent with your gender, or are missing some bits that are usually found in your gender, would that change you? Would your sexual preferences change? Would your personal behaviour change?

10 comments:

M@ said...

My wife recently found out, at the age of 36, that she has only one kidney.

There are no health problems associated with it -- although she's been advised to give up any contact sports to protect the one she's got -- but think of it. One freakin' kidney. The other one? Just never appeared. There's just no kidney there.

So if you want to know if everyone's got all their organs in place, just like in the Visible Man/Woman things... no. Life's a lot more complicated than that. As is gender.

So I feel for Caster Semenya. And although all this stuff is dropped on her, I really feel bad for her because it's really not her fault. I hope people start to leave her alone a little bit.

impudent strumpet said...

Wow, I had no idea that was humanly possible! How did you find that out? Does she appear asymmetrical from the outside? Do they actually check to make sure you have two kidneys before you go and donate a kidney?

(Those are probably too personal questions and you don't have to answer, it's just my brain exploded a little.)

M@ said...

Totally valid questions. Apparently 1 in 1000 people are born with a missing kidney.

It's hereditary. It's a standard test now to see if a foetus has kidneys -- there's a strong correlation between a one-kidneyed parent and a one-kidneyed or no-kidneyed child. If a foetus has no kidneys, its lifespan outside the womb is about four very painful hours, so the pregnancy is aborted in every civilized culture.

And it's usually found only when the woman is pregnant, because that's usually the time when a woman's abdomen is exhaustively ultrasounded. In our case it had nothing to do with pregnancy, and it was a bit of a shock.

No, there's no external sign of it, and even internally, the body just makes up for it. The one kidney is typically slightly larger, but not significantly so.

I suspect that they do a kidney count before donation. In other news, my wife's brother has quickly become someone whose welfare is very, very important to us...

Anyhow, our brains did a little splosionating back when we found out, so your questions are perfectly understandable and I'm happy to answer them.

impudent strumpet said...

1 in 1000??? That's, like, a lot of people! If it's hereditary they're probably clustered, but if they were evenly distributed, everyone would know someone with only one kidney. I'd probably know/know of a translator with only one kidney!

Also, what's in the place where the other kidney is supposed to be?

M@ said...

I think it's more common than people realise, mainly because most people don't know they have only one kidney. I told my boss at the time that we found all this out, and he said, wow, my mother found out she had only one kidney just a few years ago, at age 54.

Then again, if people often don't know they've got only one kidney, how did they come up with the 1 in 1,000 figure? I've looked around a bit for the articles I read at the time and haven't found them, but if I do I'll post them. I may even be off on the figure (but not by much I don't think).

As for what's there instead: basically nothing. I'm not sure whether the tubes that would normally go there just go nowhere, or what. Her right kidney is slightly enlarged, but on her left side there's just nothing there where a kidney would be.

laura k said...

Wow! It's not every day that comments are more Wow! than the original post.

Wow! at M@ & wife!

And I so feel for Caster Semenya. I overheard some men talking about her - big burly men. One of them said, And she was born this way! It's not like she did anything to get this way, she can't help it.

The others were all sympathetic, saying things like, "It's crazy, leave her alone already."

This made me feel good.

impudent strumpet said...

I know, M@ totally wins at commenting!

I'm glad to hear different people are empathizing and realizing she didn't do anything and the whole situation is unfair. Hopefully this will lead to athletes being treated in a more civilized way.

M@ said...

I'm impressed to hear there's sympathy for Caster Semenya, too. Quite a situation, so I wouldn't have expected that reaction.

Btw, I figured out how they come up with the stat for absent kidney incidence: autopsies. (I was googling around to try to find what I'd read before on the subject, and found a very interesting paper on cats, for which an incidence of absent kidney is also 1 in 1000. Anyhow, that statistic was determined through autopsies.)

Um, I think I'm done talking (and thinking) about absent kidneys.

For now.

impudent strumpet said...

Cats?? Does that mean it's also present in every animal between humans and cats on the evolutionary scale, like dogs and monkey and whatever else is in there?

And why are they doing autopsies on cats anyway? Or at least why are they doing enough autopsies on cats to determine that 1 in 1000 cats are missing a kidney? How did they come by such a large supply of dead cats? Where do they keep them all? Is there a cat morgue?

laura k said...

My guess - based on considerable contact with veterinary medicine - is that autopsies are being performed on cats to advance veterinary medicine. Many of the cat bodies them would be donated from shelters after the cats are euthanized. Also when you have to put an animal down, you may be asked if you want to donate the body for research.

Unfortunately so many animals are euthanized that there's a big supply to study. :(

Now I must stop thinking about my contact with that.