Summary

Ariel is 35 and travels to Johannesburg to write a big story. She is going to do a profile of acclaimed South African runner Caster Semenya, who has come out of poverty to win the 2009 World Championships. After her win, other competitors complain that Semenya was too butch to run with other women. “For me, she is not a woman. She is a man […] These kinds of people should not run with us” (14).

The International Association of Athletics Federation orders Semenya to undergo gender testing and it is discovered that she is intersex. Ariel is fascinated and questions the meaning of gender: "What makes a person female?" (15). Ariel interviews Semenya's first coach who asks her where her children are. Ariel responds that she does not have children, and he shakes his head disbelievingly.

In Cape Town, Ariel interviews an LGBT activist named Funeka Soldaat who...