Sally Gross - Many parts to a whole

There cannot be many people - (no I am teasing, there is only one) - who would have started life as a Jewish boy called Selwyn; converted to Christianity; became a Dominican Monk; became a communist; entered the anti-apartheid struggle, joined the African National Congress and helped organise the Dakar talks between the ANC and the apartheid government; and then decided to investigate what she called her "bodiliness" only to discover that she had been incorrectly described, at birth as male. She called herself Sally and she wore a dress.

When she approached her Order about the anomaly of a fully ordained Roman Catholic Priest, who was actually a woman, the church did what it normally does in instances where it is caught between a cross and and a garotte - and simply excommunicated her.  There she was, left on the streets - a world authority on the works of St Thomas Aquinas, but homeless and jobless because of her preferred gender.

After reading some of the emails Sally sent out about about her plight, I put the matter to my boss - a deeply humane and excruciatingly efficient person - and a contract was arranged for Sally to work in the Regional Land Claims Commission of the Western Cape as a researcher.  She worked there, reasonably happily, for many years.

In the beginning it was strange, many people tell me - to have this large person with a deep booming, rather plummy voice, in a dress, insisting that she was MISS Sally Gross.  Claimants who encountered her on the telephone, would sometimes insist, when they met her, that they had spoken to a man, not a woman.  She would quickly put them right.  Fellow officials, even today, many years after she had left the Commission, will recount instances of Sally emerging furious from her office, in full flight and throat, flailing her cane about and not shy to connect with anyone in her rampage.

Sally was a character.  I remember her in Pietermaritzburg, (when she was still Selwyn and teaching at St Joseph's Seminary).  When you met her casually in the street, she would immediately engage on some issue or the other.  She would quote Latin, Hebrew, Greek to you - and assume that you understood.  She knew everything about everything - as far as I could work out.  And not just the basics.  Not just the general drift of an argument.  She would know the fine detail - the argumentative twists and turns - the very substance of anything you wanted to talk about - with references.  And her graciousness was never to expose you for your mere nodding acquaintance with the matter to hand.  She would simply assume that your knowledge was as vast as hers - and carry on.

The Church scarred Sally.  It did so knowingly and it did so repeatedly. And the people in it who did so should please bow their sorry heads in shame at this point.  Hold the false grief, please.  Close your avuncular mouthes.  Bury the platitudes and just shut up.  You can have nothing to say.  Take your loving Jesus anywhere else - but not here.

Sally didn't ever pretend to be a saint.  But nor would she pretend to be anything other than who she was.  She refused to allow herself to be anything other than what she was - and she was made to pay dearly for doing so, by the church with the victim saviour.  She refused to fit the mould.  She would not.  She could not.

I once said to her, not so long ago when we were discussing our mutual disgust with the church, that I had never depended upon a belief in God to appreciate the goodness of the world - she agreed with me, in a simple and uncomplicated (and unreferenced!) way.  Neither had she and neither did she.

Sally had journeyed from Jew, to Christian, to Communist, to Buddhist to secularist.  And although she would share and appreciate a range of beauty in all of these, it was to the beauty of nothingness, of the nihil that she would trudge towards in the end.

She had no fear of death - we discussed it on numerous occasions.  She had a fear of dying alone.  And that is what happened.  And the fact that it happened in the way that it did is a testament to the singular, lonely path she trod.  It was never easy.  It was never grand or ostentatious.  It was never flashy.  It was what it was. And those of us who knew her should not punish ourselves too much over it. It was usually unsupported.  That was her life.

I will miss her insight and her shy sense of humour.  I will miss the camaraderie we shared as exiles and outcasts, both as priests and as christians and as ANC members.  I will miss that plummy voice on the end of the phone, quoting Hebrew at me.  Most of all, I will miss her courage.  I will miss the fact that she was not only form - she was also substance.  A rare thing in this country of ours. Hamba Kahle MISS Sally Gross.

"Annabel" by Kathleen Winter

Annabel is a novel about intersexuality – basically that. The child of Jacinta, a rather strange mindless woman with flashes of genius and Treadway – a trapper of very few words but impeccable principles, is born intersex. The parents decide that the child will grow up male and surgery is performed in order to enable this – by and large.

But Wayne, the child (and the parents) always know that there is something different about him – and the novel explores the psychological journey which he takes to eventually ditching his pills and allowing his bodiliness to have its way.

It is dull. It is tedious and it is dreary. For a book which was listed for the Orange prize, all I can say is YAWN! Everything about it is completely obvious. The mother nurtures things in her heart, but can’t talk to anyone about them. She cooks a lot and remembers what it was like to live in a slightly more habitable place that the Labrador coast. The father is a mono-dimentional. He traps. He likes the outdoors. He doesn’t say much. He eats caribou. He talks to birds.

The son is so passive about everything that one just loses interest. And everything which happens to him – down to the violent abuse he receives from workmates when he finally goes to the city – is completely expected. The only thing which is not expected, is that he can be so bloody boring in the living of his life!

And yes, I get it – the Labrador coast is inhospitable – and that is what it is like when you are intersex. Page, after page, after page of inhospitability. I really did get it! I got it quite early on and had to endure it for the rest of the book. (Gosh – maybe that was the point! But please – enough!)

Don’t read this book. It is a monumental waste of time! Don’t read it if you are in any way interested in intersexuality – it will teach you nothing at all. Don’t read this book. It is just too tedious for words.

Caster Semenya and Eudy Simelane

It is a strange thing - and I have just heard - that Eudy Simelane murdered and raped Banyana Banyana i.e national South African Women's soccer team) captain was probably intersex as well.

Now, the issue is this. By what curious logic is Caster Semenya lauded by the politicians? By what logic is she recognised and rightly sought to be protected against the bungling of the IAAF and other bodies which have so thoroughly trodden on her rights as a human being - but on the Eudy Simelane issue - on the same issue - there is a virtual, if not absolute silence?

Because there are rights here also. It is just that the one's rights were so thoroughly unprotected, that she is dead.

Pic: Eudy Simelane, Times online

Caster Semenya and the intersex row

Pic: Sally Gross from Intersex South Africa

As I said when I commented before, Caster Semenya has unwittingly raised the debate about intersex in a way which we have never before experienced in this country. Because now we have the possible anomaly of an intersex person, who is a national hero (I use the word generically), who is black and who has been unbelievably badly treated by the media, the IAAF, and by every bigot in and out of town, the world over.

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, as she usually manages to do, was in the right place, saying the right things. It is extraordinary to me how she manages to do this - and I say this with the utmost respect and admiration. Because few others of her ilk do the same. If there are flood victims, she is there. If some white shoots black kids on a farm somewhere, she is there. If someone like Caster Semenya is abused by the media after a stunning world championship, she is at the airport to greet her. I have always admired Madikizela-Mandela, despite her many flaws.

But South Africa as a whole, for the first time in history, has had to face the issue of intersex. The radio stations have been jammed with people expressing their opinions on the matter. You will hear it discussed in the lift. I just saw a long interview on the television with Sally Gross, who heads Intersex South Africa talking about the difficulties which intersex people have, the challenges they are faced with, the prevalence of the thing (she said that in South Africa it is as high as 1/500 – as opposed to a world average of 1/2000, which is still pretty high!)

I remember years ago, when I was a priest in rural Lesotho, having to trek for miles into the mountain to a really rural village to bury an extremely old woman. When we got to the village, we found it in trauma. The old lady had been someone everyone in the village had grown up with. Everyone knew her, and loved her. But when the body was washed before burial, it was discovered that she had male genitalia. The discovery traumatised the entire village.

And the same sort of thing is what has happened with Caster Semenya. The official report is still to be released, but bigots should take no comfort in that at all – because the findings seem to have been leaked. She is, in all likelihood, intersex. And sport, like religion, it would appear, does not have a category for anything other than the binary male/female formula. And the people are traumatised because of it.

One wonders why? If this is a condition which is as prevalent as it appears to be, then why is this all so much of a surprise? I note, in the newspapers, at the same time as this story is breaking, that there is another – saying that conservative churches in South Africa, with apparent close ties to the ruling African National Congress, are starting to lobby hard on getting rights guaranteed to Gay and Lesbian people, removed from the statute books, and presumably also, the Constitution.

I would ask them (but of course, they will not hear and nor will they answer intelligibly) just to pause for a moment or two before they rush headlong over the Gadarene cliff, to consider Caster Semenya. Who made her the way she is? Is it her parents fault perhaps? Is it God’s? Or is it just a feature of as yet uncelebrated human diversity?

The salutary point is that often, things are not quite what they might seem. And books should not be judged by covers. And the human species is hugely diverse.

Looking like your gender

The major controversy which has arisen, concerning the gender of South African athlete Caster Semenya has raised interesting (and rare!) public debate about the issue of gender. The fact that she looks like a boy, runs like a boy, sounds like a boy - but isn't a boy - is the point at issue. Add to the fact that she is black, and we have the contents of a really interesting debate but sadly, without really taking her feelings about the matter into account.

She is, after all, an eighteen year old. And eighteen years old is not old. I cannot imagine being eighteen again, and having my gender being the topic of public debate. But surprisingly, and so much to her credit, I heard her on the radio, saying she was extremely comfortable about who she is, and the public needs to get used to it - in words pretty much to that effect.

In my job, working in 2010 World Cup social legacy, I frequently encounter women who are built like men and who play soccer. There is, however, something quite close to a conspiracy of silence which operates around them. What I mean by that, is that the subject of gender, gender typing and especially sexual orientation, appears to be considered something which should not ever be raised and so we never do. With some of them, their build and their demeanor is, fairly obviously atypically female. But that fact is never alluded to or acknowledged. There is a sense in which, surely, that is the way it should be! In the sport, first and foremost, they are soccer players. Secondly, they are women. The way they look as women is really not the point and has very little to do with anybody else.

Nevertheless, as I have mentioned, even though the atypification is there and it is obvious, it is a taboo subject. And that makes me a bit suspicious about what the real motivation is. Is it that we are all completely relaxed about it? That we, as South Africans are so free from gender typification that discussion on the matter would be superfluous? That would be nice, but I doubt it. Is it, possibly, that lurking behind every woman with a manly body, is a Lesbian? I am sure that this could explain at least some of the avoidance. Or, is it that the possibility of being intersexed is so profoundly unpleasant to most people, that it cannot ever be considered, let alone discussed?

I read some time ago, that the proportion of intersexed people in the human population could be as high as 1% of live births. Now, that is astonishingly high and, if it is even vaguely accurate, it means that the issue of intersexuality is a prevalent and very well hidden secret in our society.

Caster Semenya has established herself as the fastest woman on the planet in the 800m at the World Athletics Championship in Berlin, Germany. She ran the distance in one minute 55.45 seconds. Immediately, there were questions about her gender. Suddenly, the matter of intesexuality and intersex people were the topic of conversation on the radio and the television in a way that has simply never happened before.

And, as the discussion developed, yet another element arose, that of her colour and her origins. The argument was (inaccurately, as it happens) made that had she been white, the issue of her gender would not have been raised. The shadow of Sarah Baartman loomed large - the woman from the Eastern Cape who, because of the (then considered) odd shape of her body, was taken to Europe and put naked on display for the amusement of European audiences.

For the first (and maybe even the second aspect) I think our country owes a great debt of respect and gratitude to Caster Semenya. This whole business could not have been easy for her. And she has dealt with the extraordinary level of hot air and genuine debate with dignity and restraint. The country should be hugely proud of her because of what she has achieved, not only on the track, but also in this extraordinary debacle about her gender. As the Colleen Lowe Morna, executive director of Gender Links said: "We should celebrate Semenya on her return not just because she is bringing back a gold medal, but because she has refused to conform to societal norms and expectations."

And the issue of Sarah Baartman should not be simply dismissed, as I have sometimes heard it, as a matter of "dragging race into everything". What happened to Sarah Baartman could be described as a defining moment in the history of South Africa. A Khoisan woman, with bodily features which were not typical of Europe, was captured, enslaved, hauled off to Europe where she was stripped of her clothes and her dignity, prodded, poked, displayed and used for titillation and entertainment, turned into an alcoholic and when she died, had her brain and genitals pickled and kept on display in a museum in France. There can be no doubt whatsoever that the treatment of this woman has had the most profound effect on our people - and will do forever.

And it is this memory, deep in the soul of the nation, which has given rise to the accusation that the demand to test the gender of Caster Semenya is the same mindset which displayed and examined Sarah Baartman. It may be. But that is not to say that therefore, we in South Africa can simply sweep all issues of gender, sexual orientation and intersex under the carpet of silence.

Picture: Caster Semenya (Oliver Morino, AFP)