Your point is well-taken, and I agree with you 100 percent. However, I'm discussing a concept of what's considered "normal" for females in steroids testing for sports, and quoting from a publication (the Guardian) that reported on this. Hopefully the quotes make this clear.

I understand your concerns about the language. Part of the difficulty with this story is that the sports world uses language about these issues that is different from what you or I want to see. Some of this problem language occurs in quotes that I've used from other sources.

I use the word "gender" when discussing these issues in sports, because the issue IS about gender. It IS about where the line is drawn between the men's and women's divisions.

The "discomfort" is not over Semenya being a woman. The issue is about the women's rules as accepted by the governing bodies in international competition. The issue is whether she fits genetically within the parameters of who can compete in the women's division of track. The athletes who lodged the original complaint against her were women who got beaten by her in the 800 meter. They felt that she had an unfair advantage over them, and alleged that she is really a man, genetically, with a man's frame and a man'e strength.

Unfortunately the nice neat way that these sports authorities want to make the rules work doesn't dovetail with the complex physical and genetic reality of some athletes' natures. So Semenya has gotten caught in the middle of this perfect storm, where "who she is" is colliding with how officialdom wants the rules to work.

The testosterone issue is important, in sports, because of how testosterone levels are associated with steroids use. In the past, there have been instances of young female Olympic athletes (notably East Germans) who were so marinated in steroids by their coaches for years that they eventually developed some secondary male characteristics that stayed permanently with them after they became adults.

Some observers had a concern that Semenya's physical appearance might reflect steroids use. So a steroids test would have been routine in her case, along with other areas of investigation.

There's a reason why high testosterone levels in women athletes are a concern for sports authorities. On a daily basis, a woman's system normally produces only 1/15 the testosterone that a man's system does. If her naturally occurring t. level is significantly higher than that, it is going to result in physical changes -- not just in the larynx (deeper voice) and more body and facial hair, but also in greater muscle mass.

The muscle mass is the problem, because it gives the woman that "unfair advantage" in strength, especially in the shorter-distance running events, as well as in field events. If the woman athlete has not been using steroids, then the higher testosterone level is an indicator that, genetically speaking, she might not be what sports require to qualify for women's competition.

Personally I agree with you that these efforts to "equalize" competition are ridiculous. There are other factors (usually inherited) that give a huge advantage to certain individuals, like heart size or the ability to tolerace lactic-acid buildup. Michael Phelps' seal-like body build gave him a big advantage over other male swimmers. It's even said that men with an extra Y chromosome (XYY) are more naturally aggressive than XY men, which would give them an extra advantage in competition. Indeed, I think it's totally unfair than men are never gender-tested --only women.

But at the moment, the sports world doesn't want to go there. They are sticking to drawing the line at the XX/XY frontier, even though it doesn't work to do this, and results in cases of horrible injustice like that of Caster Semenya.