Brave reporter undergoes inhumane sex test for sports. Brace yourselves.

When you have a female race at an international competition and positions 1,2 and 3 go to genetic males, you can't say that it doesn't affecting a great deal of competitors, it literally affected every female in that race!

It's difficult in real life to be torn between two very polarised sides.

On the bright side it's a wonderful bellweather for those who do and do not have that elusive combination of critical thinking and integrity.

Results can be surprising and depressing but are extremely informative.

The truth does not always fall halfway between whatever two opposing possibilities are presented at any given time. Behaving as though it does is generally because it's easier to try to keep the peace and paint yourself as the reasonable middle ground at the expense of fairness, logic and reason than to do the proper thinking work and then stand firmly behind what's right.

Humans as pack animals are very susceptible to that easy path.

I've seen your efforts here and concluded no melting is required.

My existence as an intersex female tends to upset a lot of people who claim that males are (or could secretly be) female. Because my body is a reminder that female and intersex does indeed exist, and they aren't it.

anyone who believes sex is not completely straightforward
Straw man argument. Sex is, in rare cases, more difficult to discern. But that doesn't mean there is not a discrete, observable answer.

Ah ok, just wanted to make sure we were on the same page! I do think JB and CS are fairly different cases. And as I say, I do think JB competing in an untested competition where other competitors are taking testosterone and other performance enhancing drugs add some complexity to fairness debates.

I feel differently about CS, but yes I think it was ultimately probably the right decision to disqualify JB and as I say, I think Andrea deserved her 1st place moment on the platform!

Surely CS takes their own advice in this scenario. There are two categories - male and female. CS doesn't qualify for the female category. To qualify for the male category, maybe CS has to train harder/better

Sweet baby Jesus and the wee donkey, surely there's a NSFW warning and some blurry filter you can apply to that quotation?

I dont think so. As I said upthread when someone asked my thoughts on worlds strongest women, my experience was that the strength sports community was fairly split on it. There was quite a bit of falling out and upset and people on both sides of the debate feeling hurt / shocked their coach or athlete felt differently etc. I think some of my insistence on recognising complexity comes from closeness rather than distance if that makes sense.

I know that JB is a transwoman and CS is a male with a male DSD. My point was that both JB and CS knew they should not be competing in female competitions and yet did/continued to attempt to.

If you are swayed by emotion @Deadlifter then picture me, and loads of other women like me, with tears streaming down our faces watching a male boxer punch a female boxer at the last Olympics.

The infuriating thing is the posts about how ridiculous it is that 200,000 girls have to undergo this cruel and unnecessary tests when there's only 200 transgirls in schools in (insert state name).

Yeah and if they hadn't spent 2 decades pretending that it's perfectly ok for those 200 trans-identified males to "run stealth" and tell no-one that they are actually male, then none of this would be necessary because it would already be normalised that schools know exactly who the trans-identifying pupils are, no documentation would have been reissued with false information on it, and the issue of working out how to ensure that trans-identifying pupils have good opportunities for sports and fitness that doesn't disrupt the rights and safety of girls would have had 2 decades worth of time and investment by now.

The expense of these tests is the expense of clearing up the mess that Stonewall Law liars have made, it is not our mess.

"some of us are out there competing in women’s sports and we do discuss it, even if not on a mumsnet thread!!'

Perhaps you are discussing it in a bubble with people who have not challenged you in the past.

I recommend that you sort through any emotionally manipulative opinions that convinced you.

And read the evidence that is not shaped by philosophical belief that either male people can be female people ( including those with DSDs that produce and / or process testosterone) or that female people should have to accept unfair competitions because one group of people have used emotionally manipulative campaigns to demand that sporting organisations prioritise a group of male people over female people. In fact, the OIC actually admitted that in a press release if I remember correctly. That they prioritised a group of male people's human rights over female people's human rights. Why? Under the name of 'inclusion'.

I would think about how fucking inclusive it is that female athletes in any country are denied representing their country and the opportunities that brings because some male people with male physical advantage have been prioritised as being more important to protect than they are?

Exactly. That’s all that “legally female” means in many places. It’s likely Khelif has the same male DSD as Semenya.

The testosterone suppression option is a legacy option for exisiting competitors.

The new SRY test will make it much fairer for men like CS in future. Their DSD will be picked up and treated, if necessary, and they will be in possession of the full facts about their condition. All the athletes who want to take part in female competition will be aware in advance that there is a slim chance of a DSD being discovered and so will make an informed choce.

ok.

Don’t worry, it’s very clear you don’t know.

If you mean me, I didn’t set out to educate. You’ll see sometimes people have asked me things and I’ve very much responded ‘I dont know!’ (Eg on my feelings re worlds strongest women just don’t feel untangled yet). I think this is still a space where we can disagree and discuss, without just setting out to ‘educate’ each other.

Also new to mumsnet doesn’t mean new to the debate - some of us are out there competing in women’s sports and we do discuss it, even if not on a mumsnet thread!!

In the last Olympics the test used to determine whether someone could box in the women's category was whether it said female in their passport. All a male had to show to compete as female was a passport that said female

Indeed.

Semenya is male.

Supressing testosterone does not make a male person 'female'. That is actually fucking offensive to female people. There are also papers recognising that reducing testosterone does not change the competitive advantages that male people have developed. Such as : skeletal proportions, grip strength, fast twitch muscles, Q angles. The list is very long.

I recommend that you read this linked thread:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5142027-save-female-sports-evidence-thread?page=1

But I also ask you to respect that fact that is it is an archive thread and not a discussion thread and to not post commentary on it.

I have to go now, but just wanted to say thanks to the people who have taken the time to engage with me in good faith! Even when I’ve disagreed, I’ve appreciated people sharing their knowledge and opinions and linking me to articles to read further etc.

Always informative to see the same old tropes being aired in a failed attempt to wedge men into women's sport and the same informed evidence being patiently produced by women that's been shared on here for so many years.

Tedious but necessary. Especially when another new poster decides to try to "educate" us out of our knowledge that there's no place for men in women's sport.

Interesting - as above, I know the IAAF have said she’s legally female. I don’t know if they’d have allowed her to compete in the male category or not!

It has been said by Dr Ross Tucker who reviewed the Semenya case and gave evidence in court (I believe), there is nothing that would have prevented Semenya, if I remember correctly, from training as a male athlete and competing in a male competition.

In the case of 5ARD and some other DSDs, they can compete in male events. If they wish to create a competition that is just for them, they should campaign for an exclusive event if they feel they cannot compete as male athletes.

As I said before, many people find out to their detriment that they are not able to compete in the sport that they want to at an elite level.

Again, why should this group of male athletes who have had the advantage of producing and processing testosterone at male levels be treated differently to any other athlete who finds out that they can not compete at elite level like they want to because their personal situation means they are excluded?

But in the case of CS (sorry, I accept I’m bringing her up again here!!) - she IS legally recognised by the IAAF as female, but isn’t allowed to compete without taking testosterone suppressing drugs (and in my experience, the people call her her a man are usually against people taking hormone blockers / medically transitioning etc)