Caster Semenya’s memoir, ‘The Race to Be Myself,’ chronicles the two-time Olympic medalist’s fight to compete in women’s elite running events after being banned for her high levels of testosterone.
When Caster Semenya was 12 years old, she introduced herself to her cousin’s friends as Thabiso, a boy’s name. “I could tell they thought I was a boy, so I figured I would go along with it,” she writes in her new. “I was swimming without a shirt on, and I had no boobs. I looked tough like they did. My voice sounded like theirs, too.” The little white lie was corrected once school started and, wearing a dress, she introduced herself to the class as Caster.
“Over the years, I’ve let people do a lot of talking, but they’re not talking about the real issue here,” she says matter-of-factly, sipping on a glass of water. For Semenya, the real problem has always been that she is a woman. She was assigned female at birth, raised as a girl, and has never considered herself anything else. Yet for the past four years, she has been prohibited from competing in any elite women’s race between 400 meters and a mile.
Semenya appears more laid-back and amiable than the hard-ass she often describes herself as in the book, especially in her interactions with journalists who ask about her gender. Through fits of laughter, she notes she would even happily be photographed nude for the right price: “Let’s saysay, ‘Here’s 1 million dollars for a cover, but we want you naked.’ There’s no second thought.
“From day one, I’ve understood I’m a different woman,” Semenya reiterates to me, having made this comment fairly seriously at the greasy spoon and again more casually at the pub. After finishing her water, she requests a ginger ale before turning to me and asking, “How old were you in 2009?” She’s wondering if I might have been too young to remember the initial media chaos.
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