Caster Semenya- how can I explain this to DH?

[AngeloMysterioso]

Watching the athletics on TV, and they had a little video and debate about Caster Semenya. DH who can be completely pig headed at the best of times says the girls competing against her are just bitter because they can't win. A debate ensues between us about it- he's saying it's essentially the same as average height basketball players complaining about tall men having an advantage because of their height, or white sprinters complaining that black sprinters have an advantage because of their musculature. He is absolutely insistent that it's basically the same thing. How the hell do I make him understand?!

I'm not a biologist but I think it's important to note the distinction between hyperandrogenism and insensitivity to androgens (AIS).

In the former the athlete will be responding to testosterone and this would be reflected in their times. Caster Semenya's times were noted to change significantly on either side of the ruling on testosterone levels.

A free testosterone test to measure testosterone that the body can actually use as opposed to total testosterone (T) levels would presumably help with the AIS issue of lots of T but no chance of using it.

I feel very sorry for Lyndsey Sharp, Laura Muir and others if they have been running against hyperandrogenic or transgender athletes with no controls on their T levels. T levels are not like male/female height which has quite a crossover. The healthy levels for males and females are completely distinct.

Dadshere - what? Do you have access to her medical records or something?

Terry - are you implying she is taking additional testosterone?

By definition if she is not, and she is female (I'm assuming her parents probably had a reason to raise her as a girl!), then is human variation. She is unlucky enough to a condition that means she produces excess testosterone and has been subject to all sorts of shit because of it. No one moans that athletes with legs in the 0.000000001 percentile of length relative to torso should be banned from competing.

I'm querying people saying that because Caster was raised as a girl and believes she's a girl, that automatically means she is

Actually no, RiverTam, you were referring directly to mumsnet's request for people to not misgender CS. You then said 'how is it misgendering if...' etc. You basically implied that someone who has been raised one sex and truly believes they are that sex should not be afforded the courtesy of others referring to her by the correct pronouns.

Misgendering refers to using the incorrect pronouns as a way of displaying hate or prejudice. So don't make out that it's some big critique of identity politics- you were saying it's not wrong for people to use the male pronoun when referring to CS.

Transgender athletes are males. They should not compete against women.

Women with hyperandrogenism are still women.

They are women with a natural advantage, but still women.

I think it's the blurring of the boundaries that worries me most.

I exchanged a couple of Tweets about trans issues in sport with a trans guy I know. The athlete in question wasn't Caster Semenya - who by most accounts is a woman with an intersex condition - but Andraya Yearwood, the trans girl who's been wiping the floor with other girls in US school athletics.

This person's take on it shocked me, as it was the first time I had ever heard the argument they used. They said that essentially there is in fact no such thing as 'biological sex', and that the so-called male and female binary does not in fact exist. Science is much more complicated than that and to say otherwise is to retain a primary-school understanding of biology. (And this person's mother is a biologist, and they themselves have a science degree.)

So when I said that Andraya Yearwood had an advantage, my friend replied that we can't actually say that, unless we were to test the biology of every athlete on the field (and who will ever do that, especially at schools level?). They said that hormones, muscle mass, etc. are all so variable in humans that you can't categorically state that one person (perceived to be male) is faster and stronger than another person (perceived to be female). The existence of intersex conditions illustrates this.

Things like Usain Bolt's 'twitch' muscles and a basketballer's height are natural advantages that all elite athletes have. Someone else has greater lung capacity. Someone else builds muscle faster... And we don't say that this is unfair. The next step in that argument is that we shouldn't say that Caster Semenya, with her naturally higher testosterone levels, has a natural advantage. And the next step is that, since we shouldn't say it about Semenya, we are transphobic and bigoted if we say it about athletes like Andraya Yearwood.

I was floored by this argument. I still don't know how I would argue against it, especially with a scientist. I also couldn't continue because this person has married one of my dearest friends (also a trans guy) and I fear that soon I'm going to lose their friendship over this. I don't know what to think about Semenya, but if this argument - which is fuelled by Semenya's circumstances - prevails in sport, then in ten years' time all elite athletes will have a certain thing about them that no-one will be allowed to say.

My post at 12.48 was, Piglet, my most recent post was not. And I have never referred to Caster as 'he' and I have never said I agree with it. I'm not sure why you're here, tbh, as you clearly don't think this subject is up for debate. I'm asking questions because I'm interested, because I want to get at the facts, and because I care about women's sport and about women in general. In fact, I became so interested in this issue on the back of the IOC's decision last year to say that anyone who'd taken female hormones for a year and got their testosterone down to 10 units per litre (which is still 3x that of a woman) could compete in women's sports. No 'identifying' needed. A cackhanded response to this issue.

I'm not sure why you're here, tbh, as you clearly don't think this subject is up for debate.

I have as much right to be here as you do for starters.

My family are very heavily involved in sport and have followed athletics and rugby all over the world.

Carry on being the thread police though.

She's not transgender. She's a woman who has high levels of testosterone. My brother has to have injections of it because he has very low levels - does that make him a woman? Of course not!

They said that essentially there is in fact no such thing as 'biological sex'
This is just scientific bollocks.

that the so-called male and female binary does not in fact exist
It's the most obvious morphism in the human race, indeed in all sexually-reproducing creatures. If aliens landed on earth to study us, they would divide into males and females before they started on skin colour or eye shape or [insert whatever]

And it's a wonder we've managed to even survive as a species if the male/female binary doesn't exist in a very recognisable pattern.

So when I said that Andraya Yearwood had an advantage, my friend replied that we can't actually say that, unless we were to test the biology of every athlete on the field
I get this argument. Because there is no control to measure against, we can't tell exactly what advantage Yearwood has by being male. We are effectively saying she has an advantage because she has an advantage, IYSWIM. We can say that being male would tend to offer an advantage in competitive running. And furthermore, the reverse has been directly shown in transwomen athletes who, when on female hormone regimes, do become physically weaker (although often still stronger than born females).

Caster's high levels of testosterone are due to her being intersex. If a female athlete has that level and is not intersex they are banned for cheating.

my friend replied that we can't actually say that, unless we were to test the biology of every athlete on the field (and who will ever do that, especially at schools level?).

Maybe not at schools levels but at international levels it is a routine test.

Male and female athletes are divided because of the significant differences, maybe there should be more catagories as there are with parasport events eg wheelchair racers don't compete against amputees using blades.

And to extend thoughts on competitive advantage...The IOC (I think) declared that athletes could compete under their preferred gender category (ignoring the conflation of gender and sex for a moment) but, IIRC, reserved the right to sanction individuals if it is judged that they retain an unfair advantage.

But we can only say that have an unfair advantage if they continually win/improve?

So transwomen need to what? throw the odd race to demonstrate that they don't have an unfair advantage?

I'm not arguing the point, just musing.

Caster's high levels of testosterone are due to her being intersex
Again, nobody has come up with any reputable source for this.

We can't keep saying people are intersex when there is no evidence that they are. Unless having high T is, by definition, intersex. But you're going to feed the hand of the trans lobby who want PCOS under their umbrella.

Again, nobody has come up with any reputable source for this.

I agree. It has been asked for numerous times.

I beg your pardon, Piglet, my post should have been addressed to Papa, who seems to know my intentions more than I do. I'm sorry about that, should have checked more closely.

There are people on this thread who accuse others of being mean and horrid and fake news peddlers for questioning the sex of a particular athlete without absolute biological proof, then blithely go on to state without a shred of said same evidence that they are without question a woman! Perhaps they mean woman in some super all embracing new definition rather than biologically female but this is precisely the problem women's sport is facing.

different, I suggest you read sportsscientists.com/2016/05/hyperandrogenism-women-vs-women-vs-men-sport-qa-joanna-harper/ She and the interviewer are scientists and seem very clued up with good arguments as to why this needs dealing with.

RiverTam

That's ok

Thank you - I'll have a look at that and consider a bit further.

Until that conversation, I had believed that everybody, trans or otherwise accepted the existence of a biological sex binary. So I was thrown by the suggestion that it doesn't exist.

I am incredibly concerned, indeed currently researching, the impact of gender ID/males in female sport. I would certainly remain skeptical that just because the IAAF have cleared her to compete in the female category means she must be female - the direction that they and the IOC are taking female sport is not one I support and what they say does not make it so.

I have no idea what chromosomes Caster Semanya has. I have no idea how deep her fanny is or, if you believe some here, whether she's even got one. Nobody does because those are private medical records that have never been released (at least, not as far as I can find). All that exists are rumours, tabloid testimony of "a source close to XYZ" and some rather unpleasant extrapolations of her physique and sexuality.

I have never asserted she is female. I am, however, not prepared to say, without evidence, that Caster Semanya is intersex, or that she has no ovaries/uterus/vagina, or that she's AIS or CAH or whatever.

Surely the very obvious problem is that simple binary sex categories of M and F just do not cover the complexity of the many physical permutations that arise in relation to the human body?

Swimming races aren't segregated by foot size or lung capacity.
100m races aren't segregated by those with more fast twitch muscles and those with fewer.
Basketball teams aren't segregated by height.
At elite level, the majority of sports are segregated into males and females. That is the issue.
Intersex is intersex.

I had believed that everybody, trans or otherwise accepted the existence of a biological sex binary. So I was thrown by the suggestion that it doesn't exist
Oh, it's pretty common, if you frequent the right blogs, to see linguistic contortions arguing that biological sex is a social construct.

Indeed. That will be why I spend at least part of my research working out which children on a particular family are likely to get a particular genetic disease. I may as well pack up and go home. I have to wait until they are old enough to declare a gender identity before assessing their risk...

different
Surely the logical extension of your friend's argument is that male and female categories should be abandoned completely in sport? And then five or ten years down the line when we examine the top ten or twenty performers in major tournaments we will very likely find very few to no women in sports previously segregated by sex. And perhaps some of the top apparently female performers will be genetically male.

Either way, we are rapidly approaching a situation where it is not worthwhile for young girls to consider a career in elite sport.

@maidofstars but surely you recognise there is some biological variation in absolutes of sex? Swyer and turners syndrome, for example, both affect characteristics which are determined as biologically female but doesn't lead people to describe the person as intersex. And many are raised as female gender wise. Which could be seen as the family/ person 'assigning' a gender that doesn't biologically fit with the sex...

And @charlestonchaplin theres many, many more problematic barriers for women (not just girls) to compete in elite sport related to their gender than some hyperbolic concern about intersex competitors. Don't be silly.

but surely you recognise there is some biological variation in absolutes of sex?
Of course. Just as there are variations in limb number.