AIBU to think it was never that complicated to define a woman.

I think they probably get used to their highly unusual circumstances slowly, from a young age, with nobody stopping them or discouraging them - largely because they're children and amateurs - and then by the time they're grown up and already well into sports and athletics, they just take their advantage as a given and don't think any more about it.

Maybe a slightly odd analogy, but possibly a bit like the whole MP expenses scandal: they got into the culture that it was just something that everybody in their position was allowed to do, unstopped, so it became their normal way of thinking that they were just 'special' and it was just what they did.

I can see how they may be very resentful if, growing up among their female peers, they noticed that sport was a real strength of theirs compared to the others, so they focused on it and worked hard on making it into their planned career (maybe at the expense of alternative pursuits in which they're much weaker) - just like a child with a real flair for science or art may do the same in heading towards a related career. I wonder if, with all of those sunk costs, the point at which they realise unmistakeably that they are a man competing in women's sports is actively suppressed and denied, because of all they feel that they have to lose.

Of course, like with all of the deceitful 'Transwomen banned from the Olympics' headlines, absolutely nobody is banning them from continuing with their chosen career in their own sex category; but after so many years in excelling and being lauded in the female category, suddenly moving to the male category as a mediocre, unremarkable also-ran who doesn't even qualify, they know that they have far, far more to lose than if they just keep quiet about it and do all they can to avoid being rumbled.

This is worth repeating actually.

All of the athletes who underwent sex testing from 2000 onwards were tested as a result of concerns raised about appearance. This was most likely from officials at the event. Or it could have been from competitors.

So as soon as these athlete turn up to somewhere new and remotely elite enough, people go “hang on, isn’t that a male?” Based on their first few meetings or viewings of these athletes. That’s all it took.

So people who have never met them up until that point, don’t know them personally, haven’t spent days, weeks, months even years with them, are able to instantly pick them as male and prompt testing.

But we are led to believe, by the athletes themselves, their coaches, their supporting officials and posters on this thread that it’s perfectly possible that all of these people who knew the athlete properly for years, hadn’t once thought what those brand new sets of eyes viewing the athletes for the first time thought at those competitions? Not one single person thought that? Because “harmful myths had been normalised”?

Really?

Maybe there was a compulsory lecture about the 2005 IOC document and the penny dropped then.

Do you really believe males with DSDs who haven’t realised they are in fact male by the time they’ve reached competitive athletic level exist? Really?

I don’t. They know fine well and my sympathy lies with the women they’ve shafted.

Probably someone in Doha taught the Indians about periods.

Bearing in mind that in order for sex testing to occur in 2006, someone would have had to prompt it based on appearance in Doha.

So not a single Indian thought of it. But as soon as Soundarajan competed in front of non-Indians, someone thought of it and told the Indians to test for it.

This is also how all the other athletes got picked up.

So either the Indians are incredibly silly and incompetent, and had “normalized” a lack of periods and it took someone more educated in Doha to show them the error of their ways, or they knew and were pretending they didn’t.

So how can you possibly think that not a single person involved in the athletic pathway Santhi Soundarajan followed from junior athlete to medal winner at a major athletics meet didn’t think it was a) worth checking or b) odd that a male looking athlete hadn’t had a period ever?

You keep repeating that it wasn’t a concern, prioritised, and harmful myths “normalized” [sic] but you can’t explain how this athlete got past everyone.

Indians also didn’t know that 24 year olds should have periods and shouldn’t look male, until suddenly, their doctors worked it out all at once and did genetic, hormone blood tests and scans.

I just can't even with that one. It's particularly wonderful because at one point they implicitly accused me and another poster of being racist because we noted that developing countries are less likely to have the healthcare provision necessary to diagnose a DSD at an early age. "Are you saying only people from richer countries are worthy of sympathy" or something like that. Anyone capable of leaps like that should be in the Olympics themselves.

"Menstrual health was not a concern in Indian athletics, was not monitored, and harmful myths normalized" is not the same as "Indians didn't know know about periods.

The racism shtick is tiresome.

Indians didn’t know about periods until 2005 when the IOC told them about them, apparently 🙄. The Asian games was in 2006 though…

And the typical sly threat of, “lots of athletes will be surprised” by the genetic results, when no, actually, lots of athletes won’t.

Well, lots of white people wont, because white people know that women get periods.

Yes, it's men with DSDs you want getting in under the radar.

You're not fooling anyone. Yourself, perhaps.

But they didn’t know, clearly, because they were Indian and white people hadn’t taught them about periods.

And once again once again, you’re claiming that it’s likely that every single human involved in Santhi’s life, and all coaching staff, and medical staff in the Indian national team were victims of “widespread misinformation” about periods in athletes. Not a single person or doctor asked? And not a single doctor or person who asked raised concerns?

That’s what you think is likely.

It’s not likely.

You're getting an avalanche of backlash because you're claiming one MO but clearly, clearly, clearly have another
This exists in your head.

Transwomen have never belonged in women's sport, and I have never believed that they did. I do not know how more unequivocal I can be.

Also untrue. Two different posters posted pictures of two different athletes, and I initially only saw one of them.

So, when someone said they had posted a picture, I assumed they meant the one I had seen.

You're getting an avalanche of backlash because you're claiming one MO but clearly, clearly, clearly have another, and people don't want your nonsense to go unchallenged, or for you to think you've fooled them. Also because you're providing something of an avalanche of nonsense day and night to be rebutted. Some of us have young children and need to sleep sometimes.

It's obvious why you're pushing it so hard and it's not because of a bleeding heart. Just rend your garments for these men and campaign for a league for men with DSDs if that's all it is.

And, once again, a male looking person with no period at 24 is not the same as a woman with heavy periods.

That’s hilarious

And once again, there was widespread misinformation about menstrual health among female athletes at the time, and menstrual health and its monitoring was broadly not a concern (with the IOCs first reccomedmndation that it be implemented coming in 2005).

Are you just going to list all the males caught in women’s competitions to see which ones might back up your “they look ambiguous enough to slip through so might not have been deliberately cheating” argument? Because the one you picked isn’t doing it for you?

https://www.physiologyjourna

was that from this study?

The one posted up thread?

How about María José Martínez-Patiño, were they a cheat before their first sex test? Were they a cheat after they passed it? Or did they become a cheat when they readily took a second test after leaving their certificate (from their first test) at home?