Should there be a DSD category at the Paralympics?

Nope.

But if they are playing sport from a certain age and they need to be verified to be eligible to compete, then yes, they should be tested like every other female athlete.

You can cry all you want.

Do you or don’t you believe female athletes deserve to have a category that is protected for safety and fairness?

And what is the relevance of that?

Either way, reports from people who knew Semenya say that it was known.

Semenya published photos as a teen posing shirtless swimming if I remember correctly. Swimming with other male people. Do you believe that as a young teen that Semenya do that believing they were a girl?

So, you may be right or you may be wrong. Semenya knew definitively after testing and still chose to compete.

Everyone plays to their strengths

There are options for people who know they have a DSD that means they are not female though and are likely to have some advantage, even if it is small. They can compete in mixed sex sports.

At what point does society have to accommodate people playing in protected categories that they do not qualify for? And at what point do those who know they don’t qualify, for whatever reason, have to respect that they don’t qualify and accept that?

I believe they were scouting 5ARD male athletes. Semenya apparently comes from a region known to be a cluster region for patients with 5ARD DSDs.

Athletes with CAIS are over represented in female sports in the Olympics compared to in general population.

Their height advantage on average, is meaningful at that level.

It may come to it that sex testing with cheek swabs will be again standard for all those seeking eligibility into female sports. Because if a male person, even one with a slight advantage cannot respect the regulations or doesn’t know they are not female, this needs to be re-introduced. I believe that before it was phased out, female athletes were asked if they objected to the sex testing and the majority wanted to keep it. It was still removed as a requirement despite the wishes of female athletes at the time.

It has been reported that in the 00’s Ekkhart arbeit scouted in particular regions on South Africa known to have clusters of male athletes with particular DSDs. Semenya was one athlete that benefitted from this.

Arbeit has a background sullied by doping female athletes. He is a testosterone in sport expert.

I think those with CAIS will probably end up with their own events, yes. Because ultimately they have an average height advantage and I expect other physical advantages. Plus they don’t have menstrual cycles to deal with.

@DSDaisy What vitriol are you accusing me of?

My frustration is at the corruption at the heart of elite sports where scouts pick young men with a very rare condition to compete against women. It's a thoroughly reasonable position, you know, to not like cheating. Perhaps stop being so defensive

Exactly this. Even if the advantage is slight, those margins can be enough to move someone from 'also ran' to winner.

Unscrupulous scouts and coaches have no interest in the long-term health of an athlete. They will have no qualms about exploiting any advantage even if that is detrimental to the long-term health of an athlete.

I believe scouts are actively looking for youngsters with these conditions, specifically to exploit the loopholes that still exist. The only solution is to close the loopholes. They're overrepresented because they're "hot stuff" in the coaching world. Each kid they find is a potential goldmine to be exploited.

This. Absolutely this.

Funny how an incredibly rare condition is over represented in elite womens sport, isn't it?.

I don’t see how this could be at all effective. There are many different DSDs, with different causes and impacts, and most importantly: some will affect males and others will affect females. Even with the same conditions, not all will be affected in the same ways to the same extent. Some males don’t respond to androgens at all and will have externally female genitals – others will have ambiguous, or male-but-undervirilized genitals. You can’t possibly just chuck every athelete with a DSD into the same category, as if they’re all the same. It’s not some sort of third sex, it’s males or females with medical conditions.

Even ignoring that, or if it was split into different categories of disorder, would there be enough athletes to compete? People with DSDs who not only want to compete but are good enough?

What people in this thread seem to be mostly talking about is 5ARD, what Caster Semenya has. My feelings on that are that that disorder does not cause insensitivity to all androgens at all, males with it respond to testosterone at puberty and have those benefits in sports. Semenya has testosterone in the normal male range - which their body responds to to afford them the benefits in sporting seen in healthy males – because they are a bonafide XY chromosomed male. Their high testosterone isn’t a variation of female, it’s because they are male. Semenya should not be allowed to compete with women. Neither should anyone else with the same disorder.

That disorder I think is somewhat of an outlier - most DSDs in males cause them to be a lot weaker due to not responding to androgens as a normal male. Still, that doesn’t mean they should compete with females because they are not females – just that it’s less likely to be an issue.

I can imagine how hard it must be grow up as female and then experience masculinisation at puberty, as with 5ARD. I’m sure its difficult to have any sort of DSD. I hope people struggling with it can get help and come to terms with it, and I completely see why they’d have a complex relationship to their sexual and gender identities. But they shouldn’t be allowed to compete in a sex category that they aren’t.

Sometimes we can’t do things we might like to do because of physical limiations outside or our control. Like being too short/tall, or having asthma, or poor eyesight. Just because that limitation is to do with your sex and gender identity doesn’t mean it should be waved away.

Is the increasing stigma partly to do with the forced trans agenda, where genetically normal men are claiming now both to be women and also intersex (that is the term most if these lying men use)?

There should be no stigma around DSDs, but if those with them have home through male puberty, they should not be allowed to compete in women’s sports. That shouldn’t carry stigma. Insisting you must be allowed in women’s sports when you have been proven to be genetically male is a sure way to increase stigma though.

I think those with DSDs should be allowed to retain the sex that was assigned at birth, if that is more comfortable for them. Alternatively, they should be allowed to change it, if that is their preference. I think that is the only time any person should be allowed to choose their legal sex.

That still shouldn’t allow them to compete as women though, if they are biologically male.