Caster Semenya has lost appeal

Share token for the times piece which seems rather biased towards caster.

Despite being raised as a girl, the comment above seems correct - caster is a male with a dsd not a female with a dsd.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/caster-semenya-to-miss-tokyo-olympics-after-ruling-86hn8t0p7?shareToken=3d9032b99d8de1ccfa9450ab9ea36cdb

Sounds like the right decision, and if it's correct that Caster has known for 10 years, and is even now playing for a women's football club, then I think my earlier sympathies were misplaced.

But perhaps some recognition for those who 'missed out' would be appropriate.

It happened with Schinegger - snippet from the article I linked above.

In 1988, on a television show broadcast by the Austrian ORF network, Mr Schinegger gave his 1966 gold medal from the World Ski Championship to the second-place finisher, Marielle Goitschel.

I'm not optimistic about ever seeing such grace from Semenya, but am open to being pleasantly surprised.

So basically, aside from a misshapen penis, people with 5ARD are fully male.

Indeed, and as the world-renowned athlete and sports expert Rachel McKinnon helpfully explained to Martina Navratilova - "genitals do not play sports. What part of a penis is related to tennis?"

So basically, aside from a misshapen penis, people with 5ARD are fully male.

Yes.

What I don't understand is that I thought it was fairly established treatment to remove internal testes because of the risk of cancer.

Yes that’s correct. This hasn’t happened because it would remove their athletic advantage.

I would be much more sympathetic if it was CAIS, that's very different.

Isn’t it interesting what an advantage those testes have given her? 🤔

What I don't understand is that I thought it was fairly established treatment to remove internal testes because of the risk of cancer. (Do correct next if I'm wrong, I might be out of date). If Caster had done that then it would have solved the testosterone problem as well as providing health protection for the future.

My understanding is that that is the case for 46,XY CAIS DSD, but not 46,XY 5ARD.

The latter (which CS has) is a very different condition to CAIS: the body does produce and react to normal levels of testosterone (hence the full male virilisation at puberty), they just cannot convert the testosterone into dihydrotestosterone because there is a deficiency in the 5-Alpha reductase enzyme. Without sufficient levels of dihydrotestosterone the male genitals don't form correctly in the womb.

So basically, aside from a misshapen penis, people with 5ARD are fully male.

I believe Cais Claire on twitter has the same DSD as Caster. She writes very movingly about the condition, if anyone wants to know more about what it's like to go through this:
differently-normal.com/2020/06/10/example-post-3/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

I do think the right decision has been reached regarding the rules around the 800 metres.

Good! I feel for all the other female athletes that were cheated out of medals

I think if someone knows they're cheating with a ridiculously unfair advantage and deliberately keep doing it anyway, they should be wiped out from the records entirely. Their name shouldn't be celebrated anywhere.

I can't think of a real equivalent right now, but it would almost be like someone who happened to be born who could breathe underwater, purposefully taking on every swimming championship. No one else would stand a chance but that person wouldn't have deserved to win, they weren't really competing.

I would be especially delighted to see all the men erased from women's medals and championships, but I also think this about other kinds of cheats too like proven drug takers.

It will never, ever happen of course, for all sorts of reasons, but I can daydream.

www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/sport/caster-semenya-to-miss-tokyo-olympics-after-ruling-86hn8t0p7

If someone has a share token. Just also read a second article but can't find it now.

Think there are loads of inaccuracies and also with the comments, am assuming this is because it's a load of blokes talking about women?????

Wow. Knew the entire time.

This is the right decision. I am glad the judgment has been upheld.

They need to go further now and make clear that anyone who has XY chromosomes and is androgen sensitive cannot compete in the female category at all, regardless of how much they later lower their testosterone levels.

I lost all sympathy for Caster after seeing an interview where they talked disparagingly about women and made very clear they did not see themselves as one.

I'm very glad of this ruling - since Caster has been allowed to compete there have been scouts searching for young athletes with the same condition, intentionally looking for a group of males who were allowed to compete in women's events.

What I don't understand is that I thought it was fairly established treatment to remove internal testes because of the risk of cancer. (Do correct next if I'm wrong, I might be out of date). If Caster had done that then it would have solved the testosterone problem as well as providing health protection for the future.

I don't think that any new evidence based rules should mean retrospective punishment for this athlete,not any other with a DSD. But perhaps some recognition for those who 'missed out' would be appropriate.

Good. It's cheating, and they know it. All medals and achievements should be withdrawn retrospectively IMO.

It does t matter how Semenya was raised. What matters is the tge XY chromosomes And it is that intransigence that makes it bloody difficult for intersex athletes to have any discussion about their participation.

You don't have to lose your humanity with your deisre to see sport, and life, being fair for all!

The IAAF and IOC commissioned a lot of research in order to be able to make a decision based on hard science - the kind that TRAs will not be able to refute. I was a small part of some of that research, colleagues in various places have done a lot of re-working of old research with a new focus in order to give very specific answers.

Consistently I have posted here that Semenya had every right to fight for her right to carry on competing even after her 'diagnosis'. It is her life, her way of earning a living, all she had been brought up to know. It isn't her fault she was born where and as she was! There needed to be legal rulings for intersex athletes!

There were no fact based rulings prior to her case. Sport is a multi billion pound business. It needed absolute, specific evidence before it could make a final ruling. That and, like the RFU/World Rugby, most sporting associations, NGBs etc do want their sport to be as fair and accessible as possible.

Now most of that science is in, more studies ongoing to add to questions thrown up over the years, and Semenyas continued fight to compete. Long term that will be a good thing. All the bollocks about levels of testosterone as sporting classes will be swept away once even the most woke of people realise the very real advantages male bodies have in many sports.

Many other changes wil happen too... keep an eye on ultra endurance sports. A lot of the research done for this issue has spilled over into training regimes and women are benefitting from that, a lot!

I’m sure her chromosomal test was a shock but her actions afterwards warrant no sympathy from me anymore. All those female athletes denied a podium place, sponsorship fees etc because they’ve been competing against someone biologically male? That’s so unfair. You’re beaten before you’ve even set foot on the start line and CS was more than happy to continue to compete in the female category without any thought to the consequences on women’s athletes as a whole.

Will this decision be a benchmark for other XY persons?
A friend of mine got very impassioned about the mistreatment of Caster previously - arguing that people though she was a man because she wasn't feminine enough, and she thought there was a significant amount of racism to that thinking.
Its not an unreasonable argument but I do wonder how she might feel about that now.

The chromosomal testing was a shock to her and her family,

Highly unlikely, as puberty would of raised issues if there weren’t issues raised before then. Others claim there was.

I’m afraid you don’t understand intersex conditions. The false outdated belief ‘they’re not one thing or another’ is not factual. Most intersex people are still either XX or XY. Caster is XY.