BBC finally acknowledges something may be amiss in Olympics women's boxing

As I said, all about the money, ideology be damned
From another poster

"Also huge investment in Khelif by the Algerian Olympic committee, with the stated objective of winning Gold in Paris 2024, according to the Algerian paper El Watan dz.
Mondiaux 2023 et les JO-2024 de Boxe : Imane Khelif à New Delhi - El watan.dz (elwatan-dz.com)

At the end of this article Khelif says they/he took up boxing after watching the Rio Olympics on TV -(where three male athletes won bronze silver and gold in the women 800m) and says that it was difficult in the beginning because of 'social conditions', but the only difficulty mentioned is the cost of getting to the boxing centre from home - no mention of any issue with being a girl wanting to take up boxing.

Je ne pensais pas pouvoir la pratiquer à cause des conditions sociales difficiles. J’ai souffert parce que je ne pouvais pas économiser de l’argent pour me déplacer entre la salle de boxe et mon domicile familial, située dans un petit village à environ 8 kilomètres»,

They thought they could gaslight / force via propaganda (and banning journalists reporting accurately and truthfully)
people into denying the reality of their eyes and ears.

They basically thought they could be Big Brother from 1984.

Normal people without money, without power said no. Sure, some believed the lies, but lies and threats aren't enough any more.

you would think so. The whole debacle looks shit because it is shit. I presume the IOC consists of fairly bright people so why the fuck could they not see this coming a mile off?

I'm completely gutted about this whole situation. They've got to change the rules to make it fair. It's awful 😞

On Tonight at the Games, Mark Chapman just reported that Khelif won the gold medal. He seemed rather subdued about it. I wonder if he wasn’t very enthusiastic about the fact that Khelif had won.

As Clare Balding and others on the BBC have done today, he mentioned that Khelif was “at the centre of a gender eligibility row”.

I watched the ‘match’. You could see the woman was technically a good boxer but was obviously avoiding being punched so was keeping her distance. The physical difference is pronounced. I told Dh to watch and he said he hated it. He does martial arts and said would not have that at the club. He was upset by it (so was I but I knew what was coming). The BBC commentators did address the controversy at the beginning but the commentator during the match sounded so gushing about Khelif. It was cringe-worthy.

I expect, after tomorrow, this will never happen again. The IOC are an embarrassment.

Khelif has taken gold. I did write won, but I think taken is more appropriate.

They love the "genital inspection" panic. Wonder why? 🤔

Now that IS an interesting edit. Definitely encouraging.

I think De La Chappelle syndrome is a red herring here.

First we have a small number of transwomen wanting to compete in women's sport. There's no reason for these males to be tested - their biology is known and expected and their inclusion, is allowed/disallowed on a different set of criteria which would also apply to xx males.

If by some unlikely scenario, a transwoman does discover that they're a tiny percentage of a tiny percentage, and are xx male, and choose to attempt to use this as a loophole, they still have a sry gene and would be excluded on that basis.

Yep. It would be great if that BBC journalist could do some actual journalism and find out what exactly the Danish Dr was doing with the measurements he was taking of clitorises/micropeni and breast tissue which had anything to do with sex classification.

I suppose we can get used to this argument being repeated all over social media soon by the usual gender cultists.

It's fascinating to see the information that people have chosen to take from this article. This man really focused hard on the thought of getting the clitoris measuring tape out.

I imagine there might have been some complaints about that bit!

You're right that we shouldn't lump DSD cases and trans identities together, but we should be under no illusion that the confusion amd toxicity we are seeing is a direct result of trans ideology, in particular their manipulation of language.

Looks like BBC has amended the article at some point:

Regulating elite sports, which typically rely on male-female binary categories in competition, is complicated because the biology of sex itself is complex and not exclusively binary.

has become

Regulating elite sports, which typically rely on male-female binary categories in competition, is complicated because the biology of sex itself is complex.

Encouraging

I don't think it's fair to lump dsd and trans athetes together. The former were socialized as women. It must be very difficult for them.

To be clear, I don't think anybody - dsd or otherwise -should be competing in the female category if they have male advantage. That doesn't mean we can't acknowledge how difficult dsds must be to reconcile psychologically.

I think what's happened to the two boxers is very unfair - it shouldn't have played out like this on such a public stage. Also terribly unfair to their opponents at the same time. As well as dangerous. Nobody should be boxing against women if they have male advantage but this whole situation is awful. Terribly badly organised.

My recollection is that at the time the story was that Semenya was a female with high testosterone, being treated unfairly. At the time I don't think it was known that Semenya had an XY DSD—I don't think that was known until the court case, at which point it was not newsworthy, apparently. I don't recall any discussion or notice that the three finalists were all male and if there would have been I think it would have centered on them all being females with high testosterone.

Also, I want to highlight this fantastic letter from Susan Smith in the National Scot https://www.thenational.scot/community/24503836.clear-facts-discussing-olympic-boxing-controversy/

It's a rebuttal to an article by Ellie Gomersall, which was full of misinformation.

Journalists at least seem to be trying to explain DSDs now (even though some of them are doing so quite badly). Did this happen after the Rio 2016 women's athletics debacle? Was there the same level of discussion about in on social media? I'm wondering if things are changing now.

Let’s not forget, nobody is banned from competing. It’s so often framed that these type of men are banned, they are not, they can compete in the men’s, but like cheat Lia Thomas, Emily Bridges or Caster S, they want to compete in the women’s events as they gave make advantage. Those men have zero interest in competing in the men’s, because they are mediocre sports men.

I misread this to begin with and was about to go "but there was that fencer who was competing at 7 months pregnant..." but then I read it again - doh!

For some DSD saying it's as simple as 'just' chromosomes/ karotype/ genitals & reproductive tract alone aren't going to give us the categories of men / women we want for fair sport.

Yes, this is exactly my position too @AltitudeCheck and I think it works both ways (both for XX and XY as well as other combinations).
DSDs are often very complex and in many cases assessment will need to be taken on a case by case basis to ensure fairness to all.

Actually, don’t worry. My point still stands. If via further research those athletes currently included due to not establishing advantage are found to have advantage, they too should be excluded. At the moment they are included and that is all we need to know.

I wonder if we'll see an athlete with de la Chapelle syndrome next.