Female track athlete was a man

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Vance

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HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) - A prize-winning track athlete who competed in women's events was actually a man, a court in Zimbabwe has been told.

Samukaliso Sithole, who competed in domestic and regional competitions, faced charges of crimen injuria, or psychological offence, in the second city of Bulawayo, the state-run Herald newspaper reported Wednesday.

Prosecutors alleged Sithole offended the dignity and sexuality of a woman who befriended him, confided in him and felt comfortable being naked around him, all the while believing him to a woman, the newspaper said.

Sithole was identified as a man to the complainant by an acquaintance, as he and a group of women were preparing to travel by train to a track meet in Bulawayo, the court heard Tuesday.

Sithole tried to sprint away from the train station but was caught. Police then supervised a medical examination.

Sithole told the court he was born congenitally deformed. A tribal healer, known in the West as a witchdoctor, gave him "female status" but the spell didn't work properly because his family didn't pay the healer's full fee, Sithole said.

He will reappear in court March 3 and faces a fine if convicted.

The Herald said the National Athletics Association of Zimbabwe was investigating the case and Sithole would likely be stripped of his titles and prize money.

The Sithole competed in women's triple jump, javelin, shot put and running events, and brought home Zimbabwe's only gold medal from the Southern Region Athletics Championships in neighbouring Botswana last June.
 
Hm interesting.

When I saw the headline of your post, I thought you were going to mention about those cases where the athletic women were accused of being "men" because the society basically believed that women cannot perform so well-- to an extent when they are BEATING men...
There was a case back then in 40s or so in Olypmics when a woman was declared as a man and she had to take the case to the courts to PROVE that she was a woman based on her chromosomes, not of what chemicals she secreted *she has no menstruation, too much of muscles built up etc*. This really made you thinking about how the labelling of SEX/GENDER really blurs-- you cannot just blatanly detect somebody based on their genitals or at some biology level. There are many factors. Gender role, Sex orintenation, gender identity role.

What about the transexuals? They may be "chromosomed" (a word I made up) as men but their gentials say woman (that if they do go through wtih the surgery) and their gender identity definitely say woman as well. Hmm? But by what social norms does it mean to be a woman?? There is no universal "woman"... the conditions and terms it requires for a human being to be labelled as a woman differs and varies to large degrees. You just posted a great example.

The fine lines of genders have gone askew.
 
I heard something years ago about how they might prohibit competitors (who had sex-change operations) from competing.
 
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