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South African runner Caster Semenya will be allowed to keep both her prize money and gold medal for winning the 800-meter race at the World Championships held earlier this year in Berlin.  Though the results of her gender tests remain confidential, so much has been alleged about the analysis of the tests that the matter has become the proverbial “cat out of the bag.” Now the chatter of running enthusiasts has kicked into full gear as an intersexed woman who has outward female genitalia and internal male testes must wait for the IAAF (International Association of Athletics Federations) to decide Semenya’s eligibility to continue competing as a woman.

What I find most disturbing about this case is the lengths people will go to in order to protect their notions about what it is to “be a woman” or “be a man” in this world. How many innocent babies have been subject to the sadistic taunts of other children who accused them of “acting” in ways antithetical to their presented gender? How many adults have participated in risky behavior or done things so out of line with their character simply to “prove” themselves or to show how really “masculine” or “feminine” they could be?

Here’s what we know: Caster Semenya loves running and she’s good at it. I certainly hope something will be done so that she and any other runner or athlete like her will be allowed to continue competing.  By the way: Are there any unisex track events for runners? Just a thought…

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A few days ago I visited the DuSable Museum of African American History here in Chicago.  The museum is uniquely this country’s first and oldest such tribute to the history and culture of African Americans.

One of the most difficult artifacts on the walls of the museum’s civil rights exhibit is the historic photo of the open casket where the swollen, beaten and mutilated body of Emmett Till lay in rest.  The 1955 murder of this young 14-year-old child mobilized the civil rights movement and remains a point of deep pain for many Americans involved in the movement and is particularly poignant for African Americans of that generation and those following.  Though I was born several years later, it was recounted to my peers and myself many times.  This telling and retelling of this horrible true story is indicative of its place as one of those tragic “lest we forget” events in the psyche of Black America.

This year, October 28th, President Obama signed into law the Shepard-Byrd Hate Crimes Prevention Act which expands the existing federal hate crime laws to now grant federal protection on the basis of gender, gender identity and disability.  The law was named after two men who were murdered for no other reasons than racism and homophobia.  Matthew Shepard was tortured and left to die tied to a fence in Wyoming in 1998 because of his sexual orientation. James Byrd was tied and dragged behind a truck in Texas, in 1998 because he was black.  It has been over a decade since these crimes and over a half century since the murder of Emmett Till.

Despite the opposition from  the politicians representing the state of Wyoming, the law was enacted with overwhelming approval.  I’m so thankful for this new law! Creating this law was - has been - the right thing to do.  For the memory of Till, Shepard, James and so many more.

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