to think Lynsey Sharp should keep her sour grapes to herself?

[WrinklyBathToes]

I can't help but feel for Caster Semenya, poor lass has been subjected to all sorts of medical interventions and whispers. It's not actually her fault, it's a natural blip, why should she be subjected to all this bitching from the losers?

I feel terribly sorry for everyone involved. It seems likely that Semenya has partial androgen insensitivity as others have said, and the fact that this was dealt with so publicly must have been very difficult for her. Imagine dealing with this diagnosis, the identity issues, fertility issues and health concerns re cancer risk etc that this throws up, whilst having the world discussing your appearance, threatening your career etc. Even some of the remarks on this thread show how difficult the world is for people with disorders of sexual development.

Assuming she has some sensitivity to testosterone (and she seems to have) I don't think she should be permitted to compete without treatment. Otherwise it's essentially the same as allowing doping. The IAAF also need to look at the arbitrary upper limit of 10nmol/l for testosterone- it's well above levels found in PCOS. Obviously I agree that other causes of hyperandrogenism need to be treated in the same way.

Interestingly when gender testing was the norm, a higher proportion of Olympic level sportswomen than one would expect were found to have XY karyotype (7/3000) in Atlanta for example. Perhaps some of these women had partial rather than complete androgen insensitivity as was presumed (given that it has a prevalence of approx 1:20000, it does suggest that these women may have had a biological advantage).

The interview I saw with Paula Radcliffe said her testosterone levels are over 10, but they don't know how much over 10 (they've managed to not release that bit).
This equates to a 3% advantage which equals a 3 second quicker run over 800m

idlike people with complete AIS have XY chromosomes and externally look completely female. No androgen receptors equals no testosterone effect in utero either. But while there's a vagina there's no uterus and an USS will show intraabdominal testes.

Oh ok nolonger

"Only if they want to remain bitter".

Ah yes, they should embrace the brave new world of biological women being effectively barred from elite sport.

Boundary expansions indeed.

I don't really see how Caster can be savouring her victory under these circumstances. She must know the result will forever be tainted, so quite a Pyrrhic victory really

Why didn't she voluntary keep her testosterone levels at a lower level so she would be seen as a fair competitor? She could legitimately claim her victory then, so surely better all round?

I've spent a lot of time reading the various media, social reader and mumsnet reactions to all this today.

I do feel sorry for Sharp and definitely don't think she should have been asked those questions on live tv at such an emotional time (though part of me also thinks that she's now gone from a comparative unknown outside of athletics circles to instant celebrity so it may not have been an accidental, unguarded moment!)

At first I thought she had no gripe as she was 6th. I had no idea Niyonsaba and Wambui were also supposedly hyperandrogenous. It seems very unfair that all the heat is on Caster, just she has a male phenotype and the other two have a female one. However, it also now seems more unfair on Sharp and the two athletes who finished ahead of her as they would have been in the medal places.

A lot of the social media flaming is centred around 'white tears' and saying that Sharp is racist. I'm sure she isn't but I do think the dialogue around the whole issue needs to be very very careful due to 1st-3rd happening to be black and 4th-6th being white. It could very very easily look like or turn into race discrimination on top of everything else.

I have no idea of the hormonal or physical make up of Semenya's or any other athletes body and that is as it should be. We have to trust the people whose business it is and the people who are experts to try and forge the best way through the minefield of fairness and advantage.

There has been some terrible reporting from sources I previously trusted. Why did the Independent article feel the need to finish their piece with a paragraph about Semenya's marriage to her girlfriend?? It had no relevance to the topic so I can only assume it was meant to leave the suggestion of her 'maleness' in readers' minds and turn us against her.

Finally, I think the closest I can come to a personal decision is that, while hyperandrogenism does confer an advantage, it is less of advantage than that gained from growing up in a rich country that funds and supports you to the hilt, providing you with everything you need to give the best possible chance of winning. I'm not sure that, for example, Semenya vs Sharp is any more unfair than, for example, Tsepang Sello (an 800m athlete from Lesotho who went out in the heats). There will never be a level playing field and hyperandrogenism is just another one of many unfair advantages.

Just part of an exciting new sport world of science and boundary expansions... You may want this for whatever reasons but I suspect most people outside the rarefied world of MN want women to race against other women.

pastizzi apart from anything else I understand the medication to supress the testosterone can also have side effects ( although she may also justifiably feel she shouldn't have to take it).

I think if anger should be directed anywhere it should be at the IAAF for introducing a ceiling for testosterone on what seems to be very little scientific evidence. This was always likely to be overturned if challenged and was never a fair approach to anyone. Had they gathered the scientific evidence and made the max level of testosterone on that basis it seems like it would have been far less likely to have been struck down ( accepting I don't know enough to know if they had sufficient evidence at the time to make that judgement, if not then there may still have been the same result for these Olympics whilst evidence was gathered/assessed but at least there would not have been a ban, followed by a reversal as we have had).

'less of an advantage' and ' Sharp vs Tsepang Sello that should say, sorry.

I don't think we can blame Caster for taking advantage of her biology if it's not against the rules to be fair. I'm sure many athletes in her situation would do the same.

A max testosterone level isn't relevant for complete AIS though, as they're always going to be very high but just not at all effective. Different for partial AIS but likely hard to ascertain how much the testosterone needs to be suppressed. I don't actually agree that Caster should have competed but I think that her point about needing proof that her raised testosterone confers an advantage for her isn't unreasonable.

I'm not saying that raised testosterone doesn't give an advantage for non intersex competitors - of course if does - but its role is less clear in individuals with AIS. Common sense suggests that while elevated testosterone in complete AIS makes no difference (no testosterone receptors) but that in partial AIS (reduced number of receptors) it probably does, but I don't think it's unreasonable for Caster to want to get the latter clarified. I don't agree with her competing though.

derxa and others. Semenya is a biological woman! That's the point. Just one with a medical condition that complicates the issue!

And I am sorry that I tried a moment of levity... I was, and still am, pissed off with the neanderthal knee jerk twattishnesss of some posters.

But that point is more vaid than some here or in the real world would have... sport and sport science, hell life , is changing at a really fast rate. All sorts of advances are being made, some of these are medical, leading to such discussions as this. 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago we did not have enough medical knowledge to be able to debate this in many universities, let alone on an anonymous internet forum (should one have existed back then).

I am no luddite, I may not embrace the change but I refuse to moan about it without even trying to understand the new subtleties and complexities our growing body of physiological research gives us!

Polish athlete, Joanna Jozwick, who finished one place ahead of Sharp, said after the race

....Asked by journalists about how to beat Caster Semenya, said: I think that once again enter the limit of testosterone. A little too ironically: let me inject a little testosterone and I will beat them.

She mentioned the situation, which took place when she went to the stadium before the race final. Margaret Wambui walked in front of me and my friend . She is three times bigger than me - it was like I do I feel? Obviously, she will do one step - I have three. It is a little unfair for us, my friend said.

As noted, I feel like the Olympic runner-up. I saw the Canadian Melissa Bishop, who was fourth and was very disappointed. She improved personal record and was behind the podium. That is very sad. I think she should be a gold medalist. I also feel like the Olympic runner-up."

Manic,

The comments about 'white tears' and racism are an example of the political projection which is causing confusion among people who do not understand the issues in this case.

Semenya's ethnicity, sexuality and gender are NOT the issue.

Her medical condition is the issue, and whether athletes with this condition, if left untreated, can fairly be allowed to compete in women's events.

pastizzi - because she wouldn't have won. Her form totally bombed when she lowered her T artificially. Which rather undermines the 'testosterone has little impact on performance' arguments.

derxa - Some countries might start to target inter sex people and train them up as athletes if this is allowed to continue.

I wonder if this is the case here. I'm not talking about Caster but about Niyonsaba and Wambui. Both of them came from absolutely nowhere and suddenly started winning races.

I was referring to levels of testosterone in conditions other than AIS but probably wasn't clear!

Part of the problem is that medical literature has always focused on the obvious issues with CAIS/PAIS- assigning gender, puberty, hormone replacement/suppression and removal of gonads which may become malignant. We don't know much about the effects on muscle mass etc- there may be differing levels of androgen insensitivity in different tissues for example. Person with AIS tend to be taller for example- which confers an advantage in many sports.

In Caster's case it seems clear that she benefits from elevated testosterone levels, but how much is not clear. And she has always abided by the rules set (it was another athlete who brought the case to CAS) so she hasn't done anything wrong in my opinion- it's up to the governing bodies to come up with some real evidence and guidelines.

My post about elevated testosterone wasn't directed at you at Rince, just at some posters who are focused on high testosterone equals automatic advantage.

I suppose what needs to be clarified is to what extent testosterone in someone with partial AIS is physiologically useful and how that can actually be quantified. Which can't be based on serum levels.

I was, and still am, pissed off with the neanderthal knee jerk twattishnesss of some posters. I'm quite happy with my neanderthal status.

Bonnie I agree (I think) but unfortunately twitter and the like make everyone a published news commentator and then those other issues do become relevant. The 'white tears' etc comments are being seen by thousands and associations are therefore being made with Sharp and racism - which is at best very hurtful and at worst career damaging.

I'm guessing from descriptions that Caster seemed female at birth, and she wasn't "assigned" anything.

Indeed, if it is the case that she has no womb and ovaries, but has internal testes then at birth she would look wholly female. You can't tell if someone has a womb just by looking at them. It would only be as she grew up and approached puberty that parents may start to question things.

Only a few intersex people are born with genitals which are neither male nor female, those are the people who used to have their gender decided by parents/doctors and who now undergo chromosonal testing as babies to see what their predominant gender is.

In Semenya's case, it's clear that she looked like a baby girl, and was raised as a girl. "Identifying" as one gender or the other doesn't come into her case at all - total red herring in the argument. The argument is about whether people who have abnormally high testosterone levels for women (beacuse they are intersex) should be allowed to compete with women with normal testosterone levels.

Semenya is a biological woman!

She isn't. She is inter-sex. She is chromosomally male but with a medical condition that prevents testosterone having its full effect. Therefore she appears female and does not benefit from testosterone's performance-enhancing effect as much as a non-intersex person with XY chromosomes (I.e. a man) would.

I feel very sorry for her and would like to see a way found that would allow her to compete fairly. But it is no good trying to pretend she is biologically a woman when that is patently untrue so won't help her cause . Any solution needs to be suitable for someone who is intersex.

derxa and others. Semenya is a biological woman! That's the point. Just one with a medical condition that complicates the issue!

But OurBlanche she's not - she's intersex but brought up and living as a woman

shiny Is it actually factually known that she is choromosonally male? Because I would say that she appears male not female at all and therefore would tend to assume that the gender testing she had to go through showed her as chromosomally female, or at least partially both.

Yes exactly. Her form bombed when she reduced her testosterone. Surely that's the end of the argument? How can she, in all good faith, celebrate her victory over biological women then? Who really wants a medal in those tainted circumstances?

I know there have been loads of drug cheat medal winners but they at least could pretend that they had won fair and square. The whole world knew at the outset that Caster had the cards massively stacked in her favour.

And it's really depressing that questioning this advantage would invoke accusations of racism. Does anyone really believe if, for example, it was a burly Russian intersex athlete instead that no-one would comment?