“Much has been written about me…most of it is outright lies or half-truths. I have waited a long time to tell my story.”
In her book, The Race to Be Myself, one of the biggest names in athletics not just in Africa but across the world, will tell the full story of the discrimination she has faced in her career. The quote above is from South Africa’s celebrated 32-year-old Olympic runner, Caster Semenya’s book, and she tells FORBES AFRICA the most important part of telling her story was being able to grow.
“Yes I have waited long to tell this story,” Semenya says. “For me, the most important thing was to grow to understand the principle of life, to understand myself and to know the person I am. [It was also about] discovering myself, to the extent that I understand myself better than anybody else.”
A two-time Olympic gold medallist and three-time World Athletics Championship gold medallist, born in Ga-Masehlong, a village near Polokwane in South Africa’s Limpopo province, Semenya not only tells the story of her rise to fame, but also with “conviction” spotlights the scrutiny of “not being woman enough”. Part of this narrative is looking at women in sport and how they are rarely placed under the same lens as their male counterparts. Semenya says she has been the “center of the debate around [the] newly-drawn line between gender and sport”, which continues today.
In 2009, following her 800-meter win at the World Championships in Berlin, the questions regarding her gender began. In many reports, Semenya tells the story of how she had to undergo gender-verification tests. “What was humiliating was how they treated me,” she admits.
“Not one of my competitors came to my defense of a fellow woman and runner, a teenager. Instead, they came with their knives. I would experience this again and again throughout my career.”
(Excerpt from The Race to Be Myself)
In 2018, World Athletics, formerly known as the International Amateur Athletic Federation and International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), introduced new regulations, requiring competing athletes with Difference in Sex Development (DSD) to lower testosterone. This could be done through contraceptive use or other medical intervention, but the athletes’ testosterone level had to be below 5 nmol/liter for a continuous period of at least six months in order to compete. Semenya felt as though this directive was personal.
She says: “People or leaders tend to focus on the wrong aspects… If women’s sport [is] so important, why can’t you allow a woman to decide what is right and what is wrong? It has always been about the unfairness in women’s sport. And that should be corrected. We need to focus on the positivity. We should focus more on celebrating women winning, conquering, but also women being extraordinary. But instead, when [women do] great, they are questioned if they are ‘women enough’. And it will continue if we as women don’t take a stand.”