,
8 tweets,
2 min read
Read on Twitter
If you’re at all curious as to whether the linked article is a fucking trainwreck, you need to know it’s a fucking trainwreck.
Real cute how the author goes out of her way to refer to Caster as “Ms. Semenya” on every reference just to set you up for the moment when she says she’s not a “biological female.”
Everyone else in the article is referred to by last name only on second reference, with no honorific. Caster, who the author denies is female, is “Ms. Semenya.”
Let me be real explicit about what’s happening here. The author’s project is to deny that Semenya is a woman athlete, but she doesn’t want to be held responsible for the ugliness of that argument.
So she makes a grand flourish of calling her “Ms. Semenya,” and she isn’t even sophisticated enough to cover her tracks by using the same phrasing for others mentioned in the piece.
And so the “Ms.” in “Ms. Semenya” is an act of cowardice. It’s craven. It’s a taunt and a cudgel.
It’s ugly. It’s cruel. And it’s mean. And that ugliness should be visible to you even if you agree with the author’s policy preferences.
You want to argue that the IAAF made the right call? Go for it. Make your case. But show a little fucking decency.
