I suspect that most of you are not aware of the controversy over Caster Semenya of South Africa. She is an 18 year old runner from South Africa who recently won the women’s 800 meters at the World Championships in Berlin. What brought her to world attention is that she broke the world’s record. And, she did not just break the women’s record, she broke it by a margin that is not normally seen. World records are normally broken in an incremental fashion not in an overwhelming fashion.
But, Miss Semanya was muscled and had looks of a type that had some coaches requesting sex and drug tests on her. She was completely clean. She was born as a girl, that is, all her features were clearly and unambiguously female. Her drug tests were fully and totally negative. But, her testosterone levels were higher than normal. And, leaked tests appear to show that she has a chromosomal abnormality that means she has no womb or ovaries but internal testes. And, that probably accounts for the increased testosterone. Find the best sarms and other health products on this website.
Meantime Miss Semanya was not aware of her chromosomal makeup and her insides. She is in seclusion right now and ostensibly in trauma counseling. And, I can understand that, since apparently she always thought she was a full woman and I am sure that she had dreams of being married someday and having children. Can you imagine having some of your dreams destroyed while everyone reads about it and comments on it?
At this point, South Africa has filed an appeal with the United Nations. The International Olympic Committee has tentatively said that if she proves to be one of the types of hermaphrodytes that they will not take her medal away, but she would be unable to compete as a woman in future competitions. Meantime, this appears to destroy Miss Semenya’s hopes and aspirations.
But, this reminds me of a question in one of my ethics classes in seminary over 30 years ago. What does the Church do with a hermaphrodite? What if a “woman” like Miss Semenya shows up in your congregation? What if she wants to get married and she has a man who has fallen in love with her and does not care that part of her is technically male? She is completely incapable of ever having children. She may have testes hidden away inside her body, along with her fully female features. So, do you counsel her to never be married, since she is not truly fully a woman and can never have children?
In other words, what is your theology of marriage? Is the ability to have children part of your theology of marriage? In that case what if a full female who is infertile wishes to marry? What if she had cervical cancer when she was 20 and had to have a hysterectomy? She falls in love and wants to get married, but can never have children. Would you allow her to get married? Would your answer change if the couple said that they planned to adopt and raise those children as though they were their own?
Sometimes we think that ethics questions are simply imaginary. They are not. However, they may deal with subjects that are rarely encountered, such as this one. And, the subject of infertile women or women who had early cancer or, very rarely, hermaphrodites are subjects that do come up.
I had read about this situation, but not the test results. It is a shame how our desire for news dehumanizes the people around us. I had never considered your ethics questions before. Thanks for sharing.
Because of my interests in gender issues, equality, civil rights, and anthropology, I have been following Caster’s case. Suffice it to say it breaks my heart.
Care to provide us with tidbits on the Church’s views on intersexed people (intersexed is the preferred term these days, whatever that’s worth) and infertility (know-before-marriage and/or discovered later)?
Personally, my opinion of marriage, which I have not fully checked to see if it’s in-line with Orthodoxy because, well, I was married civilly for almost 4 years before conversion is this:
Couples are considered a “whole family” even without children. I had someone tell me that “you aren’t really a family” though we had been married for YEARS!. And this from a single-never-married woman! Known infertility should not be a hindrance to marriage. I seem to remember Sarah was old before conceiving, and so was Elizabeth!!!! 🙂 My grandmother was “infertile” and had 5 healthy children. My cousin was “infertile” and had 3 healthy babes. A couple is NOT required to adopt or foster if unable to conceive. I don’t know if Aquila and Priscilla, the tentmakers, had children or not, but they worked together as a team, as a family unit, in order to serve Christ. Others did as singles.
I don’t know where ppl got the notion that you must have children, either natural or adopted, in order to be good Christians. One doesn’t have to be married to follow Christ, so what’s up with ppl demanding to know where my children are? And acquaintances “I hope you have children some day”. I hope they receive some manners! I don’t predict the future. Maybe God has other plans for us instead of children. Who is to say?
One more thing: I think the purpose of marriage is for ppl to have lifelong partners, companions, etc and procreation stems from that love and devotion. At the end of the day, we were created by God to serve God, and that might mean single, clergy, married with or without children.
Sorry for the rant. but you asked…;) if you were being rhetorical, then maybe my thoughts might help you in the future….
Nope, my question was not rhetorical. There is another blog post coming up on this within the next couple of days. Sundays are very hard days for me to write a blog post, so . . .
In my experience, the answer is: very akwardly.
As an intersexxed person, I’m currently exploring where in the many gender-divided ministries I rightly fall with my church, and it has opened a whole can of complication worms.
Also, no one knows what heterosexual looks like for someone who is only surface deep a member of a gender. Did I do the right thing by marrying a guy? Would marrying a girl have been ok? What about another intersex person? How does it work?
What about sex changes? If you have an exclusively male leadership, how do you qualify it – phenotype, genotype, what?
I came across what I think is an appropriate quote in my reading today; I’ve been working on this book literally for a month. In part:
“The canon law doctors and philosophers of the Christian church held that there were three bases or functions [of the family.] These were … childbearing (proles), fidelity (fides), and indissoluble unity (sacramentum.) This.. order indicates that even in these three essentials a certain greater … significance was given to childbearing…
…proles, OR THE INTENT OF SUCH (bold mine), is paramount to the full development of fides and sacramentum.”
This is taken from chapter 12 of “Family and Civilization” by Carle C. Zimmerman, edited by James Kurth, ISI Books, 2008. It was originally published in 1947.
I added the bold to this quote because I think it is the relevant phrase in this context. Even in 1947 very little was known about involuntary infertility. (Your hypothetical 20-year-old would have died from her cervical cancer.) Voluntary infertility is at odds with Christian marriage, just as are voluntary unfaithfulness and voluntary impermanence. But just as the rape of a married woman (involuntary unfaithfulness) does not invalidate her marriage, involuntary infertility should not preclude it.
Hey Ellen, you anticipate a chunk of one of my posts coming up. Hmm, maybe I will not even have to post but simply quote you! Mind you, the Orthodox have a slightly different bent on how they express it, but . . .
I was never able to marry (too nerdy to attract anything female). I have wanted “cuddly companionship” for 30+ years; its why most of the lead characters in my stories (you’ve read them) are female.
Years ago, I was told (by my former mentor into Catholicism) that since I couldn’t marry and/or breed baby Catholics, I Had To Become A Priest Or Monk. (There’s a reason he’s a FORMER mentor; guy was also utterly domineering. Catholic version of Quiverfull, male dominance and all.)
Now here’s another hypothetical to melt your brain: What about a human and a non-human who are not interfertile? (I’m talking “non-human” as in alien, not bestiality. Just like in my stories.)
Now that sounds like something you ought to take up in your science fiction stories! But, there is a good point to be made there because it goes right to the arguments about what is the main reason/function for marriage. Is it companionship or it is reproduction or is it a mixture of both? Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestants all give somewhat different answers. The answer given by your faith tradition will change the answer you give to the Carmen Semenyas of the world.