The Race to Be Myself

The Race To Be Myself

“For those who are born different and feel they don’t belong in this world, it is because you were brought here to help create a new one.

“I AM MOKGADI CASTER SEMENYA. I AM ONE OF THE greatest track & field athletes to ever run the 800-m distance. I’ve won two Olympic gold medals and three world championships, along with dozens of Diamond League meets, and went unbeaten for almost four years. Unfortunately, it is not what I have achieved on the track that has likely brought me to your attention.

“I can’t biologically contribute to making new life. I did not know any of this about my body until soon after August 2009, when I won the gold medal in the 800-m race at the World Championships in Berlin, Germany. I was only eighteen years old and had been subjected to invasive and humiliating gender confirmation tests without my consent just prior to the race. What followed was a media firestorm that continues to this day.

“From the moment I stepped on to the track for the final meet in Berlin on August 19, 2009, I have been vilified and persecuted. My accomplishments since have been celebrated, yes, but it is hard to think of another athlete at the elite level who has endured as much scrutiny and psychological abuse from sports governing bodies, other competitors, and the media as I have. It has affected me in ways I cannot describe, although I will try.

“Of course, growing up I knew I looked and behaved differently from many of my peers, but my family, my community, and my country accepted me as I was and never made me feel like an outsider. The beauty of my childhood was that I never felt othered or unwanted—this is the source of my strength. I have never questioned who I am.

“I sometimes remind myself of how blessed I am to be where I am today. Not that many years ago, the sports governing body of my own country of South Africa wouldn’t have allowed me to run in the Olympics because I am Black. I was born in 1991, just a few years before the first democratic elections in 1994 would finally begin to unravel that insidious and dehumanizing system of government that defined people and even ripped families apart based on the color of their skin and other physical features. My parents, older siblings, and extended family lived through this time. They were not allowed to travel or live where they wanted; some were forcibly relocated. Black people didn’t have access to higher education. And unlike me, so many great Black athletes never got a chance. There is still so much trauma in our communities from the brutality of apartheid. I carry that history of discrimination and resistance and the yearning for freedom within me; they are there in everything I do.

“I feel that the IAAF has confiscated a large part of my life. I’ve spent as much time fighting them as I have training and racing. They have stolen years of performances not only from me but also from the audience—their joy at seeing me on the track over the years, win or lose, has brought me joy. The blow of every insult hurled at me has been softened by the love and admiration of people who watch me run.

“When I can no longer run, either because of time or more regulations targeting people like me, you will still see me on the track supporting the coming generations. I am a proud South African woman born in a tiny village to people who loved me. They have survived more humiliations than I could possibly know. It is from them that I know about maintaining dignity in the face of oppression. It is my hope that by telling my truth, I inspire others to be unafraid, to love and accept themselves. May this story contribute to a more tolerant world for us all.

“My parents adored me. If they did have a favorite child, it would have been me. I kept going back to that feeling of being adored by the two most important people in my life when later it seemed the rest of the world thought I was some kind of monster.

“They learned to respect me because I respected myself. I was fair, I minded my business, and I could play well. I’m still friends with many of those boys today, all now men with families of their own. What I started realizing even from my young days is that people treat you the way you treat yourself. I never hid or felt ashamed to look and act the way I did. If you gave me something sour to taste, I gave it right back.

“I wouldn’t say we were swimming exactly, but we knew how to survive in the water. We used empty soda bottles with the tops screwed on tightly to stay afloat. The currents were strong, but we were brave. I’d earned my place among those boys. I could do anything

they could do.

“This skepticism about surgery is what may have saved my career years later, but at this point, my parents understood the traditional ways weren’t going to help, and surgery was the only option for me to ever walk properly again. Unfortunately, our public healthcare system was what it was. I had to wait for a specialist who could do the operation, and I would remain in the hospital for almost seven months before one became available.

“This injury could’ve ended any chance I ever had to be a professional athlete. Most people don’t know this injury has bothered me my entire career. I dislocated the same kneecap right after the 2012 Olympics where I won the silver medal in the 800-m race and had to call off my season right after. My right leg is weaker than my left leg. Since the day I was released from the hospital to this very day, I have a very distinct hitch when I walk. I wouldn’t say I’m limping, exactly, but you can see that there’s something unique about my gait. It’s not me trying to be cool.

“I’d slip into the chicken coop and pick up as many eggs as I could carry. I can still hear those chickens complaining about me. The more we went out, the more skillful I became. It felt good to come home from a long day in the bush carrying meat for my family. Hunting was about sustenance, yes, but it was also a bonding. An ancestral inheritance that strengthened our ties to each other and to the land. The bush was a dangerous place. The things out there could easily kill us. We took care of each other, and you had to trust the next person with your life. Those of us who hunted together—related by blood or not—feel connected to this day even though time has separated us.

“Jalta looked like most of the boys in our family. He was tall and thin but he was very strong. Many girls found his pronounced brow and angular face handsome. He had big teeth and my same wide smile and rich dark skin. Jalta always took care of his responsibilities, but he never took life too seriously and always found time to have fun. He was funny as hell. He’d make me laugh so hard I felt like I couldn’t breathe.

“I was a multi-use player; I could be a striker or a defender. I knew how to handle the ball, how to open space on the pitch, how to dribble. No one cared I was a girl, they just wanted to win. The kids and adults would all gather to see me play and they’d chant “Mokgadi!

Mokgadi! Mokgadi!” I loved to hear my name. I’d love to give those who came to see me a show. You could say I was a performer even from young. I enjoyed being the center of attention.

“I hear that in the Western world, a girl like me would have been diagnosed and “treated”

from birth or at least as puberty began. This didn’t happen to me because no one thought there was anything to treat. We noticed I was different, but different didn’t mean wrong. Some girls are what they call late bloomers, anyway.

“I have never been in a “closet.” I have never understood the whole Western “coming out of the closet” thing. I never hid who I was or felt I had to. Everyone in my world seemed to know. I didn’t go around yelling that I was into girls but, if I had to address it, I would. If some boy tried me, I’d say it straight out, “I’m into girls. Maybe me and your sister can talk. And if you like your dick, let us not speak of this again.

“In team sports, my mind was turned outward, if that makes sense. Running was different. My mind turned inward, toward itself. I preferred it that way. It quieted down. I felt completely at peace.

“I loved hearing Boss talk about the Kenyans, especially, because they were the runners to be feared in long and middle distances. The best of the best. I remembered my parents told me that our tribe were descended from the Maasai. The Maasai were Kenyan. Yes, I felt deep in my soul, this running thing was in my blood.

“I’d overhear coaches and other runners say, “That doesn’t look like a girl,” or “Why is this boy here with us?” I had no problem going right up to them and introducing myself. “Hello. I am Caster. I am a girl. Would you like to see? I can drop my shorts here for you.

“Occasionally, I’d joke around with the other kids, but I spent my time mostly alone, happy to be in the company of other young athletes. I saw a man walking toward me. I recognized him as one of the schools’ administrators. “Hello, Ms. Semenya. I hear you are a very good runner. It looks like you’ll be needing these.” He was holding a pair of running spikes. The spikes weren’t new, but they were new to me. I’d never owned a pair.

“They were all good soccer players, but they knew they weren’t great. And most of them were playing for fun, they weren’t dreaming of getting on airplanes and being a professional athlete like I was. “Doesn’t matter what you say. You can’t understand,” I’d say to them. “I can see light with my running. All of you are here just chasing a ball around a field. Where’ that going to take you?” I had to be as harsh with them as they were being with me. I wanted to live in a proper city, travel the world, be known and appreciated for my talents.

“I didn’t do well in the event. I came in fourth and to this day, I don’t know what happened except to say I couldn’t find the zone. I didn’t yet understand that racing wasn’t just about being fast, it was also about strategizing and quieting the mind. I was used to running alone, my only company at times just cows and sheep and goats. I was used to running in South Africa. I couldn’t yet control my nerves. I resolved to learn and never lose again.

““What am I going to put in it, grandmother? The medals?” I wasn’t winning any money as a youth, and the medals themselves meant everything to me but they weren’t things we could sell, not that I ever would have sold them. “These medals, they symbolize your future wealth. I am telling you, Mokgadi, one day, they will turn into money that you can put it in the bank,” she said.

“Even if I wasn’t the fastest. Like I said, I knew how to shut down rumors—all I had to do was confront it straight on. Confront and shower.

“My father would always tell me, “Mokgadi, a White man will always be a White man.” As I got older and came into contact with more people from around the world, I would tell him that the world had changed. That there were plenty of good White people, that Mandela had helped change our world and that things were moving forward. And my father would just repeat himself, “Maybe so, my child. But you must never forget. A White man will always be a White man.

“This was the first time I’d ever been to a shopping mall, the first time I’d even seen or been in an athletics-wear store. The store manager was sponsoring the athletes who were heading to the World Junior Championships. I’d never owned anything close to brand-new sports attire. They gave us a pair of sneakers, a pair of new track spikes, and a white and blue track suit. I was on top of the world.

“I knew who he was. I’d seen him once the year before at a cross-country competition, and people talked about him. His name was Michael Seme. He was a Zulu man from Soweto, well known for helping runners achieve their maximum potential. He was kind of like the Mr. Miyagi of running, and he had a long list of accomplished athletes, including Stephen Mokoka, already an international long-distance champion.

“This was my first IAAF-sponsored World Junior Championships. I was coming in at a disadvantage. My injuries weren’t properly treated. I couldn’t afford any outside professional care. I was taping myself, bursting my own blisters, trying to figure out the best way to stretch pained muscles. I had never had the benefits of regular healthcare. Here, I got a taste of what professional athletes were offered in terms of meals and medical treatments in the Western world. Physiotherapy was available free of charge to all the participants and I, of course, wanted some of this modern treatment.

“This was my first IAAF-sponsored World Junior Championships. I was coming in at a disadvantage. My injuries weren’t properly treated. I couldn’t afford any outside professional care. I was taping myself, bursting my own blisters, trying to figure out the best way to stretch pained muscles. I had never had the benefits of regular healthcare. Here, I got a taste of what professional athletes were offered in terms of meals and medical treatments in the Western world. Physiotherapy was available free of charge to all the participants and I, of course, wanted some of this modern treatment.

“I wondered, years later, if my mother knew what would happen, in the way that only mothers know about their children. I don’t mean that she knew what would happen, exactly. My parents, such as they were, what knowledge they had about the world, could never imagine it. How the world would consume me, how perfect strangers would treat my body like a science experiment. They had no idea that whatever was going on with me was a “medical issue” to the outside world, or that what should have been my private business would be used to continue a public conversation about gender and biological sex that the world had been having for thousands of years.

“I traveled the next morning to my see my maternal grandmother. This is the grandmother I am named after. It is our custom that when we are to embark on a long journey, we must seek the blessing of our living elders as well as our ancestors. My grandmother and I prayed together. I could feel the joy, anticipation, anxiety, and hopes of my family. I was carrying the dreams of our people.

“And here is what made Seme an excellent coach. He knew I had been coaching myself. He first wanted to understand what I had been doing, mostly on my own, to bring me to the point where he would notice me. And I told him. I was doing the things I’d seen athletes at bigger schools with actual tracks do. I told him I would run by myself when I wasn’t taking care of my family home. I remember Seme nodded and then just added to the foundation I’d laid for myself. He found my running form to be too loose, he felt I swung my arms too much and held my head too far back. He would eventually help me get to the form that made me a winner—arms locked in close to my body, chest high, head centered. Seme was a coach who understood where you were. This is why, despite everything that came between us in the future, I will always say he is the best coach I’ve ever had. He became like a father to me. Seme knew when to push and when we needed to rest.

“When you were with Seme, you were the only person who mattered, and he could make an entire group of athletes feel like this.

“I knew from what happened to my father and what I’d seen on television that a career in sports didn’t last forever. Athletes have a small window of time to work with their body. And injuries don’t care whether you are young or old. The important thing was that if running didn’t work out for me, I would at least have a diploma from a respected university that would help me get a job. That would be my future, I decided, but for now, I had to get faster.

“The way Boss put it, being a clean athlete was everything. He told me not to trust people. To stay humble.

“He said this person would never hurt me or do anything to destroy my future. Mulaudzi said I needed a manager who was interested in building me as a human being and that this person was a man they called Madala. To us, “Madala” is an affectional term that means elder. His actual name was Jukka Harkonen, and he was a well-established Finnish sports manager. He had plenty of Olympic and world champions on his client list.

“I knew I wanted to sign with him. Here was a man who never once mentioned money. To me, that was a real businessman. It wasn’t that I didn’t need money, because I did. But to this day, money doesn’t drive me. Money isn’t what pushes me to do this or that. It’s always been about something deeper. For me, it was about dignity, about pride, about the respect I freely gave to others and expected back in return. I may have been a young girl from a rural area, but my parents taught me to value myself, to never think of myself as less than anyone else, regardless of my background or circumstances.

““So, it looks like you were right. I would be hearing your name. Caster Semenya.” He smiled and held out his hand. I took his hand, and with that simple gesture we began an easy friendship that would last several years. Oscar and I began to train together, we pushed each other, and gave each other advice. Not that long ago, Oscar and I could not even eat at the same restaurant, much less speak or train as equals on a running track. Herenwe were from completely different backgrounds. He was a middle-class Afrikaner boy from Johannesburg, and I was a Black girl from the most impoverished province in the country. Oscar was twenty-two years old when we met—barely an adult himself. We were linked by something that went beyond running. We were drawn to each other and found comfort in each other’s presence. Maybe it was because of the way the world looked at us—our difference written on our bodies. Our conversations will stay with me and me alone. No one could foretell how our lives would eventually play out. Each of us would come to be seen as both heroes and villains, admired and scorned by the world.

“Every cent I’d earned so far had been put away in a bank account I opened when I first arrived in Pretoria. I remember my parents asking me if I needed any money right before I left. I knew my family’s situation—they had none to spare. Whatever money they gave me would mean they would go without a basic necessity. I thanked my parents and told them I would be sorted out as soon as I got to school. I have never wanted to be a burden on others; I have only wanted to make my own way in the world.

“And despite what I have endured after winning the gold medal, I want everyone to know that I would do it all over again.

“In the moments of darkness that were to come, I remembered his words. If someone like him could survive and overcome twenty-seven years in prison and become a symbol of love and freedom to our people—why couldn’t I endure this? What I was going through seemed like a small thing compared to what he had survived. Compared to all those who had died during South Africa’s struggle for independence and democracy.

“Some of the calls were congratulations from family and friends, but many of the calls were from journalists and other media personalities. They all wanted to know if I was really born a girl. I can only imagine what my mother’s heart was feeling in those moments. This woman who had given birth to me and changed my nappies and taught me so much about kindness, and humility, and strength.

“The gender issue became a difficult one for the politicians in my country. Everyone seemed to support me and my right to run. They saw in me an innocent Black child caught in a terrible situation. For us, it became about more than gender—it became about race. It became about White people coming and telling us Africans what we were and what we were not based on our looks—the same categorizations and violations of human rights that were happening during apartheid. I became a symbol of how Black people have been violated and exploited throughout history.

“I don’t trust people who expect you to share and don’t share back. That wasn’t going to work with me. So, I didn’t say shit to Monya. What could Monya do for me? She could never understand the pain. She could never understand what was happening to me because she would never be in my shoes. For more than a decade, I’ve stayed quiet about my thoughts on this thing.

“How do you explain what it feels like to have been recategorized as a human being? That one day you were a normal person living your life, and the next day you were seen as abnormal?

“And the rejection is what people can’t understand. This wasn’t a “found out my husband or my wife is leaving me for another person,” or “my best friend has betrayed me” type of rejection. This was a rejection by the world of my very existence. That you are not a human being in the way the world understands human beings to be. It was feeling like you were being wiped off the map of humanity. I did not have the language then to explain that. I barely have it now.

“My story is different from these women’s stories for many reasons. I was lucky in that I had a newly democratic country that wrapped its arms around me, I had the protection of the university system, a great legal team, and a supportive loving family. I will forever be grateful for Greg and Benedict’s incredible efforts on my behalf during this time, even if I didn’t truly understand the scope of the process. These people saw an injustice and stepped in to help a young village girl, free of charge. They fought like warriors.

“The medication made it so that one day I was fine and the next day I felt like shit, and that was the point of them. I knew I still had speed but I didn’t have access to my kick in the same way as before. I had to learn to strategize, control myself, learn to win from the front or the back, learn how to get out if I got caught in the middle. I’ve never liked feeling runners too close to me.

“On the podium, I remember I kissed that silver medal. It wasn’t a gold, but it might as well have been. I had worked so hard for that one. I remember that moment, looking at the medal and still being amazed that I had almost given up halfway through the race.

“On September 7 I managed to dip under 2 at the World Challenge meet in Rieti, Italy. I was feeling so ill that I don’t know how I managed a 1:58.92. The truth is at that point, I was running for Nike. They had remained loyal throughout the years—not taking away their support even when I was sidelined in 2009. I felt like I owed it to them to at least try.

““I have thought about it, my friend. It’s over for me right now. If I continue like this, coming in last at these races, I’m going to lose all hope. My leg is killing me. I don’t feel well, Jukka. I’m sorry. I can’t. This is the right decision for me.” This period of my life taught me a lot. Sometimes quitting is the right thing to do. There are times when “powering through” really does more harm than good. By then, Maria and I had had a conversation and both decided it was best to end the coaching relationship.

“I knew I wasn’t the same Caster. I was still nursing my injured leg and I was grossly overweight, but all I needed was a chance. The director offered me a three-year scholarship. I would study sports science. Soon after, I met with Jean in person. Even seeing how out of shape I was, he believed in me. Potch was about 180 kilometers away from Pretoria. Violet wasn’t happy about the distance, but I would no longer be sitting.

“Jean was a soft-spoken and deliberate man. He had a calming presence. He did not push me. What we needed, he said, was to get me back to basics. More than anything, Jean wanted me to rediscover my love of running. He believed I understood my body better than anyone else. If he knew I was on the IAAF’s drug regimen, he didn’t let on. We never discussed it. Jean treated me like he treated everyone else in the group.

“Sometime in 2012, Dr. Bermon was part of a group of doctors at the Department of Reproductive Endocrinology at the University Hospital in Nice, France. They performed gonadectomies on four young women, all considered elite athletes at the time. The paper was published in a medical journal in 2013. It reads like a horror movie to me. I remembered that doctor’s name—this Dr. Stéphane Bermon was the same person back in 2009 who told my legal team their method of dealing with my condition was surgery. These girls were all from “rural or mountainous regions in developing countries”—meaning they were all probably coming from a place with little resources. Developing countries meant they were definitely not European. The girls were between the ages of eighteen and twenty. They were all unnamed, although Annet Negesa, the Ugandan girl, has publicly said she believes she was one of the girls used in the study.

“With the help of a journalist who was also an academician in gender matters, Dutee announced she would bring a legal challenge to the IAAF’s hyperandrogenism regulations at the Court of Arbitration for Sport that winter. The case eventually went to CAS in March 2015. I was not aware of Dutee, or even aware of the IAAF’s medical study on the four young runners, until much later. The IAAF’s position was that women with high testosterone levels had an unfair advantage equal to the advantage that male athletes had over female athletes.

“I was glad to hear Greg’s voice. Throughout the years, he’d never given up on me. By then, we were more like daughter and father than lawyer and client. “Greg, my man. I’m good. I’m happy. I just qualified for Beijing. I’m figuring things out but I’m feeling better.” “Well, I have news that will make you feel even better, Caster,” Greg said. “The IAAF lost a case about their hyperandrogenism regulations.

““I told you I wasn’t going to make it this time, uncle. But I’m going to get you and the Nike people a gold medal at the Olympics next year.” Masilo smiled. He’d become a great friend by this point, more like a member of my family than the executive responsible for my sponsorship at a global company. “You do your thing, Caster. Rest now and you come back stronger next year. We are here for you. We believe in you.

“Michael’s program improved upon whatever I’d built running barefoot and alone on those dusty grounds in Limpopo as a teenager. His philosophy was, “If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it.” “We’ll just keep doing what you’ve been doing, Caster,” he would say. He believed in stretching things out, moving along slowly, conditioning, and then when the body was ready, you hit it. He didn’t rush things; he didn’t push until he was absolutely sure. Michael was one of those coaches who didn’t believe in pain; he believed in slow buildups. Maria’s style was hardcore. If the plan for the day was to run 200s in 27s, then that is all we were doing, no matter what. Maria did not rest me well, but she made me a beast, she recreated in me an image of herself. Verster was different from them. Verster believed in gut feelings. Before every session, he would ask me how I felt that day. It was an interesting thing for me. And I could be honest with him. If I said, “I don’t feel like training hard today,” he would honor that.

“The regulations would now only apply to athletes with what they called “differences in sexual development” (DSD) and only to those competing in the 400-, 800-, and 1500-m distances. Since Dutee Chand was a 100-m runner, she would not be affected by these rules. The IAAF didn’t need to address her case. The testosterone limit would need to be lowered from the original 10 nmol/L they’d announced in 2011 down to 5 nmol/L for a period of six months before an affected athlete was eligible to compete.

“I am the fourth fastest 800-m runner in the history of the sport. And as far as I know, not one of the women who have run the 800 meter faster than me had my condition. I had differences in my body, yes, but it should be common sense that whatever my testosterone level may be, it does not make me male. And if speed was all about testosterone, then why wasn’t I as fast as my male colleagues? An elite male athlete with natural testosterone levels in the accepted female range would still outrun me by the 10 percent to 12 percent performance gap.

“On May 29, my team appealed the CAS verdict to the Swiss Supreme Court on the grounds that it was discriminatory, and I put out a public statement: “I am a woman and I am a world-class athlete. The IAAF will not drug me or stop me from being who I am.” This fight had gone beyond me proving I had no physiological advantage on the field over other women. This fight was about human rights. It was wrong to compel perfectly healthy people to harm themselves to participate in a sport based on manufactured evidence. A few days later, on June 3rd, the Swiss Court suspended the CAS ruling.

“It would be better for athletics and athletes if Sebastian Coe focused on real cheaters instead of focusing on rare but completely natural biological variations in women or the transgendered athletes who are supposedly waiting to take women’s medals. It would be even better if the sporting powers focused on the things that women really need to become better athletes—they can start with equitable pay, making sure we can do our jobs without being harassed physically and mentally, creating a system where resources are distributed fairly.” (Semenya “The Race To Be Myself”, p.295)

“I think of marathoner Eliud Kipchoge’s words on his success: “Learn to say no, learn self-discipline, avoid complaining.

“The thing is, I don’t want to be a man. If my body’s makeup makes me “intersex,” as they say, then I’m intersex. There’s nothing to be done about that. The terms will change as the years go by. They always do. To me, they’re just words. Even if I did this or that to fit some people’s idea of what a woman or a man is supposed to look like, my soul would remain the same. My body is mine, and I will not change it for anyone. That is what saved my career; it is the reason you know who I am. And I feel sorry for the sisters who agreed to the surgery, for their road to inner peace may be harder and longer than mine. My soul feels right in my body. I believe it always will. But if one day I change my mind about that, it’s my business. Mind yours.

“Today, I have become a symbol of resistance and freedom and self-acceptance. It’s no longer about winning a race, it’s about the struggle for universal human rights.

“The IAAF thought they could shame me off the track back in 2009, but things didn’t turn out the way they usually did. We may have lost the legal battles, but I won where it matters—I still became a champion, and the IAAF exposed their true nature. This thing is no longer about secret conversations and secret surgeries and secret medication. Now the world knows more about what they have done and what they want to continue to do.