imane khelif has been allegedly confirmed to be a man.

The only reason his medical records have become public is his own cheating. He and his managers did this. He's a male fighting females for glory and status.

Gwendoline Christie would be mine. I for one think she is fabulous though

I never hear how unfair it is that 7' 6" basketball players have an unfair advantage over 5' 10", regardless of the sex of either.

Here is more about the 'Phelps Gambit'. It is really a weak fallacy to be posting as any credible point.

COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE / PHELPS GAMBIT / PHELPS ARGUMENT

https://x.com/Scienceofsport/status/1820462042765001041

Ross Tucker

5 August 2024

Yeah, poor old Phelps became the poster child for this illogical argument that his advantages are the same as those of males. I'll try to explain why this is such poor thinking. First, Phelps' advantages are not category-crossing. That is, there is no category for short arms, and there is no category for small feet, or high lactate producers etc. So we have decided, for better or worse, not to create a category for people without Attribute X. And thus, when a person has X, they shouldn't be excluded, so there's no basis to disqualify Phelps.

Now, one could have a debate over whether we SHOULD think about creating a category for small feet or short arms. If we did this, then Phelps' supposed advantages would become 'outside of category', and we'd say that he's not allowed to swim in the protected category, right?
But we don't need to do this, because the advantages that he has are tiny compared to what male advantage does to performance. Phelps wins by 0.5%. Males win by 12% (compared to females). By scale, then, these advantages are orders of magnitude different.

It's also a massive oversimplification to say that Phelps won because his arms are long or that he produces less lactate. They're daft, incorrect attributions anyway. And finally, females also have some of these advantages - there are women who produce less lactate, or have long arms.

They don't make up for the absence of male advantage. So they're totally different situations. Fundamentally, what sport is trying to reward are those exceptional individuals within categories. We actually celebrate these advantages, they make sport what it is, no?

But we need to rule out some other advantages - size/mass in boxing, age in all sport - because otherwise the things that do NOT matter overwhelm the things that do. Phelps physiology matters - it's why he wins gold medals. Katie Ledecky, though, also has physiology that deserves gold.
It's just she doesn't have male advantage as well. And that's the point - "as well". They are equally great swimmers, but within their categories. The only way around this is to say that we should create a category because Advantage X is so large it also overwhelms the result.

But it doesn't - as mentioned, by scale, what Phelps has over males is tiny compared to what males have over females. Put another way - the fastest swimmer with small feet or shorter arms (whatever that means) is not beaten by thousands of longer armed, bigger footed swimmers!
So I hope I've not laboured that or explained it clumsily. To sum up, Phelps is a bad counter point. So is height in basketball (there's no "short people NBA, only 180cm or under" category).

Rather think age, weight and disability class, and ask if the attribute, X, devalues the things we actually want to reward, or whether it's part of it. Phelps' advantages are part of the excellence. Male advantage is not - being male is NOT a talent, and as such, shouldn't be part of the mix. What Phelps has, those are different.

Well said!

I never hear how unfair it is that 7' 6" basketball players have an unfair advantage over 5' 10", regardless of the sex of either.

This is known as the 'Phelps Gambit'. But... hey... maybe the poster who posted this knows more than sports scientists and developmental biologists....

maybe.... or maybe they should just understand not to recycle fallacy arguments from the internet.

COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE / PHELPS GAMBIT / PHELPS ARGUMENT

Here is a good explanation. It has links to relevant information embedded so it is best to see it on twitter.

https://x.com/FondOfBeetles/status/1374331296143581186

But here is some of it:

Phelps' wingspan:height ratio is 1.04. It's straightforward to find other males with the same ratio who are slower than Phelps in some strokes, but who are faster in others. e.g. Matt Grevers. Ratio 1.04, slower freestyle than Phelps, faster backstroker than Phelps. Interestingly, despite the same wingspan:height ratio, he's, in absolute numbers, generally bigger than Phelps.

What you never find is a female with the same wingspan:height ratio who is there or thereabouts compared with Phelps. Missy Franklin has a ratio of 1.03, yet is over 10% slower than Phelps.

It's almost like wingspan:height ratio isn't discriminatory in the pool. Even absolute wingspan or absolute height isn't discriminatory.

And there's a very simple reason. When you select, on national or international levels, for athletes that are good in a particular discipline, you will tend to pull through an entire group who all share the general advantage (in this case, swimmers are tall with long arms). Phelps, with height (not the tallest) and wingspan (not the widest, nor the biggest ratio) is, for sure, built to be a better swimmer than almost every other person in the world. But his body shape is not particularly extraordinary within that group of competitive swimmers.

To argue that his advantage is extraordinary within the entire male population, sure. Well, I wouldn't go with unfair, but's a real advantage. But he doesn't race against the male population. He races against other males who are likely to share the same advantage.

This is why The Phelps Gambit (trademark pending) is nonsense, and immediately flags that the person asserting it has read numerous MSM stories about the glorious physique of Phelps (and he was glorious, absolutely), without applying any deeper analysis.

Men can have long arms. Women can have long arms. Men with long arms are better swimmers than women with long arms.

The IOC knew the exact nature of Khelif's genetic condition. They just decided that a passport that says "female" (presumably because of ambiguous external genitalia at birth) overrides everything else. "Everything else" being "male in every measurable way except for external presentation of genitals.

I expect there are a number of men with DSD who don’t want their personal biology displayed for the world to comment on.

They probably deal with it by not putting themselves in a public arena like the Olympics, or indeed any sporting event , by not pretending to be a female athlete, by not lying about being a woman, and by not denying that previous tests have shown chromosomal abnormalities which make it clear you are not a woman and hoping nobody notices.

If you want a private life it is perfectly possible to have one , by staying private.

Serena Williams has a female body structure- softer face, not masculine.

https://images.app.goo.gl/BEFk9SaDBVKDdwob6

" I think it’s fair to say that she shouldn’t be allowed to compete with women based on her karyotype"

Do you think that Khelif is male or female based on the information that you have read?

ie. Do you think that Khelif has a body formed around the production of large gametes, even if those will never be produced? Or do you think that Khelif has a body formed around the production of small gametes whether those are produced or not?

Stripping away 'woman' or 'man' because in actual fact, it is irrelevant whether Khelif identifies themselves as being a woman or a man in this instance.

Absolutely. And other things I don't care about:
The fact that a few women are bigger and stronger than some men. This is elite sport. Elite females can compete against elite females; they can't realistically compete against elite males because too many males will win due to population level biological differences.
The fact that life is unfair generally so just because,say, basketball players are tall, that's equivalent to males being in the female category. No it isn't. No one has a right to compete at Olympic level. Within a female basketball team, the individuals will all be tall for females. Many will be taller than non elite basketball playing males. Irrelevant.
So much whataboutery.

Just to get this straight.
A MAN, an actual MAN who has been said to be a MAN by medical doctors is actually a woman because you think that one of the most famous women in the world "looked a bit manly" and a well known black woman who has given birth looks like a man too?

Why what? Why do so many people deny absolute objective reality when it doesn't uphold a man's delusions and is in favour of female safety and equality? Why do so many people argue by assertion, say "no it's not" in the face of clear evidence, go off on irrelevant tangents about Serena Williams and beauty standards and think nobody notices? I don't know, you tell me.

NRTFT but what is IOC saying and doing about this? Was this male person allowed to fight against women fighters because he said he was a woman (in which case this news changes nothing and IOC need ti look at their sexist policies again).

Or was the male person competing against women because the IOC thought he was biologically female? In which case, this is devastating news, they need to strip medals and re award and apologise profusely to all the women in the competition. And of course change the policies that had allowed him in.

An interesting and usually overlooked point, is that the other male boxer, whose name I don’t even remember has not received much publicity at all.

The main reason Khelif has caused such controversy is that he put photos of himself online where he was obviously dressed in men’s clothes and was clearly going through life with all the male advantage that comes with living in a country where men have a great deal more freedom than women.

Had there been pictures of him online showing he was dressing and behaving like the women in his country of birth, people would not have been so angry with him. He dropped himself in it by behaving like an arrogant man and fully deserves all the attention he is getting. Presumably, for him, the medal, money and infamy are worth it.

I think we have a poster here who is now pulling the 'you can't call this male boxer a 'man' ' tactic.

In other words, some people will concede that Khelif is 'male' and shouldn't compete as a female, but will continue to insist that Khelif is a 'woman'.

It is the Semenya cycle that we go through all the time. This will not change. The only way to push back seems to be to use 'female' and 'male', otherwise we will end up in the endless cycle.

Quite.
It’s reprehensible and extremely unsportsmanlike for XY to compete against XX in sports like boxing .

Indeed - these effects only occur in XY males.

Women can inherit both genes that result in the lack of 5-alpha reductase too, but it is not necessary to their development.

They just might be less hairy and are unlikely to suffer from acne 🤷‍♀️

Tell me you haven’t read the thread without telling me you haven’t read the thread.

Two independent tests did that this man failed to appeal when disqualified.

You need to try a bit harder.

You are basically sticking your fingers in your ears and going "lalalalalalalala" loudly rather than face the reality that the majority of us have known for some time.
Serena Williams does not look like a man, she has never been mistaken for a man by anyone with half a brain

Use your eyes.
It’s obvious his body has been deep- sixed in testosterone from puberty .

XY

There's an array of evidence, all already quoted, that you are determined to dismiss.

So let me ask you, why is it so important to you to support men who want to cheat and beat women? 🤔

Yep! 5ARD absolutely only ever is found in MALE people.

Desperation and gaslighting.

Nobody's falling for this activist rubbish anymore.

She’s a woman with a rare medical condition.

Bloody rare indeed then given that it only affects men.

Did Gaga fail sex testing by a sporting authority that disqualified her from competing as a female?

Seriously, what is the relevance here.