A FEMALE athlete charged with raping her partner has defended herself against claims she is actually a man.
Indian athlete Pinki Pramanik, who won a gold medal at the 2006 Asian Games, was remanded in custody for 14 days to await trial on allegations that she repeatedly raped her female live-in partner.
"The court magistrate asked the authorities to constitute a medical board for determining the gender of Pinki," Prabir Roy, who heads the police station on the outskirts of Kolkata where Pramanik was arrested, told AFP.
Pramanik, who retired in 2007, declined to take a medical examination at a government-run hospital when she was questioned on Thursday.
"She has brought false charges against me as I refused to give her 300,000 rupees ($5393)," Pramanik told reporters from the back of a police van before the court hearing. "Truth will prevail," she said.
Pramanik on Thursday had said she had undergone numerous medical check-ups during her running career and added, "Why should I agree to more ridiculous tests?"
"Pinki poses as a woman but is actually a man," the victim was quoted as saying in Friday's Calcutta Telegraph. "She would assault me regularly and raped me several times."
She also claimed that Pramanik had promised to marry her.
Pramanik, 26, won gold in the 4x400m relay at the Asian Games and a silver for the same event in the 2006 Commonwealth Games before she stopped competing the following year.
She grew up as the daughter of a poor farmer in rural West Bengal state, about 220 kilometres from Kolkata and has worked as a ticket inspector on the Indian railways.
"My daughter is innocent," Pramanik's mother, Puspa Pramanik, told a Bengali TV channel. "I don't believe that she can do such a crime. I hope she will get the right judgement."
Police said Pramanik, who had lived with her partner in Kolkata for several months, will stand trial for rape, criminal assault, cheating and criminal intimidation.
"We don't know whether it was a case of being male physically or hormonal change over a period of time which can happen," Athletics Federation of India secretary CK Valson told the Press Trust of India news agency. "We have to wait for the medical report and conclusion of the case."
In 2006, Indian athlete Santhi Soundarajan failed a gender test and was stripped of the silver medal she won in the women's 800m at the Asian Games in Doha.
Santhi insisted along with her parents and coaches that she had done nothing wrong.
Gender controversies are often caused by Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (CAH) when females have male physical characteristics or Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (AIS), when someone is genetically male but their genitals may appear to be female.
South African athlete Caster Semenya won the women's 800m world championships in 2009 but was then sidelined for 11 months during a probe into her gender.
She was cleared to compete and is a gold medal prospect at the London Olympics.
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Yes, because the intervening paragraph is only one sentence long.
Yeah, I see how hard it is to see that first paragraph.
You mean the one where you call Santhi "a he" (which is in and of itself a dehumanizing phrase) despite the article explicitly using only female pronouns to refer to her? Where you say she was "trying to pass" as a woman (implying not only that she is less or other than a woman, but that she was deliberately trying to deceive people, which the article makes absolutely no mention of) despite the fact that, once again, the article explicitly uses only female pronouns in reference to her, a pretty strong indication that she is, in fact, a woman?
Look, here's the deal. Whether you intended it to be or not, your original comment was cissexist. You can either re-read your comment and try to figure out why so that it doesn't happen again, or you can keep trying to dig holes around yourself to try and justify it. Your call.
You know, instead of me re-reading my comment again, maybe you should go back and re-read yours. You can out swinging, Tea. What is wrong with just saying that you believe Santhi has AIS? What's wrong with just having a conversation? WTF did you come out the gate wanting blood?
My comment might've been unintentionally cissexist, but yours was just as bad. And I get it. It's so much easier to come out with hatred and a head full of accusations instead of taking the time to see where the miscommunication is.
Nope, sorry. Being called cissexist is not as bad as being cissexist. HTH. Not to mention that I didn't even call you cissexist, I called your comment cissexist.
Also, leave your tone arguments at the door. I could call you every name in the book and it wouldn't change the fact that your comment was cissexist.
And there is no "might've been unintentionally cissexist." It WAS [unintentionally] cissexist. You can say that I was being too angry or mean all you want, but all you're doing is proving that you care more about not being called out for saying something cissexist than you actually do about not saying cissexist things.
Edited at 2012-06-16 02:06 pm (UTC)
I don't think you're being mean, Tea. I think you jump to conclusions.
So let's step back, okay? I don't wish to argue with you over this... I didn't read this in terms of gender identity. I didn't read this as an AIS discussion. I read it as an angry girlfriend trying to blackmail her girlfriend, and did so by throwing out as strong an insult as she could (in a way that could ruin Pinki.) As for Santhi, I was thinking about the rumors of men *intentionally* dressing as women to win for their countries. Transgendered people wasn't on my mind at all. It's never cross my mind that transgendered people can be barred from the Olympics.
This was, yes, a failing on my part. I should've read it better. I don't think there is anything more for us to "discuss" here. And, yes, I'm giving you the last word. I know it'll make you feel better.
Really? I couldn't tell.
Jsyk, your original comment WAS very, very cissexist, and no, theirs was NOT "just as bad."
BEING CALLED CISSEXIST OR HOMOPHOBIC OR RACIST IS NOT WORSE THAN/AS BAD AS BEING ANY OF THOSE THINGS and jfc, the responsibility for clearing up the misunderstanding lies with the person who was being cissexist, and tbh the other person is in no way obliged to ~accept or ~understand
The other person's original comment did not misgender you or contribute to a culture where any woman who's anything other than XX is continually questioned and misgendered and humiliated and often hurt or killed, so no, IT WAS NOT AS BAD, and you might be able to see where they're coming from with that anger considering that all the things I listed happen to trans, intersex, etc. women all the time
Edited at 2012-06-16 03:39 pm (UTC)