to say women don't have XY chromosomes?

[taylorswift1989]

Seeing a lot of posts on social media with people admitting they were "wrong" to call Imane Khelif a man, and that they now understand "she's a woman with XY chromosomes."

Am I going insane? A person with XY chromosomes is male! (Regardless of how they identify, of course.) Why are people saying stuff that is obviously nonsensical? Are people really that ignorant of basic biological facts?

So any woman who gives birth with donor eggs is not a mother? That’s a VERY slippery slope to go down.

What research have you done? XX = female, XY = male. People with DSDs are either male or female. Physiologically, there may be ambiguities, but genetically they are still either male or female - there are no inbetweens. What research shows that XY can equal female? And if it can, then how the hell are we supposed to tell the difference between males and females for the purposes of sport or medicine?

I mean, you're right that I haven't researched it personally and I'm not a scientist. But I have read articles by developmental biologists, and I did listen to a genetic scientist who specialises in DSDs and is currently researching the impact of people with DSDs competing in the Olympics (on the Unherd podcast, if anyone's interested) so I feel like I'm fairly clued in.

What's an SDS then?

Now you have done your research and are finding all the research on here annoying of course?

It's scientific classification. And an extreme outlier case.

Yes.

I said on another thread- this person’ want to be an Olympic medal winner does not top trump female rights. Just because Kehilif can fight women doesn’t mean he should. No one has the right to Olympic stardom. Khelif would get nowhere fighting me and he damn well knows it.

even if he was born with female genitalia/raised as a female/“feels” female, he shouldn’t be competing in women’s sports given what is now known about him. We shouldn’t be allowing men to beat up women because we feel sorry for them.

I think the real truth is if they test these athletes they have to test all the female athletes and imagine what an absolute shit show that would become. They literally have to stand by their decision that these woman are female don’t they?

Just some background on sex testing. Because of this group's lobbying sex testing was dropped.

Why?

To specifically allow male athletes, such as the two boxers and the footballers, to compete as female athletes in the Olympics. Because the IOC values inclusion as the priority, knowing as they do that male people who go through male puberty have indeed got physical advantages.

Sex testing was dropped to allow these male athletes to compete based on emotional reasoning based on inclusion. I would suggest there was a very large dose of philosophical belief behind this move as well. As this entire premise rests on these male athlete's being accepted as 'women' when the science is clear that they are male people with differences of sex development. ie. male people.

ww.nature.com/articles/gim2000258.pdf?origin=ppub&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_source=commission_junction&utm_campaign=CONR_PF018_ECOM_GL_PHSS_ALWYS_DEEPLINK&utm_content=textlink&utm_term=PID100045542&CJEVENT=f4d4c8630a0411ed831b01a80a1c0e11

From the article "At the time of testing, all female athletes at the Atlanta Games were offered a questionnaire written in both English and French asking whether in their view testing of females should be continued in future Olympics and whether or not they were made anxious by the testing procedure.18Of the 928 athletes who responded, 82% felt that testing should be continued and 94% indicated that they were not made anxious by the procedure. Forty-six athletes were made "anxious" by the testing requirements that preceded their competitive events. No males were found to masquerade as females, and all females who were found to be SRY positive competed. While a similar proportion of females failed the test as in previous Olympics (Table 2), it is noteworthy that on this occasion no false positive tests were found and no athlete was barred from competition.'

So, 82% of the women answered that they felt sex testing should continue when surveyed at the 1996 Olympics. This was ignored.

https://longreads.com/2016/08/18/the-life-and-murder-of-stella-walsh-intersex-olympic-champion/

This is a really interesting article, it mentions a lot of other athletes with a similar genetic condition. It does seem to have been happening at competitive sports for ages, and we're still no further forward with dealing with it all.

And this person did not produce any sperm. But she did not produce eggs.

I am using this to suggest that the slope is indeed slippery. Whether that slippery slope should be more clear cut for the Olympics is another matter but the idea that someone with a male genotype can’t ever have a vagina or a uterus or even give birth isn’t so straight forward as a simple PubMed search of case studies will show.

As always these cases are often outliers and it is fine to suggest that the boxing federation needs to have more clear cut rules as they do in swimming or cycling.

But if we leave sport aside. It is more problematic to suggest that these issues don’t have many many many shades of grey in terms of medicine.

Alice Roberts has a PhD in paleoanthropology and is a medical doctor, no less. Yet she's still openly disseminated the bizarre misinformation that humans, a bimorphic species, can change sex because ... clownfish.

I don't think these individuals even believe what they are saying themselves.

Women produce large gametes, men, small ones. No human being in the history of our species, ever - whether they have DSDs or not - has simultaneously produced both.

There's a lot of people who seem to "know" that particular athletes have 5-ARD or "know" they are XXY or "know" they are XY or "know" which particular body parts they have or don't have. Just a reminder that all of that is speculation.

Nonsense. He is a man with a penis. If he had Swyer Syndrome he would not be able to make testosterone - that he reportedly has male levels. Twitter trolls =/= truth

@MangshorJhol you are absolutely right.

The good news for you is that a case like this is mind boggling rare. The vast majority of DSDs are straightforward (in medical terms) in terms of what sex people actually are and what happened to cause the disruption of the developmental pathway.

But we just said they didn’t test testosterone levels??? So this is someone with XY chromosomes whose testosterone has NOT been tested.

They should test all female athletes. They are all subject to drug testing where they are watched peeing in a pot. The vast majority of female athletes support a once in a career cheek swab.

He's not stuck in the middle of anything,he's a man.

@KielderWater you are right twitter trolls =/= truth. Again, there have been no physical examinations and no public genetic tests.

.

Y=male. Always. There are many DSDs but the presence of a Y chromosome in an individual always indicates that the person was male at conception. I too am staggered by the ignorance, all these people stating that there is an 'in between'. I think it's cruel to the people who have these conditions.

So.is someone with kelinfelters classed as male or female? Or is it assessed on an individual basis?

Note there isn't a single woman XX chromosomes competing in any male sports

Of course it's the men who mainly have to top roles to decide who can compete in women's sports

that someone with a male genotype can’t ever have a vagina or a uterus or even give birth isn’t so straight forward

You are confusing karyotype with genotype. Someone with a male genotype is always male.

Here you go. An explanation of Swyer syndrome and why the Y is always male is not so clear cut.
https://rarediseases.org/rare-diseases/swyer-syndrome/

Followed by a case of someone with Swyer syndrome and a male genotype giving birth:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214911216300273

To reiterate it’s fine to argue that sports classifications need to be clear cut. It’s less clear that definitions of how we determine sex are less so. And yes these cases are always outliers.

Male