by Gwynn Guilford

Caster Semenya qualified Thursday for the 800m final scheduled today. David Epstein wonders what response her performance will elicit:

If Semenya wins the gold, she is likely to be accused of having an unfair advantage. If she runs poorly, she is likely to be accused of sandbagging the race so as not to be accused of having an unfair advantage.

Epstein's writing betrays an outrage about the treatment of Semenya that's increasingly consistent with the discussion in both the blogosphere and in Dish inbox. The path to this understanding, though, should halt any back-patting. Semenya is the first high-profile target of gender testing to have much of anyone on her side. The history of gender controversy involves a litany of injustices dating back decades. These resulted from our evolving understanding of intersexuality's many complexities, but also from the blunt instrument of bureaucratic bigotry. The first major gender "scare" episode concerned an exceptionally loyal Hitler Youth. Explains TransGriot:

The watershed year for the paranoia behind men competing in women's international sporting events is 1936. Nazi Germany wanted the Berlin Olympics to be a political showcase for the Third Reich. They set the goal of surpassing the 21 total medals Germany won in the 1932 Los Angeles Games, and one way they sought to do that was sneaking their 'supermen' into the women's events. To accomplish that goal, the Nazis forced Hitler Youth member Hermann Ratjen to live and compete for three years as Dora Ratjen.... Dora was busted while traveling in Germany after the European championships. While wearing feminine attire Ratjen was spotted at a train station with five o'clock shadow on his face. A doctor was summoned, and the truth about Dora's actual genitalia was revealed. Ratjen was barred from competing in international athletics and went back to his life as Hermann.

The Berlin Games also marked the beginning of the "she's a man" slur - which still proves useful. For instance, in the case of the rivalry between sprinters Helen Stephens and Stella Walsh:

Walsh, angry about being beaten by her rival, promptly threw 'that's a man' shade at Stephens which the Polish press amplified. She protested to officials that Stephens was really a man falsely running as a woman because no woman could run that fast. German officials examined Stephens, pronounced her female, and the protest was disallowed.

This ended up being fairly ironic, given what happened next: