Hey, it's Empire's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbaung. It's been a couple years now that

there has been this debate over organized sports and athletes who don't fit neatly into boxes

of gender. And it's easy to overlook that being in the center of that debate can be demoralizing,

demeaning, and distracting. You know, it costs mental energy that

should be spent on competing. Today on the show, we've got Olympic runner Castor Semenya.

Her memoir, The Race to Be Myself, gets into all of that. And she tells here now Deepa Fernandez

about the stretch in time where she was forced to take hormones in order to compete.

And while, yeah, it made the physical act of competing more difficult,

it also had the effect of making her not happy.

That's after the break.

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South African runner Casta Semenya is one of the greatest competitors ever in the women's 800 meters,

winning two Olympic gold medals and three world championships.

Here's her victory in London in 2012.

First across the line with a time of 15528, a personal best in a South African national record.

But ever since her victory is an 18-year-old at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin,

Casta Semenya's inclusion in that race has been called into question.

...