In St. Louis, 11 Sept. 09

We got to St. Louis for the racewalking clinic.

Some things just aren’t clear cut, are they?

After South African runner Caster Semenya came out of nowhere to zip past a track of world-class athletes in the women’s world 800-meter race in Berlin last month, spectators starting speculating that the muscle-bound 18-year-old was no lady. Her low voice and broad shoulders raised eyebrows and suspicions.

Now, newspaper reports from Australia say testing has determined that the running star has both male and female sexual organs – in other words, that she’s a hermaphrodite, and likely didn’t even realize it.

That’s why, these days, the proper word is “intersex,” a recognition that there are a range of conditions between rigidly “male” and “female” and that gender is as much a product of society and self-perception as it is a matter of what gear you have or chromosomes you possess.

An intersexed condition can arise in a variety of ways, from a number of syndromes, but so called “true” hermaphrodites are often chimeric. In other words, instead of having cells with 46 chromosomes that include either an XX pair in women or an XY pair in men, they possess both 46XX and 46XY cells. Some may have one testicle and one ovary, or what are called ovo-testes, combo gonads comprised of both ovarian and testicular tissues. True hermaphrodism is thought to be rare, but according to the World Health Organization, no prevalence data is available.

In Semenya’s case, the Australian report says she has no ovaries and instead has internal testes, which produce large amounts of testosterone, explaining her muscular physique. It’s likely she and her family may have been unaware of the condition because the male organs are on the inside. In many cases of the intersexed condition, the external genitalia appear to be female.