Caster Semenya could be forced to undertake hormone therapy for future Olympics

cheesyboy · 6 May 2019 at 12:15

Roar87 said:
Testosterone is such a profound advantage that the other runners may as well not bother entering. You can inject Testosterone and gain more muscle sat on your sofa than someone training naturally at a gym every day. To make women compete against Semenya is like putting a 145lb boxer in the ring against a 200lb boxer, you just wouldn't do it.

Not if you have androgen insensitivity, or partial androgen insensitivity like Semenya:

cheesyboy said:
Complete androgen insensitivity in xy chromosome people would see them essentially develop as a woman, including secondary sexual characteristics like breasts and hips. See athlete Maria José Martínez-Patiño as an example. These women wouldn't be fertile, nor I suppose have internal female organs, but don't gain any advantage from the extra testosterone they carry.

Semenya seems to have partial androgen insensitivity, so has developed, to some extent, some secondary female characteristics like breasts and hips, but has also developed some secondary male characteristics, like a deep voice and muscle mass. She gets some benefit from testosterone, but not as much as a man would.

She's neither male nor female in a biological sense.

Roar87 · 6 May 2019 at 12:24

cheesyboy said:
Not if you have androgen insensitivity, or partial androgen insensitivity like Semenya:

I don't believe she has any insensitivity to testosterone, is there anything to back that up?

On another note, do people actually just want to see the end of female athletics? It either needs to be a protected class with strict rules around who can compete or every event will end up being dominated by men who have declared themselves women or intersex athletes, people will stop taking it seriously and the vast majority of female athletes will simply have no reason to compete because they do not stand a chance. I can't fathom how people can be that ignorant on how profound the benefits of hormones are.

cheesyboy · 6 May 2019 at 12:26

Roar87 said:
I don't believe she has any insensitivity to testosterone, is there anything to back that up?

That she has internal testes, no penis, and has breasts.

Nasher · 6 May 2019 at 12:28

I don't see any breasts. Only muscles like a middle-weight male boxer.

Roar87 · 6 May 2019 at 12:32

cheesyboy said:
That she has internal testes, no penis, and has breasts.

Do you know how androgen receptors work? Women would generally be more sensitive to testosterone. Men can in fact develop breasts and would develop larger hips if they had increased oestrogen levels during puberty, a penis not forming correctly and the testes not descending doesn't mean you're female.

d_brennen · 6 May 2019 at 13:25

Can't find the clip but Frankie Boyle had an interesting take on athletics

Frankie Boyle said:
I want the athletes to take drugs. I mean, do you want to see someone shave a hundredth of a second off the 100m record, or do you want to see them run it in 3 seconds? I don’t want to see Dwaine Chambers running on steroids; I want to see him running with the legs of a kangaroo and the heart of a leopard. I want to see him run so fast that half-way through the race, he disappears, like the car from Back to the Future, reappears at the finish line as an old man, shouts “BEWARE CHINA”, and crumbles into ******* dust.

cheesyboy · 6 May 2019 at 14:15

Roar87 said:
Do you know how androgen receptors work? Women would generally be more sensitive to testosterone. Men can in fact develop breasts and would develop larger hips if they had increased oestrogen levels during puberty, a penis not forming correctly and the testes not descending doesn't mean you're female.

Yes, but she's a male (xy chromosome) who doesn't respond properly to male androgen, so developed as a woman, albeit she is only partially insensitive, so developed partly male.

dowie · 6 May 2019 at 14:40

cheesyboy said:
Yes, but she's a male (xy chromosome) who doesn't respond properly to male androgen, so developed as a woman, albeit she is only partially insensitive, so developed partly male.

Well she didn't really develop as a woman she just didn't properly develop a male penis and her balls didn't drop and so has been identified as a woman pretty much since birth...

cheesyboy said:
Semenya seems to have partial androgen insensitivity, so has developed, to some extent, some secondary female characteristics like breasts and hips, but has also developed some secondary male characteristics, like a deep voice and muscle mass. She gets some benefit from testosterone, but not as much as a man would.

What is that based on?

The below is from that runners forum related to the article posted - Serena is a female who has had some rather silly conspiracy theory like accusations of being male in the past and some defenders of Caster seem to be under the impression that she's suffering from the same criticism and is just a strong African woman etc...

I don't see the hips or breasts you're referring to though on Caster, Serena on the other hand, a biological woman, clearly does have them.

Roar87 · 6 May 2019 at 14:45

Semenya is basically cheating and everyone allowing her to do that in the name of "progressiveness" should be ashamed of themselves for denying actual women medals and careers in athletics.

Kelt · 6 May 2019 at 14:49

Roar87 said:
Semenya is basically cheating and everyone allowing her to do that in the name of "progressiveness" should be ashamed of themselves for denying actual women medals and careers in athletics.

Couldn't agree more.

I can't imagine what real women must feel like having to compete against a man in all but name, knowing however hard they train they will never be able to beat him.

mmj_uk · 6 May 2019 at 19:17

The worst part of it all is in the US girls are losing out on university scholarships to trans athletes so long term you're going to have less female athletes coming through, that's in the US but I'd imagine it will be the same everywhere as universities and Olympic teams are going to want to invest in winning.

cheesyboy · 6 May 2019 at 19:17

mmj_uk said:
The worst part of it all is in the US girls are losing out on scholarships to trans athletes so long term you're going to have less female athletes coming through, that's in the US but I'd imagine it will be the same everywhere as universities and Olympic teams are going to want to invest in winning.

This isn't a trans thread mate.

mmj_uk · 6 May 2019 at 19:24

cheesyboy said:
This isn't a trans thread mate.

It's the same ideology at play, that biological men should be able to compete in female sports if they only believe themselves to be female.

This is from the article Azza posted:

According to reports in the Australian media, the medical tests have established that she has no womb or ovaries and that she also has internal testes – the male sexual organs responsible for producing testosterone.

Earlier analysis had revealed that Semenya's testosterone levels were three times the normal level for a woman.

It also says she has male chromosomes, so what part of her female exactly? a vagina? that's just outward appearance.

cheesyboy · 6 May 2019 at 19:52

dowie said:
Well she didn't really develop as a woman she just didn't properly develop a male penis and her balls didn't drop and so has been identified as a woman pretty much since birth...

What is that based on?

The below is from that runners forum related to the article posted - Serena is a female who has had some rather silly conspiracy theory like accusations of being male in the past and some defenders of Caster seem to be under the impression that she's suffering from the same criticism and is just a strong African woman etc...

I don't see the hips or breasts you're referring to though on Caster, Serena on the other hand, a biological woman, clearly does have them.

Semenya definitely has breasts, just look around at other pics. Not large ones, obvs (she is intersex after all), but it's not a proper man's chest.

I remember a Serena=man thread on here where pics were chosen that suggested she had no hips. And now she's selected as example of womanly physique

cheesyboy · 6 May 2019 at 20:08

mmj_uk said:
It's the same ideology at play, that biological men should be able to compete in female sports if they only believe themselves to be female.

This is from the article Azza posted:

It also says she has male chromosomes, so what part of her female exactly? a vagina? that's just outward appearance.

The amazing thing about all this, which I'd not known before, is that xy chromosome people, with complete androgen insensitivity, will develop just as a woman would, breasts, hips and all (probably not menstruation, though, I imagine). They wouldn't know they weren't a woman until they tried to conceive, or had certain tests.

If they're androgen insensitive, they don't gain any of the advantages of high testosterone. And they are a woman in all bar chromosomes and reproductive organs.

You only have to hear Semenya talk to know she's not fully androgen insensitive. And I don't think she should compete unencumbered in women's categories, as she surely gains some portion of male physical sporting advantage to match that baritone.

But she's not a man. This isn't the 'stolen valour' of a lifetime male transitioning to female and expecting to co-opt resources or allowances or platforms hard fought for by women (see Trans Exclusionary Feminism). She's been brought up a woman, quite reasonably believed she was a woman.

It's very little like trans issues.

dowie · 6 May 2019 at 20:26

cheesyboy said:
Semenya definitely has breasts, just look around at other pics. Not large ones, obvs (she is intersex after all), but it's not a proper man's chest.

I remember a Serena=man thread on here where pics were chosen that suggested she had no hips. And now she's selected as example of womanly physique

No she’s selected as an example of a butch muscular woman who clearly has female hips and breast.

On the other hand Caster has a male physique. She doesn’t have female hips or breasts.

Roar87 · 6 May 2019 at 20:38

No one is insensitive to testosterone, you're talking rubbish. Inject it into a 12 year old girl and she'll be deadlifting 200lbs in 3 months.

cheesyboy · 6 May 2019 at 20:52

Roar87 said:
No one is insensitive to testosterone, you're talking rubbish. Inject it into a 12 year old girl and she'll be deadlifting 200lbs in 3 months.

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

CREATIVE!11 · 6 May 2019 at 21:00

cheesyboy said:
That she has internal testes, no penis, and has breasts.

But looks like a man, and is dating a woman.

KEK

Chojin · 6 May 2019 at 22:39

To me there is a clear distinction between the suspect females and the real females. The women's 800 metres final at the 2016 Olympics was a good example and the same has probably happened in events since then.

Caster Semenya - 1st place

Big guns and traps. High testosterone facial expression. Male gait.

Francine Niyonsaba - 2nd place

Receding temples, no appreciable boobs. Mannerisms look off. Possbily Lil Wayne's long lost twin brother.

Margaret Wambui - 3rd place

Wide clavicles, big deltoid muscles, receding hairline and fake hip pose.