So there's this tennis girl who had a dick once and now there's a chance she won't be able to compete with the other, penis-less ladies. Talk about being stuck inbetween everything that's divided by gender.

Sarah Gronert, a 22-year-old pro from Germany, finds herself under scrutiny from her opponents and their coaches, who believe that a unique gender issue from birth should make her ineligible for the woman's tour.

Three years ago, those issues almost caused Gronert, ranked No. 619 in the world, to abandon her career. Though she has since returned to competitive tennis, the dialogue that continues to surround her relates not to her ability, but to her biology.

Gronert was born with male and female genitalia. After undergoing surgery, she's now medically certified as a woman. That's not good enough for some, though.

"There is no girl who can hit serves like that, not even Venus Williams," said Schlomo Tzoref, the coach of Julia Glushko, who Gronert recently beat on her way to winning the Raanana tournament in Israel in early March. "When I heard her story, I was in shock. I don't know if it's fair that she can compete or not. She does have an advantage, but if this is what the WTA have decided, they probably know best. If she begins to play continuously, within six months she will be within the Top 50."

It's tough to piece together the details of Gronert's story. Her story has yet to really reach American shores, so facts have to be parsed together from various foreign language websites. Yet Tzoref isn't the only one who sees the potential for Gronert to climb the ranks of the women's tour, which will surely lead to more conversation -- and infamy -- around the world regarding her standing on the tour.

We do know that, at 19, the harsh words and treatment from peers almost led Gronert to retire. Instead, she underwent surgery to remove the male genitalia and, after a struggle with the WTA that needed a petition and special committee to resolve, was allowed to compete again.

Gronert has appeared in nine tournaments in the last three years, winning two -- the Raanana tournament on March 2 and the German Kaarst tournament on January 19 -- this year. The purse for both titles was $10,000 each. Her competitors feel she had an unfair advantage towards winning those purses which will lead her to continue to rise in the sport unfairly. The longer Gronert competes, the more fevered the conversation grows (her Wikipedia page was deleted due to constant abuse by users).

"This can not be. This is not a woman, it's a man. She does not have the power of a woman and no woman has such a technique," Tzoref said. "She serves like a man. It's very strange."

I always enjoyed watching women's tennis, but now I'm pretty scared that there actually might be some extra weight hidden under those short skirts and a gutural moan screeching through the speakers instead of.. yeah, ya know, girlie moans. Lol this could be twisted into a horrible question but meh; What's your thoughts on hermaphrodites in society? Should they really be banned from stuff simply because they have "the edge"? Also.. higher salaries if they were actually men before?

Why'd she remove her penis?  Was it horribly abnormal anyway or did she just want to compete with the girls THAT BAD.

Well, she had both penis and vagina I think and it might get awkward in the lockerroom and public toilets having that. I guess if she had err closed the vagina instead, she would've had a disadvantage with guys? No idea lol.

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But yeah.. why the hell didn't her parents let doctors remove one genitalia when she was born?!

Why'd she remove her penis?  Was it horribly abnormal anyway or did she just want to compete with the girls THAT BAD.

Really? You don't see why someone in that situation would want to just get rid of the penis hanging off her?

I think which way you would go on that one would depend on which gender you're more like in daily life and/or if one set of genitals is...deformed or something.  This chick got rid of her penis, she's a chick.  They're just being 'dicks' (HAR HAR) about this.

If she's stronger than a woman then UP YOUR GAME.  You see those huge fucking bodybuilder women, it's pretty shitty to just go "BUT...BUT WE'RE GIRLS....WE CAN'T DO THAT GOOD...", you can't disqualify her for being too good for a girl.

Female tennis players don't play the full amount of sets and are awarded less prize money in the same tournaments too. Nobody takes them seriously apart from the williamses and that's only cause they be amazon women all about pumpin iron.

It would be bad for the game if to compete girls had to get all muscley cause then there wouldn't be any cute lil russians in short skirts bending over waiting for their opponent's service. I for one wouldn't watch it

Well, she had both penis and vagina I think and it might get awkward in the lockerroom and public toilets having that. I guess if she had err closed the vagina instead, she would've had a disadvantage with guys? No idea lol.

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But yeah.. why the hell didn't her parents let doctors remove one genitalia when she was born?!

i think fausto-sterling has some pretty good things to say about that but given a gender binary and given loads of shit i don't understand and half-remember about increased suicidality in people who had genital corrective surgery as babies, it's probably better to let people decide for themselves which they wanna be. it's not like a kid needs unambiguous genitalia, and they're pretty androgynous until at least 8 anyway

depends, some have testes and some have ovaries and some have a lil bit of both

Really? You don't see why someone in that situation would want to just get rid of the penis hanging off her?

If I had the choice between keeping my penis and playing profession tennis, I'd probably keep my penis!  But maybe that's just me?

hahaha

Female tennis players don't play the full amount of sets and are awarded less prize money in the same tournaments too. Nobody takes them seriously apart from the williamses and that's only cause they be amazon women all about pumpin iron.

It would be bad for the game if to compete girls had to get all muscley cause then there wouldn't be any cute lil russians in short skirts bending over waiting for their opponent's service. I for one wouldn't watch it

not true, my great uncle loves watching professional girls tennis and softball. Granted because he's an old perv and they're hot as fuck but he really gets into the sport too.

She's ranked 619 in the world, who cares?

She's ranked 619 in the world, who cares?

Weeeell, Schlomo (what kind of name is that anyway?!?) seems to think that she'll be in the top 50 in six months. Like Bionic Woman^tm or something, ya know?

isn't there research on this?  does being born with male genitalia also result in male hormones and increased muscle mass?  from what ive known about........hermies.......... they dont have testicles which seems important.  she seems pretty slight and not in any way obviously physically altered from having more testosterone present in her system or whatever

This was what I was thinking too. Like, she seems to have way more estrogen than testosterone (boobs) and since they didn't cut off her penis when she was young, you can only assume that she didn't eat any sissy pills either. But then Schlomo claims that she serves like a dude and it makes it more complicated. I don't know shit about tennis, but is there really that big of a difference between a male serve and a female equivalent? Like.. some gravitational phenomenom due to the mass being distributed between boobs versus balls? Are there some kind of graphs that show how much faster/stronger a male can become?! I wanna agree with Velfarre here since I've seen women that are waaay more manlier than even the manliest man (me for example), but still.. there's a reason why there's not many professional cross-gender sports out there.

I don't know, this sounds more like the the women who lost to her are just angry and are looking for a way to get her off their way.

how did anyone even find out? also does anyone kinda wish that they allowed steroids and other performance enhancers in sports, just to see what insane stuff happens?

Even though from what you guys are saying (I haven't looked into it really) she's more feminine than masculine, I don't really think that the whole male muscle mass thing really matters.  You have to work in order to make those muscles worthwhile, as well as PRACTICE TENNIS and all that, this doesn't just happen because of testosterone.  How would you even know if her strength was because of the testosterone or because she WORKED OUT A LOT?  You can't disqualify her on account of it being unfair when maybe she actually got that strong on her own.