Caster Semenya, King's Speech, Jude Rogers on Kirsty MacColl
Woman's Hour
BBC
4.1 • 3K Ratings
🗓️ 7 November 2023
⏱️ 56 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Caster Semenya is one of the most decorated athletes of her generation but she is also one of the most scrutinised. The South African shot to fame in 2009 after winning the 800 metres at the World Championships in Berlin. Her performance was so astonishing it was met with questions about her sex and gender, with some asking publicly if she was really a woman. Caster's career, for all its highs, has been defined by a battle between her and the sport's governing body World Athletics about her right to compete. Caster joins Emma to discuss her career as she releases her new book A Race to be Myself.
Kirsty MacColl wrote and sang some of the most iconic pop songs of the eighties and nineties. She tends to be remembered best for Fairytale of New York, and for her untimely death in 2000. However, as a comprehensive new box set of her work, See That Girl, demonstrates, her influence and importance as an artist extends far beyond this. Music journalist Jude Rogers wrote an essay for the box set, and joins Emma in studio.
This morning, we'll have the first King's Speech in more than 70 years. In this morning's speech, the King is expected to include around 20 bills, focusing on criminal sentencing and smoking, among other things. A bill to change the leasehold system is also expected to be included. The BBC's Iain Watson gives us a run through of what to expect and Jo Darbyshire from the National Leasehold Campaign joins Emma to discuss why they want the leasehold system to be scrapped.
Presenter: Emma Barnett Producer: Emma Pearce
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Good morning and welcome to the program. |
| 0:02.0 | Today I can welcome an athlete who has let her running do the talking |
| 0:05.8 | and rarely gives interviews, but Kasta Semenya's story is one many others have told for |
| 0:10.6 | her over the years, and now she wants to tell it herself. |
| 0:14.0 | She's my first guest on Woman's Hour today and while you may remember her for winning |
| 0:18.1 | gold medals at the Olympics you'll probably also remember the leaking of her |
| 0:22.1 | private medical records after she was required to take |
| 0:24.8 | a test by a sports governing body to prove she was a woman. |
| 0:29.0 | Also on today's programme will bring you what you need to be listening out for in the King's |
| 0:33.2 | speech his first in post in terms of the government's legislative program and one of |
| 0:37.6 | the female campaigners who can claim some success and the unmistakable voice of Kirstie McColl there but why did such a brilliant |
| 0:46.1 | lyricist have more commercial success singing other people's songs? |
| 0:49.9 | As a new box set is released of her work the music journalist Jude Rogers will be here paying tribute to |
| 0:54.6 | her talent. |
| 0:55.8 | And speaking of days, as we heard in that song, how incredible is the news about breast cancer |
| 1:00.5 | today, hopefully affording many more women, many more days with their |
| 1:04.2 | loved ones as a drug already in use for treating breast cancer is now approved for those women |
| 1:08.7 | with a family history to take as a preventative option. |
| 1:12.3 | Of course there'll be complications and issues and side effects and all those things to talk about and we will do that we hope with some detail but I did also want to use this opportunity on this day to mark that by saying that as a |
| 1:23.9 | breakthrough but also to say to you that if you are deemed eligible to go on that |
| 1:28.6 | particular journey to take that drug we would love to hear from you. We would love to follow your story. |
| 1:33.4 | Do get in touch with us here. 84844, that's the number you need to text the |
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