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

String said:
I resurrected the thread after a few months to break some news and offer a one liner that quite frankly is my best effort for a long time, and it's descended into this. :(
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Don’t worry buddy. It did not go unnoticed :D


I wish everyone would just ignore hurfdurf, he’s only continuing his incessant whining because people enable him. Just tell him to go away, he’ll soon get bored and find somewhere else to soapbox.
 
www.bbc.co.uk

Caster Semenya wins appeal at European Court of Human Rights

The European Court of Human Rights rules in favour of double Olympic 800m champion Caster Semenya.
www.bbc.co.uk

Disappointing outcome, if Caster cannot comply with the maimum testosterone levels to compete as a woman, they should compete in the open/mens events. And besides, since this kicked off, I believe the current thinking is that going through pubity with testosterone gives lifelong athletic advantages.
 
UTmaniac said:
www.bbc.co.uk

Caster Semenya wins appeal at European Court of Human Rights

The European Court of Human Rights rules in favour of double Olympic 800m champion Caster Semenya.
www.bbc.co.uk

Disappointing outcome, if Caster cannot comply with the maimum testosterone levels to compete as a woman, they should compete in the open/mens events. And besides, since this kicked off, I believe the current thinking is that going through pubity with testosterone gives lifelong athletic advantages.
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If it isn’t over turned it pretty much marks the end of women’s sport as it would make it impossible to enforce any kind of rule around trans women and testosterone limits.
 
Jokester said:
If it isn’t over turned it pretty much marks the end of women’s sport as it would make it impossible to enforce any kind of rule around trans women and testosterone limits.
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Caster is a Male with a particular Congenital Disorder of Sexual Development that only affects males and has fathered two children (via Artificial Insemination) with his wife.

He's just a cheat and should be banned from competing.
 
Oh I wondered about the extreme vagueness of "what" Caster was last time it came up ages ago.

If they literally have testicles and are producing male levels of testosterone then it's a joke for the traditional separation in sports.

We're going to be forced into having Open and Low Testosterone categories in the future. It sounded like a bad joke the first time but is looking increasingly likely.
 
UTmaniac said:
And besides, since this kicked off, I believe the current thinking is that going through pubity with testosterone gives lifelong athletic advantages.
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Everyone goes through puberty with testosterone. It's what causes the changes in your body then, and what defines your initial sexual development in the womb.

Last I heard, Sememya has a form of androgen insensitivity syndrome, meaning that no matter how much testosterone her body produces, her system doesn't respond to it, which is what's caused her sexual development disorder resulting in the 'externally female appearance' that other female athletes have confirmed (those who'd seen her in the locker room have said she looks very definitely female, though not especially feminine). This insensitivity also means that any level of testosterone would not be an advantage for her as it doesn't impact her performance, precisely because her body doesn't respond to it. The high levels are effectively just a waste product, similar to other conditions like PCOS.

There's also an argument that testosterone itself isn't as much of a factor as previously asserted - Female body builders mostly shy away from testosterone, out of fear that they'll develop balls and facial hair or similar. However those women, who don't take testosterone and have a natural level around 1/10th of their male counterparts, are still able to achieve 85% the same level of muscle build as a male.

Moley said:
Caster is a Male with a particular Congenital Disorder of Sexual Development that only affects males and has fathered two children (via Artificial Insemination) with his wife.
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Has the sperm donor actually been confirmed as Semenya?
I did have a quick look but there was no such information at the time, just news that they'd got two kids through IVF.

AIUI, her condition is that genetically she was supposed to develop as male, but didn't. Everyone starts as basically female and testosterone then drives the changes toward one or the other. In Semenya's case, the changes stalled and she ended up being born mostly female.
 
ttaskmaster said:
There's also an argument that testosterone itself isn't as much of a factor as previously asserted - Female body builders mostly shy away from testosterone, out of fear that they'll develop balls and facial hair or similar. However those women, who don't take testosterone and have a natural level around 1/10th of their male counterparts, are still able to achieve 85% the same level of muscle build as a male.
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Dude. Female bodybuilders don't take testosterone because they're taking other steroids and SARMS with a better balance of results and side effects for them.

All of which are illegal to be cramming in your butt for the Olympics.

Testosterone levels are only relevant for highly drug monitored sports (which bodybuilding is not) because of some desire for natural results.
 
ttaskmaster said:
AIUI, her condition is that genetically she was supposed to develop as male, but didn't. Everyone starts as basically female and testosterone then drives the changes toward one or the other. In Semenya's case, the changes stalled and she ended up being born mostly female.
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Nope. Caster has 5-alpha reductase deficiency - this is a a condition that influences only male sexual characteristics before birth and during puberty caused by a congenital (in the womb) deficiency in the hormone dihydrotestosterone which affects the development of external genitalia.

Caster is a male whose dick didn't develop fully. That's all.

Caster has XY chromosomes, normal SRY gene function, internal testes instead of ovaries (internal because scrotum didn't form therefore nowhere to drop to) normal levels of testosterone production for a male, normal cellular response to testosterone for a man and normal tissue response (muscle growth) to testosterone for a male.
 
Hotwired said:
Dude. Female bodybuilders don't take testosterone because they're taking other steroids and SARMS with a better balance of results and side effects for them.
All of which are illegal to be cramming in your butt for the Olympics.
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Studies assert that fewer than 10% of FBBers use steroids or other 'unnatural' supplements, vs 54% for males.
I also understand SARMs are not yet clinically approved for use anywhere, and that while some companies have managed to sell them as supplements, about half of those products were completely bogus anyway. From this, I'd expect to find actual usage of SARMs in FBBing is probably quite low and kept very secret.

Moley said:
Caster is a male whose dick didn't develop fully. That's all.
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Which is basically what I said.
The external presentation of 5αR2D is a spectrum, which starts at the female-appearing end, as described by those who had seen her 'bits'. The suggestion is one of no discernible genital abnormality, rather than any of those commonly associated with such a diagnosis.
I've also yet to see anything more substantial than one single newspaper report, confirming that her condition actually is 5αR2D, while several previous sources claimed androgen insensitivity as the condition.

Moley said:
Caster has XY chromosomes, normal SRY gene function, internal testes instead of ovaries (internal because scrotum didn't form therefore nowhere to drop to) normal levels of testosterone production for a male, normal cellular response to testosterone for a man and normal tissue response (muscle growth) to testosterone for a male.
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Again, how much of this has been officially confirmed, rather than just reported in a paper?

I'm all for calling her a bloke if there's confirmation, but so far all I've seen is supposition from media outlets.
 
ttaskmaster said:
Studies assert that fewer than 10% of FBBers use steroids or other 'unnatural' supplements, vs 54% for males.
I also understand SARMs are not yet clinically approved for use anywhere, and that while some companies have managed to sell them as supplements, about half of those products were completely bogus anyway. From this, I'd expect to find actual usage of SARMs in FBBing is probably quite low and kept very secret.
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We are referring to elite performance aren't we? The top end of bodybuilding is completely drug enabled.

Sure you can be natural and compete in natural competitions but I hear the testing is a joke so if you drop the drugs for a short period, you're natural according to the rules.

The point is, when you say a FBB doesn't take testosterone and has 85% of the muscle of a MBB, they're actually (ab)using different steroids or SARMS and it is not grounds to say natural testosterone isn't that important in strictly drug tested sport.
 
Hotwired said:
We are referring to elite performance aren't we? The top end of bodybuilding is completely drug enabled.
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I wasn't, no... I was speaking more about the scene in general.

Hotwired said:
The point is, when you say a FBB doesn't take testosterone and has 85% of the muscle of a MBB, they're actually (ab)using different steroids or SARMS and it is not grounds to say natural testosterone isn't that important in strictly drug tested sport.
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^Citation or further reading for the bolded part?

From the studies I've read, testosterone level is not a reliable predictor of performance and in a number of cases, performance with both genders was better when levels were lower.
Overall there seem to be very erratic results and not much to strongly substantiate even a broad correlation between T-levels and athletic performance.

www.popsci.com

The complicated truth about testosterone’s effect on athletic performance

The debate over whether to allow female athletes with high testosterone to compete with other women has been heated, but not backed by a lot of science. That's because there simply isn't much out there, though that's not to say we can't draw some important conclusions from what we do know.
www.popsci.com www.popsci.com
 
ttaskmaster said:
From the studies I've read, testosterone level is not a reliable predictor of performance and in a number of cases, performance with both genders was better when levels were lower.
Overall there seem to be very erratic results and not much to strongly substantiate even a broad correlation between T-levels and athletic performance.

www.popsci.com

The complicated truth about testosterone’s effect on athletic performance

The debate over whether to allow female athletes with high testosterone to compete with other women has been heated, but not backed by a lot of science. That's because there simply isn't much out there, though that's not to say we can't draw some important conclusions from what we do know.
www.popsci.com www.popsci.com
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Just had a quick gander at some of the studies quoted in your linked article, and the events where a high t level is beneficial were the 'explosive' events such as sprints, Javelin, shot put, long jump etc etc. Where the effectiveness of testosterone comes into play is the high endurance based events.
 
A lot of even female hobby gym goers never mind bodybuilders use AAS these days the massive pros almost certainly do. Women also don't run Testosterone (in general you may get the odd real freak that runs a small dose but generally it's not used by women.)
 
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