Caster Semenya, "Breathtakingly Butch"

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/11/30/eitheror

While reading through coverage of the Caster Semenya case, I was reminded of an old New Yorker article from Ariel Levy (same fantastic writer who wrote the piece we read in class on Edie Windsor) on Caster Semenya. This beautiful piece from Levy shines additional light onto the infuriating controversy surrounding Semenya's right to compete - controversy which has lasted for all of Semenya's career.

As Levy writes, Semenya is "breathtakingly butch". Her identity as a Black butch lesbian is often ignored in the media, and yet clearly influences the way she is viewed and treated - provoking important questions about our culture's obsessions with de-coding and controlling the bodies of people we have defined as different.