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?

Most are but it's not unusual to be raised as a girl. A study published in Pediatrics in 2014 studied the gender assignment of babies born with Disorders if Sex Development. Of 118 babies with PAIS 74% were raised as boys and 26% as girls, there was a wide range of masculinisation.

YABU
Caster, Francine and Margaret all have elevated testosterone. Ergo comments like ^"it's not like Sharpe would have won anyways" is false - she would not have won gold but she would have taken bronze.
1 - Melissa Bishop 1,57.02
2 - Joanna Jóswik 1,57.37
3 - Lynsey Sharp 1,57.69

Faced with the question, "How do we define a woman?" they have answered "A woman is defined as Not A Man

Now there's an idea with a long history.
Nothing ever really changes.

Is it possible to distinguish between endogenous and exogenous testosterone, does anyone know? If not, what's to stop young teenage girls who show talent being pressured to view the current allowable testosterone level as a target not a limit, starting to dope early before the biological passport testing starts, and simply carrying it on throughout their career? They would screw up their bodies and possibly wreck their chances of having children but some could probably be encouraged or coerced to do it.

There probably is, power in much the same way as they can 'see' doped blood - the cells are misshapen having passed through tubes, been chilled etc.

But how to stop an resurgence of Easterm Bloc mentality and early doping is an entirely different game!

It's infuriating that some are making it a race issue. The race of all the women is irrelevant.

Intersex women have a huge advantage in some sports and this can only become more common. Is it fair?

I don't think it is.

I also wonder when the regulation that would have seen the Press sisters banned changed. Because that would surely have eliminated Caster.

Remember as well that Caster Semenya - and possibly the other two women on the podium yesterday - were born in parts of the world where antenatal care is not what it is in Western Europe. We're all used to having scans to pick up on abnormalities in the developing foetus and having great paediatricians to refer to if there's something not quite right when a baby is born. That's not necessarily the case in parts of South Africa, Kenya and Burundi. So it's very possible that none of the parents of these athletes had any indication that there was something biologically different about their daughter.

Agree that race has absolutely nothing to do with this argument at all.

YABU, OP. But nice try at being politically correct.
It must have been heart breaking for Lynsey and the other competitors to have their chances of winning medals taken away from them, before they even step foot on the track. Just like in the old days when everyone knew the Soviet bloc athletes were roided up to the eyeballs and everyone else had to put up with it. In the circumstances I think she was quite restrained.

I think if you have partial AIS and choose not to take medication to reduce your testosterone from male to female levels then I don't see how that person can say they are living as a woman. Regardless f how you are brought up as a child once you hit puberty you have the choice of going with your genetic sex and gonads and developing as male just penis less (although if the Guardian athletes needed clitorectomies there must be some degree of penile development as penile and clitoral tissue are similar) or suppressing your testosterone by having your testes removed and taking oestrogen to develop breasts.
Caster has chosen to go down the masculine development route and I struggle to see how she is living as a woman.

There was an interesting article in the <a class="break-all" href="http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/08/20/sports/caster-semenya-800-meters.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FSemenya%2C%20Caster&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=collection&referer=www.nytimes.com/topic/person/caster-semenya" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">NYT about the 800m controversy.

That image of the winners is extremely discombobulating. But is there any proof the other two winners are anything but masculine looking women, or is it just speculation?

It's very much a phyrric victory. I feel very sorry for Caster, as she's obviously talented and to find out a medical condition like this on such a public scale must have been really awful. Plus, I can't imagine (especially given the comments by Sharp etc) that she has the respect of her peers like I imagine other top athletes do.

So while I really feel for Caster, she's not female. The Olympics have to find a way to allow intersex people to compete without just destroying women's sports. Which is exactly the way they're going. The door has officially been opened for intersex and men to compete in the women's sports.

Might as well call it the Not A Man sports.

Wild That article basically says yes, she has a hugely unfair advantage, people are very concerned about the future of women's sports but get over it because it's all so sad for Caster

One of the athletes has male pattern baldness fgs.

Which one Bill? I'm against Caster being allowed to compete because we know her story, but do we know anything about the silver and bronze medallists other than they're masculine looking? I mean, it could be hair loss from the extensive training they do that stops periods and messes with hormones.

I just don't want to assume that someone is intersex just because they're a bit manly looking.

The other two medalists in this race are black women and they may have hair loss due to hair treatments or weaves etc, rather than male pattern baldness. Let's not make assumptions. Women can have high levels of testosterone and look masculine without being intersex.

Might as well call it the Not A Man sports.

This. The IOC, athletic body etc really need to focus on what is best for women's sport and take individuals out of the equation.

This has nothing to do with sexuality, race, transgender etc.

I've not found any evidence that the 2nd and 3rd placed athletes are intersex or affected by hyperandrogenism. Over and above the fact that they are "muscular, flat-chested, fast, and produced world-class performances very early in their track careers. "

An awful lot of elite female athletes are muscular, flat chested and fast.

Faced with the question, "How do we define a woman?" they have answered "A woman is defined as Not A Man

Surely for the purposes of sport that makes perfect sense? At the top level, women are hardly ever going to be able to compete with men, so in reality "men's" events currently almost always determine the best, regardless of gender, and women's events are supposed to determine the best among those who have the disadvantage (for sporting purposes) of being women?

So instead of "men's" and "women's" competitions we should have "open", in which anyone can participate, and "women's", where entrants are required to meet the sporting definition of female. The sporting definition is allowed to be more restrictive than definitions used for other purposes, so can exclude certain types of women if it wants to. (Probably anyone with abnormalities that makes them highly atypical could be excluded.)

A lot of the flaming of Sharp on Twitter is focused around her finishing 6th rendering Semenya's sex irrelevant. That suggests that most people are not aware of the speculation surrounding Niyonsaba and Wambui

And she also endures a lot of cybernat abuse as well, due to her saying that she would like Scotland to stay part of the UK. It's a pity she said anything to the media after the race, she should have simply said she wasn't going to comment, but she was upset after the race and for good reason.

I think it's bad that we're all discussing this woman's gender. Paula Radcliffe has made that point several times. But the problem is not going to go away.

As for recruiting intersex athletes, the IAAF needs to stop all the nationality shopping that is going on. In football, once you have played for one country at a senior level that's it. The same should be the case in athletics.

Is there any actual sex testing taking place on athletes? Apart from Semenya I mean.

If not, then surely a man can start to compete with women just because he says he's a woman? And then say he's intersex if anyone queries him.

The whole 'we just happen to have 3 intersex athletes on the same podium at the same time' thing is awfully suspicious to me. I mean, what are the chances?

Lots of people seem to be following the narrative of "Gosh, she looks like a man. She must be intersex" rather than "Gosh, she looks like a man. Wonder if she is actually a man".

The latter just seems a tad more likely to me.

Wow Theo

Just... Wow.

A quick google search tells me that Francine Niyonsaba who came 2nd has also had to take medication to suppress her testosterone levels so the intersex debate has been raised in relation to her as well as Semanya. And questions have been raised about Wambui too.

So yes, all three podium places in a women's race were won by people who have had questions raised about whether they are really women or not. I think the next three in that race had every right to be emotional and upset - and indeed those who missed out on a place in the final as well.

An awful lot of elite female athletes are muscular, flat chested and fast.
And...?