Riley Gaines calls Caster Semenya a male with normal testosterone levels

"Caster Semenya is a male with normal testosterone levels" - Riley Gaines on South African calling herself a woman

Modified Mar 13, 2024 11:31 GMT

Riley Gaines expressed her displeasure in Caster Semenya calling herself a woman and participating in respective events. Semenya is a South African distance runner, who has bagged two Olympic gold medals and four World Championships medals.

Semenya has an intersex condition, where an individual has normal male internal structures which are not fully developed and appear as a female's at birth. Semenya was assigned female at birth and she has embraced herself the way she is by considering herself a woman.

In an interview with BBC Sport, Semenya stated that she accepts and embraces herself the way she is and conveys that she is a woman.

"The medical terms, what they tell me you know my testosterone, you know feeling born without the uterus, you know being born with internal testicles, those don't make me less a woman," Semenya conveyed. "It's just, the difference is that I was born with and I embrace them," she continued.

Gaines, who vehemently advocates for safety and fairness in women's sports, criticized Semenya for calling herself a woman. Gaines called Semenya a male with normal testosterone levels, rather than a woman with high testosterone levels and wrote,

"My testicles don't make me less of a woman" - Caster Semenya.

"Of course, this outlandish statement went totally unchallenged this morning," she said. "Semenya is not a woman with high testosterone levels. He is a male with normal testosterone levels," Gaines continued.

"I am what I am, and I’m not gonna change," Caster Semenya's response to people calling her a boy while she was growing up

Caster Semenya of South Africa celebrates winning gold in the Women's 800 meters final during the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, Australia.

Caster Semenya was born in 1991 in a small village of Mokadi. Growing up, she had to go through a slew of jibes when people referred to her as a boy.

She was questioned about her gender and right before the 2009 Berlin World Championships, she was required to take a gender verification test, which revealed that she had thrice the testosterone in her system than any average woman.

Undeterred by the constant contemptuous remarks, she faced the comments and gave a befitting reply. Speaking to The Guardian, she said,

“People might’ve been like: ‘Ah, you, you’re more like a boy.’ And I’d say: ‘Yes, that’s how I am. That’s how I live my life, that’s how I’m gonna be. You take it or leave it. If someone would say something, I’d go: ‘What are you gonna do about it?’ Because I am what I am, and I’m not gonna change,” said Semenya.