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?

Maybe the solution should be as simple as possession of testicles, wherever they are, excludes an athlete from women's races.

I suppose the IAAF couldn't present evidence at the Dutee Chand hearing that high testosterone confers an athletic advantage because a study has never been done to prove that bears usually shit in the woods.

Except that there hasn't been a study that says testosterone alone confers advantage. There is very little evidence proving the precise degree of competitive advantage that testosterone gives a male athlete, let alone a hyperandrogenic athlete, so the testosterone based ruling was deemed to be flawed.

It is highly unlikely that the IAAF/CAS will be able to create a procedure where athletes should be allowed to compete in one of the female or male categories and should not be excluded as a "consequence of the natural and unaltered state of their body". but they should be able to better quantify the scale of advantage a hyperandrogenic athlete would be expected to possess.

Then they can apply limits etc... knowing that they are based in science, not just their best guess - which was deemed to be both flawed and discriminatory.

Why doesn't she and others just up their testosyerone and run with the men?

Why doesn't she and others just up their testosyerone and run with the men?

You have any suggestions for how she could do this without committing a doping offence?

Sports is hitting the power of human rights. Caster is a remarkable woman but she is not a usain bolt because she is not running like for like. There maybe a few or many intersex people who have avoided sport or took medication/ surgery that maybe as talented. Whilst solutions go against human rights women's sports is in limbo and will spend many years at the courts, and may need to be treated the same as the Paralympic with category events but even that could lead to the courts.

I think we need to look at utilitarianism, our common welfare, rather than have the human rights of a few trumping the rights of half of the population.

Why doesn't she and others just up their testosyerone and run with the men?

If she did she would be banned for doping

sofa, I suppose the limiting factor for some people is androgen receptors, not androgens themselves. So if your body is quite androgen resistant you can flood yourself with testosterone and you still wouldn't be as athletically good as if you were born male. On the flip side even if you have surgery you might always be athletically better than if you had been born female (due to the irreversible advantages that puberty with testes confers- narrower pelvis etc).
So intersex people are stuck in the middle- too good to run with women possibly not matter what they do (if the IAAF can prove it), not good enough to run with men and have a chance no matter what they do.

Like the majority of people, cannot compete in sports professionally. As soon as this was discovered the athlete needs to be excluded. 'They didn't know' is not a good enough response after it is found that they have male physiology.

Intersex athletes are at a distinct advantage because of their male biology and should not be competing in women's sport!

I find it unbelievable that anyone is arguing for this.

Like the majority of people *intersex athletes

I think other sporting bodies not just the IAAF need to get to work drafting rules which are legal. Suppose the Cas decides that the IAAF is allowed to require lower testosterone after all and that works well enough that intersex people aren't winning more than 0.001% of women's athletics medals, or whatever frequency the null hypothesis reckons they should win. Great.

Then a really good intersex swimmer arrives. They have super technique, train really hard, have big muscles and huge Phelps-like hands and feet. They are required to lower their testosterone to compete. This shrinks the muscles a bit, but not the flippers. It turns out that, unlike athletics, big flippers confer more of an advantage than big muscles and they keep on winning. What to do?

Put intersex in men's races.
What's the difference?
It's ok for women to lose out but not intersex?

I think in combat sports it may be easier in practise to deal with, so long as it's known the fighter is intersex or transgender.

The professional body for MMA can clear Fallon Fox to fight, but if no opponent is willing to accept the fight (and none now seem to be) then er...

But Fox accepted her first fight without it being known she was transgender. She didn't divulge this before jumping in the ring and KO'ing her opponent. The first one was lucky because the next one got bludgeoned.

It's ok for women to lose out but not intersex?

I feel it's misogynistic. Can't discriminate/disadvantage any other minority group, but fucking over women is ok.

Same old, same old.

*Why doesn't she and others just up their testosyerone and run with the men?

You have any suggestions for how she could do this without committing a doping offence?*

And the medals wouldn't come so easy

Did Fox get sued for GBH?

Friendofbill, I think you're right. Sadly it means that intersex people will be effectively banned from international competition as they will only be good enough to win stuff at county level in men's events if that. But as you say, utilitarianism should win in this case.

These are women we are talking about. Born and raised as girls just like the rest of us. They are not men who have decided to try and infiltrate women's sport. They have been socialised and raised as girls. I find the way they are being spoken about quite upsetting. This could be anybody's young DD down the line. A lot of these athletes probably wouldn't even know that they were any different to anyone else had it not been for the testing in sport or perhaps if they had extensive testing after failing to conceive or in some cases start puberty as teenagers.

Did Fox get sued for GBH?

Her three opponents accepted the fight. No grounds for pressing charges.

The 1st one didn't know she was transgender. I believe the next two, including the one who got thoroughly smacked, did.

Her status was only confirmed because of the amount of rumours swirling about.

She hasn't had any fights since 2014. She lost the 3rd fight btw, to someone who then served a ban for doping (I think). Whether she genuinely lost that fight or threw it is anyone's guess.

Ronda Rousey said she wouldn't fight her.

Reckon the first one would have had grounds for pressing charges if she had been badly injured. She had a contract to fight a woman.

To those saying it is sad, imagine if it was your dd, she didn't know, she hasn't done anything wrong etc... that is not under dispute and it is incredibly unfortunate for those affected.

However, that doesn't make it fair. we need to fast forward 20 years and wonder whether women's sport will still exist if the rules don't change. That's what is at stake here.

It doesn't matter how they have been raised and socialised if they have significant elements of male biology which confer a significant physical advantage which a female with only female biology could not replicate without taking illegal drugs to enhance her performance.

I find it unbelievable that anyone is arguing for this. I do too.

I think other sporting bodies not just the IAAF need to get to work drafting rules which are legal. The IAAF is an umbrella organisation... many other NGOs take theire lead from them... they are the organisation set up to do such research.

I find it unbelievable that anyone is arguing for this. But nobody really is fighting for men to compete in women's sport. Chand wanted clarification based on science not conjecture... Semenya and others are women, never knew they were not 'simply' women until they reached a certain level of competition. Sport and wider society need to decide how they will treat any intersex person, in any arena... not just label them as 'not women' and then treat them like men.

There has to be better than that and this sport scenario might/could/should be the beginning of working out what that better actually is.

I agree with FriendofBill. Of course for an intersex individual this is tough, of course this could be anyone's dd, but we are all excluded from some things because our physiology isn't appropriate- otherwise all races would be an all-sex free for all. That might seem unfair, but helping one person at the expense of the many isn't fair. And women's rights are being eroded quite enough as it is. If you've got testicles, then you should not be running in a womens race.