olympics question

Clearer than some, gets to issue but still stops short of saying they are men. Some people will want to believe that women can be "genetically male".

Well said the Telegraph. Should be shouted from the rooftops.

Archive for the Telegraph article archive.ph/20v5s

Someone on the thread about the two boxers posted an excellent Telegraph article quoting Dr Emma Hilton www.telegraph.co.uk/olympics/2024/07/30/boxing-sex-gender-imane-khelif-lin-yu-ting-paris-2024/

Exactly. There's so much obfuscation about this issue that most people simply don't understand what is happening.

It’s about time that the nonsense reporting of ‘women with naturally high testosterone’ was debunked and the truth of the effects of male puberty was reported honestly - together with the real life impacts on women and women’s sport.

I think there’d be a lot more jaws (hairy and otherwise) hitting the floor.

I've just been in with the engineers and they are streaming the Olympics. They got on about boxing and I mentioned the two males in the women's event, then Barbara Banda, then a brief description of 5-ARD.

Five hairy jaws hit the floor, followed by a flurry of Googling and "WTF?! That's mad, are you sure? Fucking Hell, how's that allowed?"

I think that when ordinary, moderate people find out about this, that's their reaction and rightly so. I just hope they tell others.

Tbh, while I hope Allianz raise some questions, by the time they're needed, severe damage may well have been done.

You made me laugh, anyway!

Allianz is the insurer underwriting the Games and the IOC. I wonder how happy Allianz is at this news, given that the IOC is condoning males fighting in a female only competition?

I think it goes a bit like....

Athletes can't take drugs. Apart from the men who want to run in certain women's races. But the women in those races can't take drugs.

No, still doesn't work for me.

Athletes are not allowed to take drugs, but men can compete as women. Make it make sense.

They probably make each country underwrite their own athletes, so the victims of these men would need to be medically treated by their own countries. I hope I'm wrong.

I wonder how the Paris 2024 insurance underwriters will look at this?

We knew that there were two males in the women’s boxing events and we went ahead anyway isn’t going to cut the mustard.

I genuinely can't see why having a cheek swab test is invasive. I'd find a piss test for drugs post event while being watched more embarrassing personally.

But then I'm not a raging cheat.

On X, Sean is saying he thinks this could blow up further:

Spoke to IOC and few others for this. Imagine it might blow up further >>> Boxers who failed gender tests at world championships cleared to compete at Olympics

Certainly hope so, it’s an appalling state of affairs.

Sean Ingle doing his usual as clear as he can be writing.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/article/2024/jul/29/boxers-who-failed-gender-tests-at-world-championships-cleared-to-compete-at-olympics

Agreed.

We seem to be starting from the position that male athletes with what amounts to a disability (depending on how they feel about it) must automatically be accommodated in female sport, even if it is to the detriment of women. No.

Space should be carved out in men's Paralympic sport where the DSD genuinely amounts to a disability, which is only the case for CAIS and PAIS to a degree. Otherwise, men's sport. It's not women's problem.

These threads always make me think about the BBC documentary "The Unfair Games" a few years back which is about Paralympic categories.

It doesn't address the DSD or Trans stuff at all, but it talks about the politics and strong incentives to exploit even slight advantages within a classification and the impact it has on athletes effected (both those suddenly placed at a disadvantage and those who would seemingly benefit but are also exploited then dropped as soon as it looks bad or the rules change again). I thought it did an amazing job of looking at the situation from many angles and being really balanced

It shouldn't be up to females to prove males have an advantage, it isn't their category. Sports are about the embodied person's physicality, not their personality or belief system. Sex not gender.

DSD categories for the Paralympics would be an obvious answer that gives inclusive sporting opportunities whilst protecting the female events.

@puffyisgood.. While I agree that injury to boxers is an urgent and serious priority... It's not just potential members of Zambia's squad that are affected by the presence of males in that team.. Those players are the two most expensive players in women's soccer ever, they have had lucrative contracts in several clubs and countries and every women who lines up for the opposition faces micro erosion of their confidence which might affect their entire career.

And many many many women, including me, think about the thousands of men who are complicit in either actively or passively allowing this to happen, silencing or ridiculing people who raise concerns, and construct defenses around this that put women below men.... and wonder how it is possible that men think so little of women ..

Priorities, eh? 😄

It is likely that it will take a woman suffering a life changing injury to stop men being allowed to box against women. Meanwhile, on another thread, there is a vigorous debate about whether the Venn diagram overlap of Tommy Robinson and Gender Critical women is 0.1% or 1.0%.

They could compete in their own paralympic category rather than stuffing up women’s events.

the boxing situation feels urgent.

Banda and her mate, well, theirs is a team sport and perhaps luckily those two play for a relatively weak international team, the only real 'victims' at this Olympics are the two or more real women who would have made the Zambia squad had the males with DSD's not been available for selection, or more realistically the players and supporters of the next-best African nation who'd have qualified had Zambia not made it.

but women's health is at stake in the boxing, head injuries waiting to happen, it's unacceptable.

Yes it's totally ridiculous to punish contact with the head in rugby and remove players for head injury assessment but encourage it in boxing.