UKC

What do you think should be done?

Given that gender is one of only two categorisations in able-bodied sport (that I can think of) it clearly needs addressing and if the male / female distinction is to continue then what defines a female needs to be clearly determined. I can't help thinking that so far, the rights of a tiny percentage of the population have been given unfair weight over the rights of female sports participants. Hugely elevated levels of testosterone, as well as being an important factor in determining man from woman, clearly give a significant performance advantage (which is presumably why its artificial supplementation is banned!) How CAS reached their conclusion is beyond me. I feel really sorry for Lynsey Sharp et al.

Maybe people deemed intersex, if they have a desire to compete, should compete in male competitions?

In reply to Yanis Nayu:

I watched the race expecting her to be miles ahead. She wasn't tho - looked like many other races. Its clear that she's a bit of a freak of nature, but the same could be said for any number of other athletes. They all have physiological or mental advantages. Her genetics appear to have given her a hormonal advantage instead.

In reply to balmybaldwin:

She was - she did just as much as she had to.

Men's genetics give them an advantage over women; that's why they're categorised and compete separately. It's not the same as being 7 foot tall and playing basketball.

In reply to Yanis Nayu:

This was posted in another thread on UKC and I think anyone that is interested in the subject of Caster Semenya and the advantage she has got should read it: -

http://sportsscientists.com/2016/07/caster-semenya-debate/

In reply to balmybaldwin:

>
The first three all have extremely heightened levels of testerone. There are effectively two races taking place.

In reply to Yanis Nayu:

Ver takes hormone supplements?

In reply to FactorXXX:



Thanks - I'd already see it, but it provides useful background information.

In reply to aln:


Ver?

In reply to Yanis Nayu:


I was listening to a good discussion on this not so long ago, a reasonably significant proportion of elite women athletes have elevated testosterone due to hyperandrogenism and some other genetic conditions. It was really interesting:

http://www.slate.com/articles/podcasts/hang_up_and_listen/2016/08/hang_up_a...

I think Caster Semenya should be left alone to get on with and celebrated as a superb athlete if she keeps winning. Elite athletes are clearly born with genetic advantages and some with social/cultural advantages also. Other aspects of Semenya's life probably aren't that easy, I don't see why we can't just say she was born 'lucky' in that one respect like Bolt was born 'lucky' to be tall AND Jamaican.

In reply to Yanis Nayu:

A non-gender alternative to him or her.

In reply to TobyA:



Because unless you remove the categorisation of athletes into men and women, you need some way of differentiating them, and for people likeSemenya, for whom significant doubt exists, to compete with women is unfair on the other women.

In reply to TobyA:

Other aspects of Semenya's life probably aren't that easy, I don't see why we can't just say she was born 'lucky' in that one respect like Bolt was born 'lucky' to be tall AND Jamaican.

Yes, but until recently, CAS decided that she and others could compete as long as they took drugs to inhibit the production of testosterone to expected levels. It's the decision to withdraw that stipulation that has raised concerns.

In reply to TobyA:

This point (born lucky, like Bolt) addressed in FactorXXX's link, which I find very persuasive- be interested to see your response to it.

In reply to aln:

I don't think so, no. Until the CAS ruling she had to take drugs to reduce her T levels to those of 3x 99% of women. As I understand it, she's now competing in her natural state.

In reply to Yanis Nayu:

It's unfair for men as fast as Bolt to compete with most other men. Either accept that most elite athletes are freaks of nature in some way and get on with it, or you'll end up needing to put a height limit on high jumpers as it's unfair to short people.

In reply to Yanis Nayu:


But is there doubt though? She is a woman and has been classified as such after much publicised public finger pointing. The determinant of sex are the X and Y Chromosomes not the level of testosterone in the body aren't they?

There are rare natural occurrences of XXY mutations but as far as I know Semenya isn't one of them.

In reply to Yanis Nayu:

I'm not sure what should be done, but we should be aware of this kind of abuse taking place. https://oii.org.au/25610/women-athletes-forced-clitorectomies/

In reply to balmybaldwin:
Semenya is XY, ie chromosomally male, unless I've read that link wrong.

Edit: of course that doesn't mean she is male, as gender is a more complex construct than simply the result of a genetic test- but it does have implications for whether she should be allowed to compete against other athletes who have an order of magnitude lower levels of the key hormone determining performance (according to the sports scientist in the link above)

In reply to balmybaldwin:

I thought there was doubt and that she would technically be classed as a hermaphrodite as she has no womb or ovaries, and has internal testes.

I fully support a person's right to identify as whichever gender they like but the intersex athlete issue seems unfair to other women competing. Testosterone is clearly shown to enhance performance, that's why supplementing your levels is considered doping. It's not like having an advantage of height etc, there's a very good reason that men and women's sport is separated and it's because women would never be able to compete otherwise, their performance is nowhere near that of men.

In reply to TobyA:


It's not unfair at all; it's the essence of sport.

In reply to Yanis Nayu:
Not wishing to be controversial, but I think there is some 'confusion' about the rights of Gender Identity and the reality of fair competition based on actual physical/physiological attributes.

In reply to FactorXXX:


I agree.

In reply to Yanis Nayu:


If at some point you have "perfect" training and equipment then results become a question of genetics - where is the sport in that?

In reply to wintertree:

That's hugely hypothetical for one (and with so many variables I'm not sure you'd know it had happened) and secondly, if someone is genetically perfected for their sport within the categories set-out in the rules then we should all just marvel at them. You don't hear much indignation at Bolt and Phelps' dominance like you do with Semenya - there's a reason for that.

In reply to Yanis Nayu:


The reason is the category "human" is easier to define than the category "female human". As soon as you move from having a competition open to anyone, you get into difficulties defining categories. Same with "human" vs "non drug-enhanced human".

In reply to TobyA:
Toby - from someone normally so balanced - really?

Let's phrase it another way - men's sport is 'open' and women's sport is 'restricted'.

Men's sport is open to any human being, and may the best person win.
Women's sport is a restricted category, to allow women to successfully compete against each other and win.
As such the point is what constitutes a 'women'.
This gets very complex around the issue of intersex - should these people be allowed in restricted category events or have to race open.

For a significant period of time the ruling was that they could compete in restricted category if they limited their testosterone levels to those more normal of the restricted category.

Now that ruling has been lifted it opens the debate once again and they are thrashing the field in the restricted category.

Put like that does it make more sense?

In reply to climbingpixie:


There's at least one notable exception in our own "sport" of course. Lynn Hill's first free ascent of The Nose.

Martin

In reply to Yanis Nayu:


Of course, I was being facetious.

The guy in the blog post linked above makes a very sensible point that CS has lived all her life as a woman, is outwardly physically a woman and feels herself to be a woman, therefore calling her "him" or even worse "it" is super-disrespectful and mean spirited (not that anyone here has) as well as being wrong. And from that, making this discussion about her personally, rather than about intersex people generally, gets mean spirited very quickly, so I don't really want to argue about her case specifically. But my point is she has some very rare genetics that make her very well suited to her sport, so maybe we just have to say "wow" and wait for her to retire or slow a bit with age before we expect other people to win those medals, just as people just aren't beating Bolt currently - he's just too good.

I understand the arguments and have an OK grasp of the science, I just don't see a fair way of resolving the issue besides how it is done now. CS is NOT a man, and therefore saying she should compete against men seems ridiculous.

I just read this NYT piece on the issue, I think my feelings are basically paralleled in that: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/20/sports/caster-semenya-800-meters.html Interesting point about Radcliffe being closer to the men's world record than Semenya is.

In reply to ClimberEd:



No it's not!? It's not open to women. Or have massively understood the rules of just about every sporting competition in the world.

Equestrianism keeps coming up as the Olympic sports where being male isn't an advantage, but they still have men's and women's competitions don't they?! A woman couldn't compete in the men's show jumping if she thought it was an easier field to win a medal in could she? I could be 100% wrong on that, but I always presumed it was that way!

In reply to Yanis Nayu:

It is a tricky one but it seems strange to me to say that some athletes should be forced to take drugs before they're allowed to compete.

In reply to TobyA:


In my old sport, rowing, there is no such thing as a Men's event. You have Senior and Women's Senior.

There is nothing to stop a female competitor entering Senior

In reply to TobyA:


But these characteristics arguably disqualify her from the restricted category in which she would like to compete.


I don't think the current solution is "fair" on the other athletes.

The difficulty in these scenarios (it's not just Caster, she is just the unfortunate figurehead that receives all the attention)is that life probably hasn't been a bed of roses for them, there are a world of discrimination issues out there and I believe it clouds the discussion. Women's sport is a restricted category, it's ;like that to create a playing field that women can compete in and win, without it women would invariably lose out to their male competitors. It's important to have. The question to me is, "do hyperandrogenous/intersex athletes fulfill the requirements for the restricted catagory?"

In reply to TobyA:


It is.

It is 'open' and 'women' - you may find some rare exceptions, but that is broadly correct.

In reply to ClimberEd:

OK, so a woman could compete in the men's show jumping then? Equally a woman could try to try out for a national athletics team? Do any?

Surely, say, the best female football players would be good enough to be part of lower league teams - wouldn't that bring huge attention to that team even if as a player she didn't make a massive difference?

In reply to galpinos:


Arguably! I suppose that it what CAS argued about and what we are all arguing about.

The fact that she is South African makes this even more touchy I guess. :-/

In reply to TobyA:



No they don't. All three of the equestrian disiplines at the Olympics are mixed events.

In reply to TobyA:


Exactly. My point was that it's not what she identifies herself as, but whether she qualifies for the restricted catagory. The IAAF said she didn't, CAS said she did, it's not clear cut.


The fact the test case is a black hyperandrogenous/intersex South African makes it a bit of a PC nightmare and I do feel very sorry for her in light of the media coverage and what it must have done to her.

In reply to TobyA:

My wife used to play her club squash for men's teams and it is quite normal for lady county players to do this.

In reply to TobyA:


You mean like the weight categories in a whole bunch of sports?

In reply to TobyA:


That is not necessarily the case. What she has is very rare genetics that give her an advantage over most other female competitors. To put it succinctly - is CS actually a good runner, or is she an average runner competing against a heavily disadvantaged field? The distinction is important.

If this were weightlifting, or boxing, it might not be such a controversial issue - as CS could then compete against other women of similar size and weight - however Track and Field makes no such distinctions. It might not be fair to exclude her, but whichever way you cut it, it's going to be unfair on someone.

In reply to TobyA:


No, because they simply cannot compete. Using 800m as an example, so far in 2016 200 British men have run faster than the women's world record. The 800m record is the oldest individual record on the books.

In reply to The New NickB:

Do they, as in squash, ever compete in lower level competitions. For example a national level woman competing in open club level athletics competitions?

In reply to The New NickB:

But that record is held by Jarmila Kratochvilova, the steroid queen. I am not surprised her record holds, more that a) that she is still alive and has not done a FloJo, and b) that she has not become fully masculinized (unlike, say, several GDR athletes competing around the same time).

CB

In reply to Oceanrower:


But can a man enter the Women's Senior event...?

In reply to Yanis Nayu:

Are people aware that CAS have given the IAAF 2 years to come up with a case, so this issue is not over. Many think the IAAF were hoping that Semenya would obliterate the field and break the world record, but that she deliberately held back to make it less obvious. Then again there did appear to be two races going on.

It all comes down to how valuable Testosterone is. There is a good reason you can't take it as a supplement, but it's hard to quantify how much difference it makes. When the intersex athletes had to suppress their levels to merely 3 times the norm for women, their performance's clearly took a dip, but we're talking human beings here, not lab rats.

In reply to MG:
Certainly in local races, the races are mixed and although it's very rare, women ocassionally win overall.

In terms of team events, things like the Calderdale relay which is teams of 12, have open, mixed (6 and 6) and women, a team with men in it that isn't a mixed team would be in the open category, even if it had five women in it.

I know that some of the track events, Trafford for example being the main one for Manchester, group athletes not on gender, but on PB, so whilst the A race is all the male, the B and C race is mixed.

In reply to GrahamD:


Ah... that's why squash isn't an Olympic sport...

In reply to captain paranoia:

Err, no. Because he's not a woman.

In reply to cb294:


There is no but, we all know that record is super dodgy, that makes my point stronger. In 2016 200 British men have run faster than that time and I don't think we got any men in to the Olympic 800m final this time.

In reply to cb294:



That reinforces Nick's point - very average male runners regularly beat the most spectacular women's world record, meaning the difference between male and female athletes is extremely significant and ensuring only females compete in female events is important.

In reply to anyone:

It's a tricky one really, mean in theory everyone should have the right to complete in sport, and that would be nice and easy if we didn't have any categories and it was simply a matter of the best human wins. But of course in reality that would translate as the best man wins, because in almost everything the men would totally dominate and women wouldn't ever get a look in at top level competition. So we divide it up into Male and Female to let females compete against each other so we can see who's the best female at whichever sport.

This works nicely for the vast majority of people but there are always going to be some rare cases where sex isn't totally black or white.I n a perfect world I guess you'd have a third category for the inbetweeners but again, in reality there simply aren't enough athletes to warrant a 3rd gender category.

So the only two options I can think of would be to either not let people who can't be officially identified as female compete it than category following the logic of 'if you aren't a woman then you're a man by default'. Or to be more inclusive maybe classify gender malfunction like other more traditional defects and have a category in the Paralympic games.

In reply to planetmarshall:

Genetics arguably give any athlete - male or female - an advantage over any other. There was Eero Mantyranta, the Finnish cross-country skier whose haemoglobin levels were something like 50% higher than most other males (naturally higher - I am on thin ice here, I think he was also the first person who test positive for performance enhancing drugs).

JAMA has recently published an article on Olympic Games and sex assignment, if anyone is interested: http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2542968

In reply to Lord_ash2000:


It would be super cool if we did away with mens & womens, and just chose events that women had a solid chance at winning (e.g. climbing / bouldering would be one). This would inevitably mean that technique and intellect would become more important than strength, and surely that wouldn't be a bad thing. Of course, such a thing is a pipe dream

In reply to The New NickB:

I completely agree, the "but" negated the point I tried to make.

CB

In reply to Lord_ash2000:


....which should actually be part of the Olympic games, not a separate event.

In reply to SenzuBean:


Why would bouldering/climbing be one? It's obviously hard to eliminate structural biases but in at the moment there are still a lot of men climbing harder than the strongest women.

In reply to damhan-allaidh:


I may be betraying a certain ignorance of biology here, so forgive me.
If a woman has undescended testes which are producing the high levels of testosterone, would not surgery be an option ? I know this raises other ethical concerns, but seems a better alternative to insisting someone takes drugs in order to retain the right to run as a woman.

In reply to SenzuBean:

Yes sorry to burst your bubble but women would get just as destroyed in climbing comps as in most other sports. bouldering-wise, I'm nothing special as a man, just another punter at the wall but against women I'd probably be in the British squad or very close to.

In reply to damhan-allaidh:


And numerous other examples - Miguel Indurain with his horse-size heart muscle etc. However, what all of these 'freaks' had in common was that genetics was not enough. They still had to put in superhuman levels of training effort. Daley Thompson was undeniably genetically gifted, but famously he still chose to train on Christmas Day to get an edge over his West German rivals. Usain Bolt might make that 100m look easy, but he's still treading a fine line between optimum training levels and a debilitating injury.

I feel sorry for CS as it's unfair for anyone to be excluded for something they have no control over, but as alluded to above, she has such an enormous advantage over the field that her competitors have no hope of closing the gap through training. They don't have a sporting chance - and isn't that the point?

In reply to Chris the Tall:

Sounds a bit to close to sex offenders being freed on condition that they volunteered to be chemically castrated.

In reply to planetmarshall:


Not the same. Men compete against men women compete against women. Caster is a man who happens to have tits.

In reply to Indy:


I don't think you actually read my post, or if you did you missed the point.

In reply to Indy:

Not the same. Men compete against men women compete against women. Caster is a man who happens to have tits.

A bit like yourself, in that you appear to be a cock and a tit at the same time...

In reply to Yanis Nayu:
The legal case is really just asking for clear evidence of levels of benefit to inform any rules. I think thats the least that needs to be done. Chand, the sprinter who brought the case isn't anything like as fast and other intersex athletes performed at the Olympics but didn't do anything like as well

I say good luck to her. As Colin Jackson said, she has talent and has trained hard for a very long time under top coaches, has had serious injury problems and wasn't always so dominant. Even now, other female Olympians are more dominant (and often sniped at in their own way, for instance accused with no evidence of being drug cheats). Physiology gives so many specific inherent advantages that I can't see why the very rare intersex cases who identify as women (which has massive social barriers to overcome) needs a human right abusing chemical adjustment to allow competition.

If we really want a level playing field in Olympic Sport lets first consider sharing all the organised state benefits that in particular meant we are 2nd in the medals table and equivalent sized third world countries are lucky to get a handful of medals. Also if chemicals are needed why not treat the men with 'unfair' high testosterone levels as well? How about better policing of those caught on drug rules (especially if more than once like Gatlin, with all the money, surrounding him).

Oh and I love this bit in the NYT article "No one sensible has accused her of being a man".... just someone she beat, the unnamed IAAF source, and uncounted masses of self appointed internet 'experts'.

In reply to Offwidth:

You're missing a few points
1) CS runs in a protected category - "female". We don't let anyone have that protection simply because they identify as a women - trans gender for example. Is this fair ? If you remove gender categories then you remove just about every woman from sport, so we have to draw a line somewhere, and that line has to be drawn on physical not psychological grounds. And production of hormones such as testosterone seems to be the best indicator, since it has such a major effect on muscles.
2) Men effectively run in an "open" category - as long as it's natural it's OK (though laughing a bit at those who suggest Big Mig's success was just down to his lungs!)
3) Chand and Semenya are not the only top intersex athletes - they are the only ones whose identities we can be sure of.

In reply to Offwidth:

I don't think Colin Jackson should be your go-to guy for intelligent analysis of a difficult problem, however good a hurdler or nice a guy he undoubtedly was/is.

Your laissez-faire attitude could spell the end of women's athletics.

In reply to planetmarshall:


Dutee Chand didn't even make the finals, so hyperandrogenism clearly isn't enough alone to make someone the best in the world.

In reply to TobyA:


True, but pretty irrelevant. There are vast numbers of men who -- were they allowed to compete in women's athletics -- would not have made the finals in that field. So clearly being male is not enough by itself. But that doesn't mean we should let men compete in women's events.

As a matter of interest I've looked up (on a medical site) the normal levels of testosterone. The levels are:

Women: 0.52 to 2.4 nmol/L
Men: 9 to 38 nmol/L

The limit the IAAF had and still want is 10 nmol/L. When Semenya had to take testosterone-suppressing drugs to get within that level she ran much slower. Which means that her level now is likely at a level that is entirely normal for a man. This surely negates the whole point of having a women-only event.

In reply to TobyA:


Of course it isn't, I'm a man and I can't run 1:55 for 800m, but that doesn't mean that hyperandrogenism doesn't give Semenya an unfair advantage over other athletes.

In reply generally:

Those of you saying gender/sex is different are right - it's far more bound up in one's sense of identity than merely being tall. Even being mistaken for a man when the person concerned has no real way of knowing I'm female (i.e. in writing, on the internet) is strangely disturbing.

Imagine a girl growing up feeling entirely female, starting competitve sport, being good at it - and then suddenly being told "you're too good at it, you're not a woman" and being subjected to intrusive and publicly humiliating testing and discussion. How much is this going to encourage other girls who are good at sport? In past years sex tests for female athletes were one of the humiliating experiences that can't have encouraged female participation. How many girls are still being told they're too muscly, too boyish, too sporty, if they show any interests beyond shopping and make-up? Far too many, and it has a notable effect on discouraging physcal activity in girls. Furthermore, for my liking, far too much encouragement of women into sport relies on telling us we can do sport and still be pretty, still "look like a woman". Even women do this to themselves.

(A related theme is telling girls they've got a male brain if they're good at maths, thereby discouraging interest in the sciences - but that's a whole other rant.)

Telling young females that, if they're good at sport, there's a chance they're not really women seems to me rather more damaging to society than allowing a few people with genetic abnormalities to compete as the gender they believe they are. The women who suffer in the latter case are perhaps the silver, bronze and fourth placed ones behind Semenya - but then there's no guarantee they wouldn't have been beaten by some other woman with a better genetically programmed response to training.

Maybe I'd have a different view if I were one of those three women, I'd like to think I'd be generous enough not to. But for me, the difference between letting genetically anomalous women compete as women and banning them is likely to be the difference between 10,000th place and 10,005th place in a marathon (wild guess - I don't know how many people have this anomaly). I'm willing to take that risk for the sake of not discouraging young women from being active, sporting and competitive.

In reply to The New NickB:


Absolutely, but then surely it's not so different from other genetic advantages some athletes have over others? And of course, again, that's not even considering the advantage anyone coming from a rich country has over anyone coming from a poor country. Why are those advantages fair, but CS's advantages unfair? She is as she was born, no one has accused her of cheating.

I don't actually need an answer, as I know the counter argument - she's not biologically a woman. Fair enough, lots of people think that, but I find it hard to accept.

In reply to kamala:


I'd argue it is the other way round: if someone who is biologically male is allowed to compete in a female event and wins it by a significant margin it discourages every female athlete with ambitions of winning that event, not just the people in the race. The reason for having a separate female category - or different weight categories - is that people don't compete unless they have a chance of winning.

In reply to TobyA:



Plus the advantages over where you live. I compete against ultra runners who live at 6-8k ft. Those ultra runners who can get good enough for sponsorship move out to these locations and basically get free EPO..

I think she should compete, She's been through enough, dealt a harsh enough hand why take this from her?

In reply to Roadrunner5:

Policy shouldn't be made around her or any one individual, no matter how hard done by.

In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:

That might be the case if people who were unequivocally biologically male were explicitly allowed to compete - but we're not talking about that case. We're talking about people whose biology is far from straightforward and, especially, who believe they're female until their sporting prowess exposes them to gender testing. In the "good old days" female athletes had to have their genitals examined to ensure they were female - I would quite frankly rather be out-competed by a man than undergo that kind of "fairness".

Even the prospect of being called a "boy" just for liking sports already puts girls off physical activity. How much more discouraging is it if this kind of public humiliation is a prospect?

As far as expecting to win goes, drug use is probably rather more of a threat to a level playing field.

In reply to TobyA:

Once you have a separate category for female athletes, you have to define who and under what conditions can enter that category, this and other cases show that this is not as simple as it may first appear. The differences that someone who is intersex may have over female athletes is very different from the advantages that Mo Farah and Usain Bolt may have over other male athletes.

I do think the rich countries argument is whataboutery, but even so, despite the U.S. having their best track and field Olympics in a long time, running events have still been dominated by Africa and Caribean countries, particularly on the women's side.

In reply to TobyA:


The difference is that we have protected women-only events precisely to isolate them from competition with men who, owing to testosterone, are bigger, stronger and faster. That's why the genetic advantage of extra testosterone disqualifies you.

We don't have protected categories of basketball for people under 5ft8, but if we did then the genetic advantage of extra height would disqualify you.

We don't have protected categories of sport for people from poorer countries with little coaching and few facilities, but if we did then the advantage of being from a rich country would disqualify you.

We **do** have protected categories in boxing, judo, etc, for people under certain weight limits, and there the advantage of extra weight does disqualify you.

We also have protected categories for kids under a certain age, and for those the advantage of being older and bigger disqualifies you.

So sport has to decide: do they want protected women-only categories, where too much testosterone disqualifies you?, or not?

If we decide that women don't need protecting from too much testosterone, then let's have open mixed events only. In which case no woman would ever win anything again.

In reply to kamala:


You can't use what someone "believes" their sex is as the criterion for entering women's races. There are plenty of unequivocal males who "believe" they are female. Belief might work for which toilet people use but it would make a mockery of having a separate category for women in sport. Any criterion has got to be based on biology.

In reply to Chris the Tall:
I've not missed any of those!? No one has shown she is not female; in that someone who is genuinely intersex who always lived as a woman might well legally fall in that category. The legal case relates to the IAAF needing a concrete evidence base for any rules. This is as fair as we can be.

The performance when she was on the testosterone reduction regime were around periods of adjustment and also affected by injury. Its not that simple that the settled levels make as much difference for her as some here imply. In the meantime the twice caught muliti-millionaire Gatlin is just one example of a drug cheat who still runs and we allow unfair state dominance of spotting, nurturing, and supporting of talent, all under a corrupt IOC administration and then bleat about fairness in such an opaque case where we most need scientific clarity and fair rules.

Someone else, with deep irony, implies Colin Jackson is thick for stating the bleeding obvious (that irrespective of what happens she is a well trained superb talent) and being on the side of the calm process of law rather than speculative hyperbole.

In reply to MG:
If only Biology followed your simplistic definition: in the real world there is no clear gender division... those in the intersex border have genuinely ambiguous genders. Sure we need rules but they need to be clear and evidence based... the whole point of this recent legal judgement.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersex

In reply to Offwidth:


I didn't give a definition of any kind.

In reply to Offwidth:


Except it was a fudge and everyone loses in the end, including Semenya.

In reply to Coel Hellier:








Including Caster Semenya.

In reply to Coel Hellier:


Of course, all obvious. But the question seems to need to be a more complicated than just does testosterone level define being female. Perhaps it should be external physiology. Or the external physiology that you are born with. Or internal physiology. Or chromosomes. Or someone's self-identified gender. Clearly none of these classifications work perfectly or lead to simple answers, but it seems invariably they will result in telling a few people that the way they were born disqualifies them from their sport.

In reply to The New NickB:

I think its anything but a fudge... you can't decide if the evidence isn't there. The judgement told them to go and sort it all out and in the meantime gives the very small number of intersex athletes affected a return to the previous status quo.

In reply to The New NickB:


May not be that important to this discussion but it is undeniable.


Certain countries, which shows that GDP or GDP per capita alone is not enough to produce medals, a culture is necessary too. I was thinking about it after hearing the other day that Niger had got a medal in the taekwondo, the last country to get it first culture. I looked it up, Niger hadn't won a medal since the early 70s, their only other one (in boxing), pop. over 17 million. So culture/society is obviously hugely important too. Jamacia's population is under 3 million. I heard David Epstein talking about Bolt the other day and saying the world of sprinting is lucky he was born in Jamaica - with school level sprinting being such a big thing there. Epstein reckoned in the US he would have ended up playing basketball, in Europe perhaps footy.

Anyway, chances of birth have undeniably a huge impact on athletic results.

(BTW Epstein was also talking about the Australian team - he thinks -perhaps in swimming in particular- they have reached their top level of medals. Basically he says they have a superb system for getting kids swimming and identifying the good ones. The US has a similar system but has a pool of 320 million while the Aussies have only 23 million. You wonder when GB will reach 'peak medals'?)

In reply to MG:

"Belief" alone may not - or may - define a person's gender; I admit my imagination struggles with how people who think they're the wrong gender for the sex of their body must feel.

But in intermediate cases like this, the biology is far from simple. "Female" is not so easily defined by purely testosterone level. Neither is sporting success, otherwise we might as well just measure testosterone and declare the winners without bothering with the actual sport.

Anyway, I've explained my views on the impact of sex testing on female participation - I believe that the more stringent the rules and the more public the testing, the more discouraging to young females. In fact, assessments of whether one is "female enough" are often carried out by peers at shool age - in other words, does a girl conform to social norms by not looking too muscular etc.? Even unequivocal females are discouraged from sport by this degree of judgement, and we need less of it, not more.

I've told you my feelings about competition from other females with anomalous biology - there are few enough of them that they'll never impact on my enjoyment of my sport and I can afford to be generous because I'm not in the running for Olympic medals. The vast majority of women who take up sport will be in a similar position.

Obviously I can't speak for a whole gender but I'm not aware of anyone else putting forward a "female" point of view. No doubt the range of opinions expressed by the men in this thread are also present in the female population - but would the balance be the same? How can we tell? Where are the female voices here?

And one final personal irony - the only races I have ever won are mixed races, because they tend to be divided by ability bands. Races split by gender include such a wide range of abilities - imagine me standing on the start line next to Paula Radcliffe! - that I haven't a hope of being further ahead than the slowest quarter of the field.

In reply to TobyA:

"> I do think the rich countries argument is whataboutery,

May not be that important to this discussion but it is undeniable."

I think it is vital context to show the fuss about Semenya is way overblown. The other allowed advantages: investment, genes, culture and dishonest advantages like drugs and corrupt practices, and niche stuff like say the benefits of altitude training for distance runners, are all well known and some are a massive threat to sport and others leave inherent bias; other Olympians have been more dominant and accusations have been thrown at some of them, yet seemingly everything is of much less current public interest compared to this case, where a legal challenge has been made to seemingly arbritrary rules and yet a huge number of people are sudden experts in what constitues being a woman in respect of athletics rules (in the face of the recent judgement). The real scandal in Olypic Sport is corruption and this is how corruption wins.. move the spotlight elsewhere.

In reply to Offwidth:


It's hardly the least that can be done, it's an enormous ask - that the IAAF fund and become experts in medical research at the boundary of what is known about physiology.

There's an abundance of evidence that women with high levels of testosterone will do better in certain events, what science can't adequately explain is the mechanism.

But we're usually happy to work with that level of correlation, if a morning sickness pill is correlated with birth defects it may be banned well before we understand the mechanism.

If the mechanism can't be fully understood the ban would usually still stand.

The CAS demands demonstrate two things, that there is already a wealth of evidence to support action over testosterone and the principle that such action would be appropriate - hence the 2 year window.

Where they're in danger of creating inertia is by raising the bar to suggest that the IAAF has to fully understand the mechanism before action is taken, it's simply set too high.

In reply to winhill:

That's a straw man argument.. the courts won't be that strict. The IAAF just have to produce something reasonable between what they have now and your extreme extrapolation (ie better based on evidence and if we have cut-off levels to justify them.... quite right too as hormone adjustment is hardly a pleasant process).

In reply to Yanis Nayu:

I was all sympathetic towards Caster at first, the high testosterone levels I thought were just a peculiarity for a woman. But then I found out she has testes. For me this changes everything.

Caster has unfortunately drawn an unfair lot in life and I really feel sorry for her, but the fact she has testes (even if they are internal) should exclude her from competing in the women's categories. Its unfair on the other competitors, in this case it is better to be unfair on one person then several, imo.

In reply to kamala:



Beyond the boilerplate identity politics rant, I don't think you've looked at this in any detail at all.

The women's 800M that Semenya won went exactly as it was predicted weeks ago by Lynsey Sharp, the TeamGB athlete who finished sixth (but was congratulated by a few people for coming third). It's the 4th, 5th and 6th runners who felt they had a case.

Sharp is no slouch and has known Semenya for 8 years, Sharp got a 2:1 in Law from Napier, a quality degree and did her LL.B dissertation on the issue. She clearly has a well informed opinion on the issue.

To claim her decisions should be based on something as weak and flaccid and subjective as perceived 'generosity' rather than referencing her well reasoned arguments is a retrograde step, that suggests women's sport should be governed by an athlete's emotional needs rather than sport and competition.

The problem with an identity politics approach is that it's dismissive and unresponsive, whether that's a female approach or an approach that females are more likely to be drawn to is a different issue, it won't add much here.

In reply to kamala:

I don't know, but I suspect being sex-tested pays almost no part whatsoever in females not participating in sport. It's so far removed from the point at which one gets into sport I can't see it being at the forefront of people's minds. I suspect the main issue is that more girls than boys simply don't want to do sport, which is a pity. I'd be interested to see the results of proper research into the subject.

In reply to Offwidth:


What was Semenya using Some treatments are used to treat acne, trivial. Others could be types of contraceptive pill, hardly a huge issue, you'd think.

As it is the levels for testosterone have been set incredibly high, deliberately to avoid a complex investigation of a condition that has 2 parts, the level of testosterone but also the response to those elevated levels, it's hideously complex and 2 years doesn't give time for a reasonable longitudinal approach.

Even a low response is quite important, a 2% advantage would mean the difference between not making the Rio final and winning it.

In reply to kamala:


Sorry, but I don't see how reducing the chances of "feminine" women getting to the top in sport is going to stop "sporty" girls getting teased about being male. It's going to have the opposite effect.

As to intrusion and public humiliation - the reason why Semenya suffered so badly from this was that the South African authorities ignored the obvious for so long, almost keeping her a secret, to ensure she wasn't prevented from running at the Worlds. It's never going to be easy for anyone in this situation (ever read the Wasp Factory ?), but surely sooner rather than later and before you are a public figure.

In reply to winhill:

Testosterone is extremely effective. Just look at the dominance of Armstrong over his post cancer years. Everyone else competing for the TdF podium was as just full to the brim with the latest Epo derivative. The one difference was that his HRT allowed him to adjust his testosterone to a stable value just below the legal limit, while everybody else had to stay away from that limit to account for fluctuations in their endogenous levels (if they went for testosterone at all, after all extraneous hormone supply was easily spotted).

CB

In reply to kamala:



>

I'm female and a runner. I think Yanis nailed it when he pointed out that not letting Caster compete in the women's race is unfortunate (though, I would argue, not unfair) for Caster and the very small number of intersex runners out there. But, letting Caster compete in the women's race is unfair to every single other female runner--or, as a runner friend qualified it when I mentioned this to her, it's unfair to whatever percentage of other female runners aren't doping! You're going to have a bad outcome for one of the groups; it makes sense to make that the group the one that is vastly smaller than the other. It seems crazy to me to decimate women's sports solely to accommodate the circumstances of a few people.

Would you let someone who identifies as blind, but is not in fact blind, compete in one of the sight-impaired divisions of the Paralympics?

In reply to Chris the Tall:

I'd support your view that the SA authorities haven't helped but criticising them would be a disaster for her. If only they measured the probity of sport officials with the (faulty) rigour they measure athletes.

In reply to alicia:

You seem to have missed the point, which is that a minority must ALWAYS be protected against the oppression of the majority.

In reply to TobyA:


But the main point of the women's category is to protect them from competition from higher-testosterone men. So, to a large extent, the category is about testosterone rather than about any of the other characteristics of being a woman.

Would you be ok if the IAAF abolished all "men" and "women's" categories, and replaced them with "open" and "testosterone under 5 nmol/L" categories?


Would a heavyweight boxer not being allowed into the bantam-weight category be disqualifying them from "their sport"?

In reply to Postmanpat:

Not allowing someone to compete who has an unfair/illegal advantage is scarcely oppression in the same way as racial/religious/sexual discrimination.

Surely the real point here is that Caster Semenya (along with one presumes a very small number of others) has effectively the unfettered use of a drug which, whilst allowed in small amounts, would, if used by the other 99.9% of women, would have them banned for life, not to mention the life-changing effects that would also be brought on.

Whilst I have sympathy for an individual who has not gone out and deliberately taken drugs to gain an unfair advantage, the fact that "her" condition gives her identically the same advantage, even including the same drug, as someone who would otherwise be banned for life does mean that "she" is not competing on the same level playing field as others. (And I put it in inverted commas purely because Semenya is not quite the same as other females).

If we are not careful, there are bound to be those who try to take advantage of this, and before long we might find, at least in certain countries, a number of other persons appearing with apparently the same condition, but really having been doctored to simply get around the drug rules.
There would also, due to the rather envious attitudes around any successful athlete (in any sport), be snide comments made both privately and in the press, which would undoubtedly deter a large number of young women from even getting involved in sport in case they are accused of being "mannish" - something which I had hoped we had seen the end of.

In reply to fred99:

Your repeated use of inverted commas, i.e. "she", is deeply offensive. Caster IS female and you should be respected. Whatever her medical situation is she has been cleared to run by the ruling body.

In reply to CasWebb:


I did make a point of stating why I used inverted commas.
The whole point here is that she wasn't previously "cleared to run by the ruling body" unreservedly, and we are now in a situation where the lawyers have got involved - which will mean that no-one wins except for the lawyers (and their accountants).

Also Caster Semenya is not a female in all aspects, and is in fact male in some.
If Caster Semenya wasn't involved in sport, and it wasn't for Caster's obvious physical superiority to females in general, then there would be no need to pick Caster Semenya out.

However sporting bodies are in the situation where either 99.999% of female athletes are discriminated against, or else something needs to be done regarding Caster Semenya and others in her situation.

How do you think the (100% female) athletes who finished behind her felt, going into a race against someone who had an inbuilt advantage which meant that that person could beat them hands down without really trying ?

The only way out of this completely is to eliminate the protected section of competitors labelled "female", so that everyone is on a level playing field. That may suit some people, but I hardly regard it as acceptable.

In reply to Yanis Nayu:


Her 'natural' state is the one that doesn't require drugs.

In reply to fred99:

Anyone pointed out that Caster Semenya is an anagram of 'yes a secret man' yet?

Thundercat. (an anagram of thread c#nt)

In reply to Yanis Nayu:
There was a female long distance runner whose name I can't remember, who set the overall record for the South Downs 100, I think it was. She was very female and regularly placed in mixed long distance races.She might have been called Susan Rowell.

In reply to Al Evans:

I suspect it is Sarah Rowell you are thinking of Al.

In reply to balmybaldwin:

unfortunate term " freak of nature" though it obviously wasn't meant nastily by the op. She's not a freak, she's part of the spectrum of possible human gender variation. If she had unusually long legs or large lungs nobody would be making such an issue of it. This is where national competitiveness and sports prestige seem to get in the way of just celebrating the success of an outstanding athlete.

In reply to pebbles:


Are you suggesting they do away with the protected category of female? Leg length and lung capacity aren't protected categories.

In reply to pebbles:


Yes, and that's precisely the problem; it's a spectrum, not a binary thing, so there is inevitably some arbitrariness in where you draw the line.


But arbitrarily move the line a little and she goes from being an outstanding "female" athlete to being an ordinary "male" one. I don't know what the answer is.