Refreshing Essay on Semenya (by my neighbor)!

Check out this essay in the Times by East Lansing neighbor and friend Alice Dreger! Even before I noticed the essay's byline, I found it a refreshing antidote to the uncritical news reports I had been reading about Caster Semenya, the 18-year-old world champion runner from South Africa whose gender has recently come under "suspicion" and scrutiny by the I.A.A.F. All of these articles (with the exception of maybe this one) left the notion of "gender testing" pretty much uninterrogated as their authors simply listed off the frighteningly long number of "-ists" who would have to examine the athlete in order to perform one (a gynecologist, a psychologist, an endocrinologist, a geneticist...)

Dreger, on the other hand, asserts something that I was surprised to find no article in the mainstream media had yet: "The fact is, sex is messy." And she manages to take a critical stance on the "gender testing" brouhaha without doing what I would probably do (that is, rail and whine that "this is so f*&$ing ridiculous!") Instead, she coolly and expertly points out that the outcome of any such "gender test" will depend on on how all those "-ists" listed above choose to weigh the many forms of sexual data they collect. As Dreger puts it, "Science can and will inform their decision, but they are going to have to decide which of the dozens of characteristics of sex matter to them."

We could do with more public intellectuals like Dreger -- who are able to write knowledgeably in many media and for many types of readers, without sacrificing the criticality or complexity of their arguments!

Also, no matter what Dreger says about gametes, Mermaids don't exist. And I can vouch for the existence of that "big ol' rainbow flag"!