To think the Khelif issue is now raising more big questions in sport

[FishersGate]

Biological men should not be fighting women how is this even happening ?? Two 'women' failed eligibility tests by the IBA. Yet the IOC deem them suitable it's mind boggling

They are allowed to compete as males against women in this competition. They know they are male. They know exactly how dangerous and unfair it is for them to box women.

They're doing it anyway. They may be 'allowed' to compete, but it's bloody well cheating.

We've had sprinters with negligible prior training and experience take the podium places in women's races. It's plausible that they had to train a lot less and devote less time.

How many women here lately have said that they go to the gym regularly but can be outlifted by their young, untrained sons?

If you don't pick up injuries like women do, and you're not training round a menstrual cycle, training is a lot more straightforward. There is an increasing amount of clinical and sports science evidence around this.

But the rules are bullshit! The rules are 'whatever sex it says in your passport', which is something a lot of countries allow you to change if you want, some countries allow you to have a passport stating you are neither male nor female which is literally impossible! It's no more of a system for what is meant to be the pinnacle of international sport than a note from your mum.

Cheating is cheating, and this is cheating.

It's the rules that are the problem, just as they were when Caster Semenya was competing. The biology and testing seem fairly straightforward.

It is also irrelevant how hard these athletes have worked.

This is emotional reasoning again.

Because the female athletes that they beat, that they displace from teams have worked hard too. In fact, those female athletes have worked even harder than those male athletes because those female athletes don't have the advantages those male athletes have.

If I find it, I will post studies that show that there is no medical reason that athletes with 5-ARD for instance, like Semenya, cannot compete at the same level as other male people. You seem to be perpetuating so much misinformation and presenting arguments solely based on emotional reasoning.

FFS. Strip away the emotional reasoning and focus on the science and the facts.

This is not a transgender identity question - as with Caster Semenya, these competitors have probably lived their whole lives thinking they are female.

In addition to all the other points in his life that he presented as male, Caster Semenya has fathered children. Fairly sure for that chunk of his life he did not consider himself female.

This articulates so brilliantly how I feel about it.

The abuse they are receiving is awful and I can't imagine how humiliating it must feel to be on the end of it.

I agree wholeheartedly that biological males should never be allowed to compete against women. But I also feel very deeply for athletes who appear to have been raised as girls now having this opportunity ripped from them in the most cruel, degrading way because there seems to be no set standard where this could be stopped much earlier.

Taking advantage of a loophole and technicality isn't 'winning'.

Beating women, grabbing women's breasts in the ring, isn't 'winning'.

What she said.

The athlete in question isn’t trans, but he isn’t a woman either. He is biologically a man, with a man’s reach, muscle strength and power.

The Boxing authorities tested him, not just his testosterone levels , but a more complex test to determine his biological sex, and the result of that is that he is male. The athlete and his country’s sports body had the opportunity to challenge the result but didn’t. Which tells you a lot really. If someone told me I was a man I would demand a retest because I am a biological woman, with breasts, a vagina, a uterus and formerly fully functioning ovaries. But he didn’t..

When they realised that the IOC was disregarding the Boxing Authority tests they sneaked him in under the pathetic and inadequate IOC rule. It is blatant cheating, we have seen it before in other sports, but not at this high level of competition in a sport which involves deliberate, violent , physical contact.

Boxers have died because of injury inflicted by their equally matched opponents, but this was not a match of equally matched opponents, by allowing a biological man to fight a biological woman the IOC was risking Angela’s life.

Tbh, physically and hormonally someone with an XY, sry positive, testosterone sensitive DSD is pretty much identical to a XY person without a DSD who has undergone some element of transition.

If the former can compete in the female category it makes the exclusion of the latter far less compelling.

If one were to be very generous, it's not even kind to Khelif to enable him to compete using a weaselly technical cheat. Someone is making a lot of money and/or political capital out of him. Someone is taking advantage of a person with a Disorder of Sexual Development, putting women at risk, and decimating women's sport. A whole lot of people have colluded in this situation and all are culpable, anger can be direct at Khelif, but he is just the symptom of the problem.

FFS!

They are male!

And the discussion is being had to get the IOC to finally close the loophole that they allowed to remain open because they prioritised inclusion over fairness as per Budgett's announcement after the Tokyo Olympics.

We know that it is allowed. As to whether it is cheating or not, if a person competes knowingly in a protected category where they know they have a physical advantage over the intended athletes the category is supposed to protect, do you think that is cheating?

If a loophole allowed a 25 year old to compete in a masters category for female over 85 athletes, would you consider that cheating? yes or no?

This, absolutely. It is very simple these days to tell a person’s sex. I would be surprised if any man with a DSD could reach anywhere near Olympic level without having found out he is male.

I sympathise with anyone genuinely brought up to believe they are the other sex. But wouldn’t the mistake become obvious after puberty? Both Taiwan and Algeria have access to modern health facilities.

I don't think most people are saying he's a villan. But by now he clearly knows he has an unfair physical advantage over an opponent and gives zero shits. It's horrendous that it has ever gone this far, he should never have been allowed to compete.

For those saying it's a shame for these athletes who perhaps started their sport before they understood their chromosome disorder, do you not understand that this is what competitive sport is? Thousands of people start a spot and don't get to compete at the highest level. They get injured, don't get selected, lose funding etc.

By continuing in their sport they are denying female athletes (who may also be trying to fit in pregnancy and birth around the Olympic cycle) the chance of selection and success.

yes

The match was simply unfair. I feel sorry for Angela Carini.

It's not really uncommon for people training heavily in sports to not have periods. Dance is one particularly known for it but I imagine it won't be unknown in boxing. The stress you're putting your body under makes them stop. If she's been training since she was young it's feasible that this didn't cause concern for this reason.

Of course it should be obvious to a male person that they are male when their voice breaks, their bodies get more hairy and muscular and they never start having periods.

46 XY DSD is not a particularly complex condition (although there are some incredibly rare DSDs which are).

Men with 46 XY DSD are really not that different to other men, except that they have a smaller penis and undescended testicles.

These male/female boxers are putting women's life in danger. He/she punched the Italian boxer so hard, he/she smashed her nose in and that boxer realized it was pointless, conceded after 46 seconds and had all her hard work and dedication mocked. He/she is benefitting from his male physique and he could not give a f* about her grief, her despair and how he had made her training, her dedication and her livelihood irrelevant. If people feel sorry for him and don't care about her, then you are misogynists just like the TRAs

I saw with my own eyes what happened, I trust my eyes and my brain, that was no woman, that was a man. He may have a medical condition, but he's a man and should never been in that ring! His behaviour afterwards toward Angela was male behaviour too, she was tamping and didn't want him anywhere near her, so what did he do, grabbed her breast and kept trying to get her to take notice of him when she so obviously didn't want to be anywhere near him. He cheated then humilated her further by groping her!

I hope it does raise questions, I hope that men are kept far away from womens sports(and everywhere else), but I won't hold my breath.

Yaaay here it is

People often claim that training hard can make having periods less likely. It doesn't, however, cause your voice to break or cause you to grow an Adam's apple.

People really are clutching at straws here.

If you go through puberty and benefit from the increased muscularity and other male puberty specific changes, then you will always have an unfair advantage in women's sports. Although this could be a complicated issue, if you are found to have XY chromosome and went through puberty with hormone levels that are normal for a male then it seems like a no brainer that you can never compete in women's sports. Even if you manipulate your hormones to resemble a female, you always have an unfair growth/development advantage.