Why the world is scared of hermaphrodites

I see it all as a joke, it doesn't upset me. God made me the way I am and I accept myself." This was Caster Semenya's response to accusations made following her exceptional victory in the women's 800m final at the recent world athletics championships that she is a man, not a woman.

However, Semenya made this statement when she was convinced she was a woman. Now it seems the facts are not so clear and leaked medical tests, conducted under the aegis of the IAAF, indicate that the 18-year-old South African winner has both male and female sexual characteristics. The 'joke' has turned nasty. Semenya has been transformed from star to monster in the eyes of the world - seen, mistakenly, as neither man nor woman but as hermaphrodite.

The controversy within the professional world of competitive sports centres on the crucial division between men's and women's sports - a historical distinction intended to recognise differences in physical strength and capabilities between the sexes. So far so good, but what happens when these differences are not so clear cut?

The sports world is a microcosm of the world at large - the confusion and fiery passions surrounding gender ambiguity touch a raw nerve that reverberates within each of our psyches and throughout our society.

When the distinction is clear between who is a man and who is a woman, we know how to relate to each other. When this distinction is blurred or eroded, we become anxious and disorientated.

A 'true' hermaphrodite, ie an organism born with a complete set of male and female sexual organs, only exists among other species such as the earthworm. The gender of humans is determined by the development of the gonads within the embryo. Because we are born with one set of gonads, this means that despite abnormalities in development, our sexual characteristics are either male or female. In normal female development, the gonads will become ovaries, the female genitalia will enlarge and the male genitalia will recede.

When gender is ambiguous in another, it challenges conceptions of who we are

The opposite occurs in the case of male development. To describe a person as a 'true' hermaphrodite is therefore a misnomer. The correct term is either a pseudo-hermaphrodite or, in its politicised form, an intersex.

In instances of sexual ambiguity, gender is ultimately determined by the internal characteristics of the gonads. A male hermaphrodite is identified by the presence of internal testis and a female hermaphrodite has internal ovaries, regardless of external genitalia. Every so-called hermaphrodite has a gender, although someone’s appearance may belie it. What is intolerable in our minds is sexual ambiguity.

Despite the reality that there is no such thing as a 'hermaphrodite' among humans, the possibility of embodying both sexes is a powerful fantasy. The image of the hermaphrodite that is prevalent in so many religions symbolises spiritual unity between opposites and completeness or inner harmony.

On a more primitive level, the hermaphrodite fascinates us because it transcends sexual difference and holds out the illusion of being able to experience what it is like to be the opposite sex - one of the greatest mysteries of our lives.

While the symbol of the hermaphrodite is fascinating because it breaks the boundaries of nature, its reality is horrifying for the same reasons. Gender identity provides us with the most basic guide as to how we relate to others while it also affects the way in which we experience ourselves and our own gender identity.

When gender identity is ambiguous in someone else, it challenges our conceptions of who we are. It can also trigger anxieties about our own unconscious homosexual fantasies. The hermaphrodite exists outside our gender assumptions and expectations and this is what is so very disturbing.

Our core identity is based on gender. The first question asked about a newborn baby is its sex. When this is in doubt or equivocal it is like losing one's internal compass or seeing an indeterminate being in the mirror.

Our core identity is gender-based. We always ask what sex a baby is first

The hermaphrodite confronts us with the fact that our gender is inextricably tied up with our feelings of potency - whether we call ourselves men or women. It makes us fearful of losing our potency and sense of self and of being taken over by what may feel like an alien other within us. Being without gender has the makings of madness.

This is very different from the homosexual, transvestite or transsexual who normally has a clear sense of his gender identity even when it may not correspond to what he looks like.

According to the leaked reports, Semenya’s test results indicate that she has internal testes and this means, strictly speaking, 'she' qualifies as a 'he'. Not only is she being hounded off the running track by her opponents, but she is being told that she is not the young woman she thought she was.

It is hardly surprising that she has gone into hiding and is being given counselling for trauma. The discovery that her gender is by no means clear places Semenya in a transitional role, no longer able to claim she is a woman and yet unable to be a man. She has to make sense of the incongruity that she is now faced with between her body, now classified as male, and her mental experience of being a woman.

While her supporters, including the American gold medalist Carl Lewis, are decrying how unprotected Semenya has been, her strength will undoubtedly lie in her experience of how she was loved as an infant and in how secure her mother felt as a woman.

If she is in fact able to accept herself as she says, she will be able to weather this ordeal and be a champion in a larger arena. She has certainly made us all aware that the assignment of gender identity is something that is conferred and constructed - it is not simply a biological given.