Caster Semenya has lost appeal

regionweek.com/burundis-francine-niyonsaba-reveals-she-has-hyperandrogenism/

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperandrogenism

If FN were male and had hyperandrogenism, it's vanishingly unlikely she would have been recognised as having female genitalia at birth.
Occasionally girls with CAH (one of the causes) have ambiguous genitalia.

I do feel sorry for her. I think it being misgendered at birth and raised as the wrong sex must be traumatising. I also think that for an athlete whose whole life revolves around a particular sport, not being able to continue to compete as before must be an identity shattering blow. I really feel for her.

However, competing with an advantage against women and girls cannot be something to console miserable males with. There are many reasons for people to be miserable. Some individuals have a dreadful time and life can be horrific and unfair. That does not give you a free pass as a man to compete as a woman (depriving women of medals, scholarships or team spots due to the advantage of male puberty).

I have no idea what an equivalent for girls women would be - I had a really traumatic childhood so when I compete in chess (including international competitions), I will start a few pieces ahead, but only against men?

I am grumpy this morning

The right decision and I don't feel sorry for her.
They have taken prize money and medals etc away from deserving female athletes for a long time.
I feel sorry for those athletes.

Are there any DSDs in which a person who has gone through female puberty mediated by female hormones from the ovaries, and has raised testosterone?

Or when news reports say Niyosanba is a woman with naturally raised testosterone levels, do they mean "someone who was raised as a woman due to ambiguous/female-looking appearance at birth, but has XY chromosomes and internal testes"?

This is the problem here - the relevant details aren't being looked at.

(It is possible for women to have elevated testosterone levels - women with PCOS typically have levels of about 2.5 nmol/litre, compared to 1.5 nmol/litre for women without PCOS. But even 2.5 nmol/litre is way, way below the bottom of the healthy male range at 10 nmol/litre. And the bottom of the healthy male range is 5 standard deviations above the mean value for the female range, meaning it's vanishingly unlikely to come across a woman who'd have that level naturally.)

Oh and selected key words are a fast way to cue the public as to what they're supposed to think - those words do not have to be used correctly in context, what matters is what thoughts/feelings, sympathies and associations it triggers- and current high interest topics can in that way be used quickly to harness public interests and sympathies to whatever it is that you want them to do.

It's reality by corporate marketing.

Francine Niyosanba has a DSD that increases testosterone in women.
I'm not sure about the others.

Bollocks.

No literally that's what Niyosanba has.

The rules reply exclusively 100% only and without any exception of any kind at all to people with testes. They do not ever apply to anyone who does not have testes.

It is horribly misleading to say that Niyosanba has a condition 'increasing testosterone', as testes produce testosterone as their normal function, so nothing is being increased.

All of these athletes have bollocks.

What else am I reading that is pure lies that I don't have the knowledge to realise?

We are living in an age where it is an open political approach to create a narrative from selected information, insist this is the truth despite obvious facts that don't fit, and to then brazen it out while denying, slurring and refusing to engage with anyone raising conflicting information, and if necessary using legal approaches to hush them on the grounds of unwanted facts being unkindness and wrongdoing.

Cummings and his castle eye test is the overt example, but this is the age we're living in. It's based on much of what Serenity describes, of grabbing an emotional angle for public sympathy and hoping most will be too lazy/briefly engaged to think and will instead just get on side and co operate. Or that if you stick it out long enough, the public will forget and move on to the next shiny thing. Johnson doesn't appear to realise what this approach has done to his credibility or public trust, there seems to be a belief in the stupidity and gullibility of all, and an arrogant right to decide what to 'make' people think. Hence the tantrums and reproach (again seen in the Cummings example) when they fail to co operate and demonstrate critical, independent thought.

The concerning thing about Stonewall is that they aren't even trying to engage with relevant arguments, they are just trying to misdirect.

This sets a very worrying precedent for any engagement 'on behalf of' people who have DSDs.

More blather from Stonewall:

It sets a dangerous precedent in regulating how people participate in sport. What’s happened today is a missed opportunity to send a positive message to women of all races, shapes, sizes and abilities that sport is open and welcoming of everyone.

Elite sport is very much NOT about including all abilities.

What ever decision was made, it was always going to exclude somebody from competition.

Well Rio was news to me... 😲😲😲

People don’t critically analyse what they read/see. They don’t seem to teach this in schools anymore - so we have kids and young adults in the education system being targeted quite strongly with the ‘truth’ of the day and told that anyone who questions is evil, hateful, criminal, worthy of beating/death threats etc.

We’ve always been lied to/had the ‘truth’ from different angles but social media makes it all so much worse in my opinion.

Whereas in ye olden days someone would have to go to the bother of getting paper and pen to compose a poison pen letter or critical rebuttal... now it’s death threats in 240 characters at the click of a button, and everyone and their dog thinks their opinion is 100% correct and so fascinating to the rest of the world that it’s worthy of mass publication (and yes, I get the irony of posting that on a sm site!)

1984 indeed.

Francine Niyosanba has a DSD that increases testosterone in women.
I'm not sure about the others.

And there is nothing at all to stop CS competing...in the correct category. Yep. But that category had to be created in sport law, backed by sport science. Happily that is closer now and the use of terms like “biological male advantage” make it less and less likely that this will be overturned.

Don't mistake my wanting Semenya to have been seen to have had a fair deal with wanting them to be allowed to compete as a woman. I want this decision to be a strong, unassailable position in all sports.

Can I just take a moment to state how incredibly pissed off I am at the press for their wilful misrepresentation on this issue. It seems every time now there is an area I am knowledgeable on, I find articles that misreport the issue, whether intentionally or through ignorance.

So CS is reported as female with high testosterone, not a male with a DSD.
JK Rowling is declared transphobic without whit of evidence to support it.
The Leeds "managed zone" is declared a success when the report proves the exact opposite.

What else am I reading that is pure lies that I don't have the knowledge to realise? No wonder people turn to conspiracy theories when we can see we're being lied to every sodding day.

That just crossed my desk too! Possibly because I had a look at Cashmore's twitter feed. Desperation?

It's a ludicrous position given the number of elite black athletes across many sports. In fact people like Cashmore used to argue that spot was racist because of the high numbers of black participants - things like stacking, use of sport to escape socio-economic situations etc.

Shades of the Fatima Whitbred nastiness, in reverse!

‘Right’ - I keep hearing that. Whose ‘right’, what is a ‘right’? Wants aren’t rights.

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.

And there is nothing at all to stop CS competing...in the correct category.

Elite athletes

Especially considering the race of the majority of elite elite would be...? They are clutching at straws.

Stonewall now arguing that the decision was made because CS does not ‘conform to a framework centred on white European woman.’

Are they biologically illiterate or just racist?

The part of Tucker's tweet that is of most import, to me, is this bi

All in all, a situation without solution, but for a principle of biological sex’s impact on performance, and the defence of women’s sport integrity, it’s right. For policy creation and integrity of science in governance, it’s a disaster. And Semenya is a significant loser

That will remain the weakness, the part open door. In order to protect and nurture women's sport CAS, IAAC, IOC etc must make illogical decisions and override scientific integrity. We'll have to rely on Right is Might... and hope that Might is Right gets short shrift!

Speaking of which, if, as he says, World Athletics are using the phrase “biological male advantage” there could be some interesting times ahead. It would be very hard to get m/any sport scientists, physiologists, biomechanists to change their mnds on basic biology.

It's only the sociologists, like Ellis bloody Cashore, that do the impossible dance! But he has his repitations as "cultural critic" to keep up! Don't take a peek at his Twitter feed, you'll fill quite a few bingo cards very quickly!

(I despair that I ever thought the man had any bloody insight at all)

Hmm. TW are "assigned male at birth" but are now expected to be seen as literal women. Semenya was "assigned female at birth" and we are to take that as the stamp-stamp-no-erasies proclamation of their femaleness? Can't really have it both ways, can they?