Intersex / transgender etc competing. Thoughts?

[Terminal_Boy]

Like i said, make a new category:

Mens

Womens

Free for everyone:

I am tired of a certain group being excluded, as i think it takes away some of the entertainment and limits our progression. Yes i am disgruntled we don't have a steroid/doping catagory!

Everyone gets the right to compete but not everyone is guaranteed a chance to win. To people who say 'hey, thats unfair, how can i have a good chance of winning against roid abusers or men in this category?!' Well, this is a no limits category not a medals for everyone category.

I'd go a step further...

Biologically Male.

Biologically Female.

Mix 'n' Match for those that don't fit into the first two categories.

Open Class - all drugs, electronic and mechanical enhancements allowed.

 

[ChroniC]

I don't see any reason she shouldn't be allowed to compete with the men.

And that she has a 'natural' advantage ignores the way men also have a natural advantage - and they're excluded.

The problem for Semenya is that she's in-between male and female. She has enough of the advantages of masculinity to give a substantial edge over women, but not enough to compete with men.

It feels a little monstrous to insist on corrective surgery, or hormone suppression medication just to be allowed to compete, but there's no easy solution to the issue.

How about rather than create a category that wouldn't fill with contestents or both wasting money and time, she is either told no, sorry but that's life or you compete with the men. She will give up sooner or later.

 

[tom_e]

I'm not sure there's much appetite for watching a bunch of roid-poppers lumbering around the track.

Of course there is people already do have the appetite for it, they love watching a WR get peed all over. Just because competitors and indeed viewers aren't open about it doesn't change the fact.

The problem with stuff like this is it's been shown than even when steroid usage is stopped the user still displays an advantage compared to their natural state for a prolonged period afterwards.
So in the case of a male becoming female and competing as a female not only do they have the obvious physical advantages of once being a male such as a bone structure more suited to producing power they will also still carry a muscular advantage from the years of a males comparatively raised test levels.

 

[cheesyboy]

Of course there is people already do have the appetite for it, they love watching a WR get peed all over. Just because competitors and indeed viewers aren't open about it doesn't change the fact.

I think much of that joy is in the belief that it's a great feat of human performance. An open 'drug' category just wouldn't capture the public's imagination.

 

[ttaskmaster]

Semenya is intersex/hermaphrodite/hyper-androgenic (not certain which is the correct term as they all are used) with no womb nor ovaries and internal testes leading to testosterone levels 3 times that of an average woman.

I see much mention of this in the papers, but no actual official statements concerning her test results, or anything...

Clearly Semenya has a clear advantage but is this the same as been born with the right genetics like Bolt?

She was born like it.
She's done nothing to make it happen.
Yes, it's the same.
Might as well ban a girl from modelling because she's much prettier than all the other models.

People do what their genetics favour.
If she had massive 6' long gibbon-arms, I'm sure she'd take up the javelin...

I find it difficult to see a person with testes albeit internal and 3 times the level of testosterone of a 'normal' woman competing as a female in athletics.

She was born female. She's not become female. That's as far as it goes, IMO.

Then again, one-legged Special Olympians have been denied for 'not being disabled enough'... !!

Whole thing is stupid - Let her compete and be done with it.

 

[cheesyboy]

^ the point is that she isn't really female. Neither is she really male, of course - but female is a protected category in sports, in place to enable women to compete on a level playing field. somewhat like age groups or disability sport.

If you were born blind but at puberty gained sight would you be allowed to enter the blind olympics?

 

[tom_e]

^ the point is that she isn't really female. Neither is she really male, of course - but female is a protected category in sports, in place to enable women to compete on a level playing field. somewhat like age groups or disability sport.

If you were born blind but at puberty gained sight would you be allowed to enter the blind olympics?

But in this case what do we base being a female on? It's more that possible she has 2 X chromosomes and is therefore a female in that sense

 

[cheesyboy]

But in this case what do we base being a female on? It's more that possible she has 2 X chromosomes and is therefore a female in that sense

Well, that's the almost existential question we face. What makes a [wo]man a [wo]man?

In a sporting sense, the answer is probably different to what it would necessarily be in a legal sense, or in a personal gender identity sense.

 

[drunkenmaster]

But in this case what do we base being a female on? It's more that possible she has 2 X chromosomes and is therefore a female in that sense

Well for one thing she has testes and not ovaries which suggests she had the Y chromosome. Second, she wasn't born female, she was raised female but has testes, it's really that simple.

If she was a 'normal' female athlete with those testosterone levels she would be deemed cheating and thrown out with an unfair performance advantage. Because she was born with male hormone levels but female genitalia, we ignore this entirely? We can't have a reasonable split of women/mens sports when the most important performance differentiator between the sexes is testosterone, then let people with male levels compete with the women.

The exact reason we have lets say a women's 100m sprint race is because women with lower test can't compete with men in that event. Thus we have men's and women's, which could have always been named, high and low testosterone events because ultimately that is what they are.

If you let people with high test compete in the women's or low testosterone category, you are making that entire category completely unbalanced and unfair. It is no different to allowing a drug cheat to compete, while the reason for high test would be different, the result is dominant competitors to which other women with normal test levels can't beat at all. So allowing people like Semenya to compete in the women's category, is pretty much telling the 100k's of female athletes around the globe and thousand that make it to the olympics, that it's all pointless because someone with three times their testosterone will definitely win all the events. It will kill the women's side of really any sport that allows it.

Would we watch F1 if 9 teams had V6 hybrids with ~900bhp but one team was allowed a V10 hybrid with 1300bhp? Nope. Would we watch a race in which 9 athletes had to run 100m but the 10th athlete gets to run only 85m, nope. Would we watch tennis if in singles one guys shots count as in using the doubles court lines while the other has to use singles?

Fairness in sport is a fundamental part of making it good to watch, an unfair match in which the winner is assured every time removes the competition.

 

[ttaskmaster]

^ the point is that she isn't really female.

I'm still waiting to hear something more official and definitive than tabloid twaddle on that...

but female is a protected category in sports, in place to enable women to compete on a level playing field. somewhat like age groups or disability sport.

Then I guess she's out of a job, then, since there are those too disabled to compete in regular sports, but not disabled enough to compete in teh Specials... I guess you can be 'naturally too good' to compete against other lesser sportspersons, too.

If you were born blind but at puberty gained sight would you be allowed to enter the blind olympics?

Invalid comparison, IMO.
She has not actually become a man, artificially or otherwise. She's just exceptional for a woman is all. But if you're banning people on grounds of medical conditions, will the door swing both ways and ban those of lesser ability due to natural medical conditions, too?

 

[Avenged7Fold]

Surely an XY determination system would work in cases like this?

It is something definitive and clear cut for the vast majority of the human race

 

[The Running Man]

I'm still waiting to hear something more official and definitive than tabloid twaddle on that...


Then I guess she's out of a job, then, since there are those too disabled to compete in regular sports, but not disabled enough to compete in teh Specials... I guess you can be 'naturally too good' to compete against other lesser sportspersons, too.


Invalid comparison, IMO.
She has not actually become a man, artificially or otherwise. She's just exceptional for a woman is all. But if you're banning people on grounds of medical conditions, will the door swing both ways and ban those of lesser ability due to natural medical conditions, too?

What makes her a woman if she has the reproductive organs of a male?

 

[ttaskmaster]

What makes her a woman if she has the reproductive organs of a male?

Lack of evidence, still waiting to hear something official on that.
By contrast, fellow athletes who've shared changing rooms claim she is most definitely female... If she ain't got the meat and veg, she ain't a man.
But the official ruling, which generally preserves the privacy of the athletes, is that she's allowed to compete as a female, so I guess that's all you need?

CAIS pages seem to specify that, although XY chromos are present, the male side does not fully develop. So while her Testo might be high for a woman, it's not high enough for a man. The IOC ruled that she was allowed to compete as a female, so that's pretty final.

I suppose they could rule that she wasn't allowed to compete either way, on the basis that they couldn't decide her gender for her...

 

[fez]

She could compete if she took testosterone blocking medication and her times fell and she fell into obscurity for the most part. Another athlete contested this.

Dutee Chand is an Indian sprinter who found herself excluded from those same 2014 Commonwealth Games. At the Court of Arbitration for Sport her lawyers successfully argued the IAAF had failed to provide enough evidence that testosterone improved female performance. All regulations were suspended until July 2017.

Suddenly Semenya is back to her best miraculously and destroying the field again. How is that not proof that testosterone affects performance massively. Well, that and the well known and proven fact that testosterone affects performance in both men and women.

It sucks but its entirely unfair on the other women in this event. Its not like she has a completely gender unrelated advantage.

 

[Avenged7Fold]

This discussion is not really about whether she is allowed to compete. As the rules go, she ticks the correct boxes to compete, it is about whether we believe it to be fair or if another mix gender category can should be created or whatever.

 

[fez]

I don't think its fair in the slightest. Can we name a single other sport where there are people who have a massive advantage over 99.9% of their opponents due to a genetic abnormality. There is literally no downside to having really high testosterone levels for Semenya.

 

[Destination]

Surely an XY determination system would work in cases like this?

It is something definitive and clear cut for the vast majority of the human race

I do not think she was XY, were her genetics completely and utterly mosaic?
Didn't it take months growing individual chromosomes to investigate all her additions, duplications and deletions?

Might be wrong, but it wasn't as simple as XY.

 

[The Running Man]

Lack of evidence, still waiting to hear something official on that.
By contrast, fellow athletes who've shared changing rooms claim she is most definitely female... If she ain't got the meat and veg, she ain't a man.
But the official ruling, which generally preserves the privacy of the athletes, is that she's allowed to compete as a female, so I guess that's all you need?

CAIS pages seem to specify that, although XY chromos are present, the male side does not fully develop. So while her Testo might be high for a woman, it's not high enough for a man. The IOC ruled that she was allowed to compete as a female, so that's pretty final.

I suppose they could rule that she wasn't allowed to compete either way, on the basis that they couldn't decide her gender for her...

She has the testes, they are just inside not outside.

And no she doesn't have a formed/developed **** but this can happen to males.

She has no womb, ovaries etc the primary female reproductive organs.

And while the male side hasn't fully developed, it's seemingly developed more than the female side of her, hence no womb, and testes...

 

[muon]

Surely an XY determination system would work in cases like this?

It is something definitive and clear cut for the vast majority of the human race

Need something clear cut. So yeh I'd have thought this would be the best course of action.

Setting thresholds for testosterone or body features is just asking for trouble.

Top athletes male or female will be different to 99.99% of the world's population. If your genetics (other than male/female designation) means you have higher testosterone than everyone else, then that is your gift.

 

[Vonhelmet]

500 years ago she'd have been Brienne of Tarth. It's only with the advent of modern medicine that we can really determine that she isn't really either a man or woman. Quite where that leaves us, I'm not sure. It would require a very finely detailed medical description of a woman at some point along this line, and anyone falling just either side of it is likely to be somewhat aggrieved.