Talk:Stanisława Walasiewicz

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[edit] Various issues

Polish wikipedia says her parents emigrated to USA when she was 3 months old, while this article says "when she was two". Are there any sources for this information? rado 21:05, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

I deleted some stuff that seemed like good sci-fi, but who the hell knows any more. Anyways, provide reliable sources about her questionable sex and include it. I am not even going to Google this. --Tom 16:25, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

If you're questioning some facts in the text you should at least be able to state the reason. "I smell something fishy but won't move my finger" is not enough IMO. //Halibutt 16:39, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Did you read what I deleted? I usually put ^{[citation needed]} in the article and then come back in a few weeks when nothing has been done and delete the material, but the stuff I deleted was BEYOND wild. Again, it MIGHT be true, NOTHING surprises me any more but don't you think if somebody is going to add something SO WILD they should source it so the next guy that comes along isn't like, "what the f" when I read it?? Just some more of my ramblings...Now that I am curious, I will look into this and report back, you mind if takes a few moments?? Cheers! --Tom 16:45, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Well I guess fact is stranger than fiction. What are the chances of being killed as a bystander in a bank robbery? 0.1% What are the chance of being intersexual?? 0.1% Chances of both happening?? I still haven't found a reliable source, MANY mirrored sites and a few trivia sites that claim Walsh was a man?? Anyways, this article as it stands has zero referrences? I left a few citation requests and hope they can be sourced. I will try to help. Thanks! --Tom 18:04, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Now this is a much better approach, at least encouraging to add references rather than revert. I'll add some more tonight. //Halibutt 18:28, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

I've been doing some research on this, and the "intersex" claim is pretty weak, based at most on speculation on unusual chromosomes (mosaicism), and lots of quotations that refer back to Wikipedia. Apparently Walsh has become a cause célèbre for the transsexual community, but the facts seem to be she was a man, plain and simple; both the New York Times (which had access to the autopsy report) and Britannica state this unequivocally, and it is consistent with Walsh's prior behavior (never getting naked around other women, or for that matter even spending any time with them) and the fact, not mentioned here, that her birth name was Stefan. Which leads to the obvious question: What the hell was Neil Olson thinking?  ProhibitOnions  ^(T) 19:52, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Forget the husband to be, what about her/his parents?? I find it BEYOND belief that her parents raised her as a girl KNOWING she had a male package down there. Does this make sense to anybody?? I am also going to remove more unsourced claims like "humble" family ect. --Tom 20:12, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

What ProhibitOnions writes above seems highly improbable. The Gazeta Wyborcza article mentions Walasiewicz's biographer, dr. Maria Rotkiewicz who states clearly that I was not present during the autopsy so I cannot comment on its conclusions, but I saw Walasiewicz's birth record that states specifically that "a child of female form was shown". She also felt a woman throughout her life. (Polish: Nie byłam przy sekcji zwłok, więc nie chcę się wypowiadać o słuszności jej wyniku, widziałam natomiast akt urodzenia Walasiewiczówny, w którym stoi: >>Okazano dziecię płci żeńskiej<<. Stasia przez całe życie czuła się kobietą).

BTW, I'm quoting also the Polish original as my attempt at translation of 19th centurish legal church language is not perfect. //Halibutt 18:45, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

I give up. She (and her parents, and her husband, and her teammates) obviously had issues, but what she didn't have, according to the autopsy, was a vagina. Guess her parents really, really wanted a girl.  ProhibitOnions  ^(T) 19:15, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Apparently the world is even more complicated then one might think... It might also be that Walasiewicz is alive and well and lives in Memphis... //Halibutt 21:15, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Aloofness

I took the liberty to remove the following part as it seems a tad strange. At the same time, Walasiewicz had a reputation for aloofness, and did not socialize with the other women athletes, causing some to be suspicious. [1]. The problem is that what the Canadian runner said is obviously true as she did not stay with the Canadian sportsmen but rather with her Polish friends. Some of them recall her as a friendly and helpful person (Kwaśniewska). Anyway, it's easy to suspect something... 60 years afterwards, but it proves little. //Halibutt 23:49, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Hi Halibutt, VERY nice work on this article. I agree that people's comments/opinions should be left out of Wiki articles. ONLY material that can be sourced and ALREADY exists should be added. My own unscientific findings are that 90%, OR MORE, of Wiki IS NOT sourced. Now I am not saying 90% is INCORRECT, just that it isn't sourced properly. It seems that people/editors would much rather CREATE new articles as fast as they can rather than spending time to edit/source/cleanup articles that already exist. Again, sorry if we got off on the wrong foot but I REALLY appreciate your efforts. Thanks! --Tom 16:03, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough, Halibutt (and nice work on the article), I wasn't happy with this part anyway - although the point should be made that there were some suspicions about her sex at the time, but there was even greater doubt about that of Stephens (due in part to a rather Machiavellian campain on the part of the Walsh camp), and the matter was dropped when Stephens proved to be female. Even if she kept away from athletes of other nations (which itself is, according to Olympic athletes I've known, frowned upon, but it does happen), it seems likely that a reason would be that Polish athletes wouldn't rat on her, but others might...  ProhibitOnions  ^(T) 17:44, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks guys. As to the link above and Onionic comments (too bad English doesn't cope as nicely with adverbs as Polish does): there was indeed a great deal of competition not only among the athletes, but also their "camps". This indeed might be the reason why such doubts are not mentioned in Polish sources. On the other hand it would be nice to have some better source for that than the link. BTW, I used it anyways, though in another part of the article. //Halibutt 18:14, 1 June 2006 (UTC)