To be worried about the future of WOMEN'S athletics

[TeamCersei]

Just that really.

I've been avidly following the athletics and have noticed that at least two countries where the competitors are, how can I say this tactfully,? Are of dubious gender.
and guess what. They win the races. Every time.

How can women compete against this?
How is it fair?

I'm prepared to get my arse handed on a plate but I don't care.
I think this needs to be discussed.
God only knows how it feels from a competitor's point of view.
No matter how hard you train, the best woman can't hope to win against'men'

but I think that the hate here for intersex

I call bullshit on that statement.
I love to watch Semenya run. Semenya's a joy to watch.
there's no hate.
Merely a deep concern for the direction that Women's Athletics is taking these days.
It is worrying.

It is hate. It is one thing to question where thing are at with Semenya in terms of the science, the T advantages and her 5-ARD status and what advantages she gets from all of that (see Maria José Martínez-Patiño as another example).

When "she" is put in brackets for no reason other than not being female enough, its not about the direction of womens athletics. Its about the individual and hate for what she is.

BS.
Stop trying to derail the thread.
A lot of posters have said IANBU.
So why not open up the discussin around it?
Instead of trying to close things down.

its not about the direction of womens athletics.

It's all about the direction of womens athletics.
where have you been recently?
I'm not the only one to have raised conerns recently.
The athletes themselves find it difficult to speak out, because of sponsorships etc and the fear of being seen to be 'unsportsmanlike' but that's the beauty of living in a free society:-
we can have a little thing called Discussion.

The athletes themselves find it difficult to speak out, because of sponsorships etc and the fear of being seen to be 'unsportsmanlike

No such restrictions on us discussing it.
Even if people do try to derail.

Out and proud men.
Everyone else (women, intersex, transgender) fight it out amongst yourselves. Don't be troubling us. You aren't going faster, higher, longer...

So we can have a free society based discussion provided whatever is posted doesnt derail the thread according whatever arbitrary rules you decide (free societies guarantee little re discussion in online forums by the way - perhaps only that a government has to follow rules to stop it. MN could do anything and you'd be free to only whistle in the wing).

Anyway.

The point I was making is that the issue about intersex athletes, which is a legitimate topic (as long as its backed by science as opposed to feelings), is different from how individuals are treated.

Since you seem scatoiclically keen on the term bullshit I will say it was bullshit of you to refer to the athlete concerned as a "her" in brackets, thus denoting your desire to deny her the identity she has had for her entire life. This is not a man who has changed sex to take advantage of women athletes. This was a person, who at the age of 18, found out that her body was not as female as her competitors. Nor was it male which is also kind of important to remember when you complain that she hasnt been banished to the other gender.

This is a complex issue which the IAAF and CAS are looking at with appropriate scientific information. You have made it about one person with your hate of even granting her the identity she has had her entire life.

I'm sorry if I'm upsetting some people, but I think this subject needs to be aired.

It completely does need to be aired. Women's sport is finished if these people are allowed to compete. But who cares about women eh?

This is a complex issue which the IAAF and CAS are looking at with appropriate scientific information.

and that's all we want really.
It does need to be looked into.
Casta Semenya isn't the only one.
There are quite a few who are intersex and are competing in the women's competitions.

these people

Oh.

It does need to be looked into.

Intersex athletes is an issue that has a 70 years or more history. Things change as we know more. See José Martínez-Patiño as an example of women caught up in previous testing regimes.

It used to be that it was a visual test. Show us your vagina - congrats, you are a woman. This was up until the 1960s. Then we had chromosone-based gender testing.Officials collected mouth scrapings and ran a simple test for the presence of two X chromosomes. The method proved to be unreliable, since it's possible for a biological male to have an extra X chromosome (XXY) or a female to only have one X chromosome. By 1992 there were tests for genes related to embryo development - SRY. If you had SRY gene material you werent a woman. That test didn't work, either. Having the SRY gene material, or even a Y chromosome, doesn't always make you a man. Some people born with a Y chromosome develop all the physical characteristics of a woman except internal female sex organs.This can result from a defect in one of the genes that allows the body to process testosterone. Someone with this condition (known as "androgen insensitivity syndrome") might be XY, and she might develop testes. But she'll end up a woman, because her body never responds to the testosterone she's producing. Other signs of AIS include hairless genitalia and the absence of menstruation.

The new rules (prior to the current suspension of them I think) had, when and if, Semenya failed the initial hormone screen, she’d be examined in more detail to see if her testosterone was “functional” enough to give her an advantage. How would the doctors figure out if her testosterone was functional? They’d check how much of it was bound to her receptors, screen her for known mutations in those same receptors, weigh the hoarseness of her voice, rate the development of her pubic hair and breasts, evaluate her muscles, size her labia, palpate her vagina, and measure her anogenital distance. In other words, they’d try to calculate the degree to which she’d been virilized—or one might say, made “manly”—by her intersex condition.

It is, very invasively, being looked into.

It's interesting to look into these types of threads. I imagine this is what a conversation on immigration looks like on a conservative forum.

You folk are the same.

In what way, BadHatter?

If it were me I would have men & woman & intersex competitors running together ( nice,y of course no crazy male joggers pushing anyone under a bus 😂)

First man over the wins the men's category
First woman over the line wins the woman's category

First intersex person over the line wins the intersex category
Although it's probably to simple so wouldn't work

Its about the individual and hate for what she is

Not at all. Not that being said to hate someone bothers me in these kind of situations given its said so easily to anyone with an opinion thats different to the one people such as yourself and others on the thread want everyone believing. Its not going to happen.

Its about the individual and hate for what she is

Its about the fact Semenya is running in the wrong race.

YANBU. Not at. Not one little bit. Womens sport will soon be lost.

*The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) gave the IAAF two years to compile evidence demonstrating that high levels of testosterone had a significant impact on performance.
*
Every single men's world record in athletics is faster, higher, further than the women's records. Maybe it is not the testosterone, current or during development, that is the reason for that but I can't easily come up with another explanation.

It's not just testosterone. Men have greater muscle mass, better cardiovascular capability, bigger bones, stronger ligaments and greater capacity for endurance.

That's why men compete separately from women.

Semanya and Wambui are just the tip of the iceberg. The Olympic ruling on trans athletes means that women's athletics is dead in the water.

A good example of why this is wrong comes from Caitlyn Jenner. As 'Bruce Jenner', they were the 26th best athlete worldwide at the decathlon (an event which women are not even allowed to compete in!). However, as 'Caitlyn Jenner', they hold the world record for women in this sport

That is bullshit. Caitlyn Jenner does not hold the women's world decathlon record. There is a scoring table for the women's decathlon- Caitlyn Jenner is not on it.

Additionally, to the OP, the women's 800m final is tomorrow so you are talking about the heats or semi-finals. I would say it is pretty obvious that Caster Semenya and Margaret Wambui are going to get through to the finals. Neither has 'won' anything yet. Caster Semenya took BRONZE in the 1500 metre final. What is your explanation for that, if she is at such a huge advantage? She runs nowhere close to men's times.

I do kind of see the issue, but we are not talking about biological men racing. They were raised female (and I am not even sure it has been confirmed that Francine Nyonsaba or Margaret Wambui even are intersex and I am pretty sure that despite your nasty comments about shorts, that neither has a penis or have ever had one).

Womens sport will soon be lost

This sort of talk sounds a bit like idiots who say whites will soon be a minority in the UK. Sorry, but we are talking about a couple of people who have/may have a hormonal insensitivity/imbalance that they were born with, not a situation where men are overrunning women's athletics. Wambui and Semenya are not and have never been men.

Paula Radcliffe is also a freak of nature with a much higher than average lung capacity. I don't hear anyone saying she should not have been allowed to run her races.

Paula Radcliffe doesn't have restocked anc a mans physique.

!
PR doesn't have testes and a mans physique.

I think it is totally wrong for someone who was born as a man to compete with women.

BUT:

A corollary to this is whether equal prize money is fair in all sports (especially tennis). It seems to me that a sportsperson should earn on who is prepared to pay what to see them play (a bit like models where women are far better paid).

It seems strange to say men should not compete against women, because they are not (physically) equal but should be equally paid otherwise it is discriminatory.

There is a nexus here, although many will pretend not to see it.

Pap how long do you think womens sport has when it is being taken over by men?

Educate yourself.
Read the links kindly posted by others.

This sort of talk sounds a bit like idiots who say whites will soon be a minority in the UK.

To linken my comment to racisim shows how uneducated you really are.

Hmmm...the way that I see it, but then again I haven't really given it much thought🤔 Technically, if you were born a man but converted to a woman (finished the whole course of treatment), you then have significantly lower levels of testosterone than you did prior to the transition. This means, within the endocrine system (your hormonal response) that it would still be just as difficult for these transitioned woman to build muscle at a higher rate than their competitors. (Testosterone being one of the main hormones to account for men's naturally more bulkier physique). Having said that, they will still carry over their natural body frame so often will be larger.

Ahh I don't know, I can tell this is going to become a big debate within the athletics community 😣