Unwarranted and Invasive Scrutiny: Caster Semenya, Sex-Gender Testing and the Production of Woman In ‘Women’s’ Track and Field

Abstract

This article discusses the imbrication of racialising and sexualising scientific practices of gender testing and verification in elite athletics competition, and their intersection with social politics, using as a theoretical frame the feminist, anti-racist work of Hortense Spillers (2003), Judith Butler (1990, 1993a, 1993b, 2004) and Anne Fausto-Sterling (2000), among others. It traces the practice of sex-gender testing of ‘women’ at sanctioned International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) and International Olympic Committee (IOC) track and field competitions in order to contextualise South African middle-distance runner Caster Semenya’s experiences at the 2009 Berlin World Championships and the subsequent spectacularisation of her body through the discursive practices of representation.