The IOC: “ we don’t want a return to the bad old days of sex testing”

I read a discussion somewhere about whether the Olympics has 'peaked'. As in with modern diets, funding for training, excellent medical care have we reached the point where fewer records can be set and there's nowhere left to go if that is the case. Less moments of never seen before athletic greatness = less interest in the Olympics.

Under those circumstances rule bending in all manner of ways might be seen as a good marketing ploy. More difficult in men's sport granted but women's sport which has, in some quarters, been more celebrated and garnered more attention in recent years could still present opportunity for some of those wow factor record beating moments.

Of course that can only work if you wilfully mislead the public, gag the media and demand that everyone rejects the evidence of their eyes.

Apart from everything else, would it mean that all the timings are undermined? If DSDs account for a significant proportion of records, the IOC won't want that unearthed, will they?

Zdeněk Koubek was one of the first athletes to discover they were affected by a VSD. Koubek is reported to have (voluntarily) handed back all of the medals they'd won and their records were cancelled. Koubek decided to live as a man and this was reported in a positive manner by the (then) contemporary press.

No wonder the IOC don't want to go back to the 'bad old days'.

Apart from everything else, would it mean that all the timings are undermined? If DSDs account for a significant proportion of records, the IOC won't want that unearthed, will they?

Future athletes consistently failing to live up to their predecessors isn't a draw.

Are they now panicking that having allowed unfair advantages in a significant number of fields means they've compromised the event itself?

IMO, if there is an advantage, the size of it doesn't matter because the source of it is maleness.

And thanks very much for the source of that figure of 1 in 1,000 - I have been trying to find it for ages!

Is this covered in the 'Sports' chapter of Helen Joyce's Trans?

😂

Ig, the sex testing was stopped in the late 90s due to pressure from
a group who argued that it was cruel because it caused these male athletes with DSDs to be excluded. They argued this was not inclusive and impinged on those male people’s (they used the term women of course and female too I think) human rights. No consideration at all was given to the needs of female athletes.

I will go and find the link I post. I don’t have it handy on my phone and I will post it. It is a nature paper published from the group who stated it was the information they used to convince the IOC.

As is their nationalities - surely if Russia was picking athletes to target they would be from countries Putin has a grudge against.

If it is a 'massive topic of discussion' in sport science, does that mean that the exclusion of CAIS individuals from competition on grounds of fairness is openly debated, and, if not, why not?

No. Due to the fact there is no sex testing anymore, we don’t know how many CAIS athletes there are, what sports they’re in, and they don’t come to attention because they don’t look male.

If sex testing comes in as standard, which it should, then it will come up. And there can’t be a logical discussion without considering periods. It can’t be considered on one hand that the menstrual cycle has a performance impact, or an injury risk impact, or whatever without considering that athletes that by nature of their biology never have to worry about any of it.

It’s clearly an advantage. The debate would be whether it’s significant enough to exclude an athlete from competition.

Sex testing was stopped in 1999 by the IOC for the very reason that it could pick up males with DSDs, including CAIS males.
The focus was moved deliberately by TAs to current serum testosterone levels, which are irrelevant.

The IOC want to overwrite sex with gender identity. That's why everything.

If it is a 'massive topic of discussion' in sport science, does that mean that the exclusion of CAIS individuals from competition on grounds of fairness is openly debated, and, if not, why not?

The reason I ask is that not even the exclusion of 5-ARD individuals is debated transparently (they're described as women with raised T rather than gonadal males with normal T and somatic development). Why the obscurantism?

Lots of people have speculated here about corruption and sexism contributing to this, and Joyce and Davies address it in 'Trans' and 'Fair Play' respectively. I wonder if it's also a reluctance to question athletes who are very successful, draw the crowds, and are likely to kick up a stink and get the media on their side (as Semenya mostly did). Because they can have very aggressive and dominant personalities (can you guess why....?)

(My young TWAW friends are still furious with me for dissing that nice lady boxer BTW 🙄)

I can't quite remember the reasoning, but Helen Joyce talks about it at length in the sport chapter in her book Trans. It was very illuminating.

Why was sex testing scrapped? If every single athlete is tested then nobody is singled out. I don't see the problem with a genetic test. You could run qPCRs for SRY genes for all participating athletes in a day.

Quite! I've never been allowed to compete in any category in any Olympics- who can I take that up with?!

Elite sports are by definition not inclusive!!

Same!

Very grateful to MN, especially the FWR threads to help educate me on matters I would have previously thought 'ah well, that's just what happens...' 😳

How many biological females sit on the IOC? I'm off to Google...

Matt Wallace on TwitX has shared a clip from yesterday, in which Khelif appears to cop a feel of Carini's breast.

https://x.com/MattWallace888/status/1819170620955078827

Drugs testing is far more intrusive and embarrassing - let's scrap that too, eh? DNA testing in women's sports is essential

Absolutely! The permanent absence of periods for a start is an important benefit

This story featured yesterday in a segment from ABC Radio National's P.M. program. I was a little astonished to hear the final interviewee admit that, if these boxers are judged inelligible to compete then that will jepoardise trans women's paticipation in women's sport. So there you go. It's all about the entitlement of any man at any time to make a declaration of gender identity and compete in women's sporting competitions at community and elite levels.
They also went straight to some social science academic wanging on about CAIS and I feel awful for the women being dragged into this. It's so cheap and cruel. 💐 for any readers living with CAIS.

look on the bright side. We all know the benefits of sunlight-well this shit show is a fucking super nova burst all over the world-which won't go away.

It's a side step.

Before we had DNA testing it was a physical exam of breasts and genitals, not a pleasant thing and it wasn't always accurate.

A cheek swab is easy, probably quite cheap and you can build in processes for if someone has a DSD.

Recent data from the University of Washington, states that the number of DSD individuals in the elite athlete population is around 140 times higher than in the general female population, and their presence on the podium is even more frequent.
Maybe the IOC like the winning/world record breaking athletic prowess, and silently support having the added testosterone.

The fact they look like like men is a bit of a sticking point for the “Russian corruption” argument.