[dpd_dpd]

If you look at accounts from Semenya's early life there is evidence against his account of growing up as a girl. For example, there have been school photos published showing him wearing a boy's uniform near to a group of girls who were all wearing girl's uniforms. His former school headmaster, when interviewed years later, said he thought that Semenya was a boy and was very surprised to hear that he was now competing in women's athletics.

And of course he would have gone through male puberty, not female puberty. This would have been obvious then, and the result of this is obvious now if you see him in interviews. Male-typical build, male-typical vocal tone. Even his now-wife assumed (correctly) that he is male when she first met him.

Semenya has to double down on this narrative that he is a woman otherwise he will have to admit that his successful sporting career as a woman will have been a lie.

[j_w]

Even if you believe that it is the case that she lived her early life as a male, at the point that a person has made it clear that they have some preferred pronoun/is trans would it not just be disrespectful to intentionally refer to them counter to that?

[dpd_dpd]

If I had chosen to refer to Semenya using pronouns that imply he is female, that would have conflicted with the points I was making.

[lolc]

I don't know the specifics in this case, but they can be biologically male and use the female gender. How would that conflict your point?