Views on androgen insensitivity and women’s sport participation

I agree, I meet women who look and sound a lot more male than that person every day.

In my mind there is no question that people with CAIS should be accepted as socially female but that they should be excluded from female sports when they test positive for the SRY gene. The former is kind to the individual with CAIS the latter is kind to XX females.

I think you could reasonably take the position that people with CAIS are "male" only on a genetic technicality, and maybe they shouldn't be considered male for general purposes. But crucially they then shouldn't be considered female either, because being a woman means more than just not being a man.

This is the view that there a few overlapping criteria for sex and very, very occasionally they don't line up. As opposed to the view that sex is defined entirely by genetics. Understandably though people have been cautious around definitions that allow any degree of fuzziness because of TRAs using these to argue "we can't be sure what a woman is therefore it's up to individuals to self-identity".

By way of an analogy, the over-45 age group 100 metre sprint world record in men's masters athletics is 10.72 seconds, which is slower than the all-ages women's 100 metre sprint world record of 10.49 seconds. Both times are much slower than the men's all- ages record of 9.58 seconds.

So if men over the age of 45 (only) were allowed into (all-ages) women's sprinting, would they obviously sweep the board, obviously dominate? Not really. Could men over the age of 45 be genuinely competitive in all-ages elite men's sprinting? Again, no. So would it really be that unfair to let them into women's events? It absolutely would be, because they are men. The purpose of the women's event is to see how fast it's possible for someone who's been down the female reproductive pathway to run. Men over the age of 45 have to accept that the best they can do is compete at a low/recreational level or else find dedicated age group/ masters' events.

I really must find that "Susan and the supplies cupboard" quote, it comes to mind so often sometimes on these threads.

Wouldn't it be amazing if people cared as much about being scrupulously fair to the roughly 50% of humanity that is plainly and uncomplicatedly female, as they do when it comes to making sure we are scrupulously fair to the less than a tenth of 1% of humanity whose biology is complicated by a DSD?

Oh, but silly me. Women of the everyday variety are far too boring and common to care that much about. Being the majority is advantage enough. We should just suck up being disadvantaged from time to time in things like sport to support more deserving cases, amirite?

It's not an 'open and shut' case in quite the same way as the 5-ARD athletes but I'm very much against CAIS males being eligible for female sports categories. CAIS is a condition that stunts male physical development, it's not a conditional that makes males female.

Swyer syndrome is the exception, but CAIS does still seem to be subjective and I don't support that in women's sport any more, not since the boxer who everyone read as male (too much of a coincidence that he was spotted as male if there's no difference). I can't see why the women's category became the default for some men with medical conditions rather than there being a Paralympic category.

Remember the threshold of proof and hoops Oscar Pistorius had to jump through to compete against able bodied men in the Olympics, that even the tiniest hint his blades might give an advantage was debated and they made him use shorter ones? I would like women's sport to be given that level of respect, that's all. Not having to prove an advantage over every single women before being allowed to say no, not drawn into stupid side quests about periods and hysterectomies, just an absolute hint of an advantage due to sex moved into a different category.

There is nothing shameful about having a medical condition and competing in the Paralympics, the commonwealth game did an excellent job of running them together. There will be enough people with hormonal disorders to have a category.

The impact of periods on female sporting performance is complex such as the changes in hormones throughout the cycle affect soft tissue meaning women are more prone to ligament damage at certain points so it's not just oh my periods are light so it doesn't bother me.
Male athletes don't need to factor parenthood into their career plans, women either have to opt not to have children, delay motherhood, which isn't without its challenges, or impact their careers by putting them on hold in their prime to have a baby. Males don't have to face the same dilemma at all. Numerous male sports star have become fathers while at the peak of the careers and the only impact it has on them is missing a day or two of training/competition to be at the birth.

CAIS and other edge cases do need careful consideration but if the evidence come down to women will be missing out then that should be the deciding factor. If the choice is women will be disadvantaged in a thing meant for women or a tiny percentage of males will be disadvantaged because they they don't have male advantage then sorry the women need their rights protected.

AI: While an android pelvis in a woman features masculine traits like a heart-shaped or wedge-shaped opening, it remains fundamentally a female pelvis.
Key Differences

• Overall Skeleton: A woman with an android pelvis still has other female skeletal characteristics, such as a lighter bone structure and a wider subpubic angle compared to a typical male pelvis.
• Anatomical Variation: Human pelvic shapes naturally vary across individuals and populations regardless of biological sex, meaning an android shape in a woman is just one variation of female pelvic architecture

Indeed

The person in the OP's instagram post looks male to me. Not very overtly - but there is still something in the facial bone structure and in the timbre of the voice. Even with androgen insensitivity they still have a male ( XY) blue-print/hard-drive - regardless of whether or not it has been further activated/accelerated by androgens at puberty

I agree.
Once you open the door a crack to a few men the rest will feel they have the right to barge it open because they can’t bear to be told ‘no’.

I’m irritated by those who argue that differences (height, pelvic structure, period type and so on) existing within the female population means that differences between men and women don’t matter.
The same people then often segue into these borderline or exceptional areas where, instead of acknowledging that exceptions prove (or test) the rule, they try to make the exceptions nullify the rule.
I would once have said, make an exception for CAIS. Now, I don’t, because it will be used to relentlessly push and push - as we see in this thread.
TRAs should consider where overreach has got them so far.

No, my original post, if you re-read it, said pelvic floor in the second paragraph.

We do agree. But I am not guilty of what you accused me of.

If someone is male, then they are male - despite disorders that mean that their body may not express all that male-ness in the usual manner.

I don't see the need to prove that people with CAIS do or don't have advantage over females. The rule is male vs. female, so use the cheap, easy SRY test and keep it simple. Anything else is just nibbling at boundaries in an attempt to find a loophole.

People with CAIS need to know that they have this condition (and in most places in the world, will know it before adulthood) as it has serious health implications for them. The world needs to be accepting of DSDs, and of gender non-conformity (which it generally is) without trying to use them to override the existence of sex.

Men with dwarfism may have have a lower sporting performance then men without dwarfism. And potentially less then women. Should they compete with women too?

Just because a male genetic condition causes a man to look less obviously 'manly' doesn't make them a woman and doesn't reduce their performance to match one.

Once again. Disadvantaged/vulnerable men are men. They don't get to compete with women just because we feel sorry for them.

Your argument about hysterectomies is bizarre. Athletes are young and start their sport even younger. No child is getting a hysterectomy, and no sane surgeon would give one to even an eighteen year old either without medical reason yes having female anatomy will have effected their ability to perform and train and compete for years.

One test. Male or female. That's it.

We merely need Female and Open categories.

Which you countered by introducing a whole new load of stuff about soft tissues around the pelvis.

Your original point mentioned only the bones and my response related only to the bones.

I'm glad we agree.

You cannot exclude men from women's sports using their pelvis shape as a criteria, or identity a trans person that way, because it is shared by up to 25%. of women.

Why are people so keen to find ways to over-rule and over-ride the protections afforded to female people( as a integral group) - in the interests of a few male people ( regardless of their condition or identity)?

@Lexibletheflexible

Where it really doesn't matter, we should probably have those sports be mixed at a professional level to increase participation but that's another subject entirely.

Do you understand how vanishingly few sports that is and that it already happens in those sports?

Because you were telling me off about using the term “male pelvis”!

Have to say I don't think that a person with XY chromosomes should be permitted into the female category. No! It is unfortuante for them that they have this condition whilst also wanting to play sports - but i don't think their condition over-rules the general rights of female people to single sex sporting catgeories.