AIBU to point people to an article on the BBC website about the gender row on boxing at the Olympics?

[GenderRow]

This article on the BBC website is the most informative explanation of DSD I have read:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crlr8gp813ko.amp

Before reading this, I was certain that Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting had male bodies. Having read the BBC article, I can see that it is by no means definite.
I feel very sorry for both of these 2 boxers that the International Olympic Committee have failed to develop proper testing procedures that would determine whether having a DSD would give an unfair advantage in the female boxing category. The IOC should have investigated this issue properly for Khelif and Yu-ting before they were allowed to compete in the Olympics. It is such a shame that these boxers have the humiliation of us all discussing their intimate medical details.

How can a person who has gone through male puberty be a 'cis woman'?

And if you genuinely believe that this is a 'far right' issue, then you have not been listening to the vast number of socialist and left wing feminists who have been campaigning on this very issue. Or perhaps you misunderstood because you thought it was about a different group of male people?

Either way, feminists have been fighting for the following for a very long time now:

That sports be protected to be fair and safe for female athletes.

This means that any male athlete that has been found to have gone through any degree of male puberty should be excluded. Because those male athletes have a physical advantage that is never going to be available to female athletes.

This means all male athletes with pubertal advantage whatever 'gender' they identify as and includes those who have a male difference of sex development that includes those males having testes (visible externally or not) and are producing and processing testosterone.

At the moment, athletes who are male with a difference of sex development that means their bodies do not produce or process testosterone at all are included in the female category.

This has always been the basis of feminist campaigns around this issue. This is the 'centre'. It is solely based on the principle of what happens when you allow male athletes to compete in the female category when they have any degree of virilisation.

Including those male athletes discriminates illegitimately against female athletes because it violates those female athletes' needs and rights to safe and fair competition. PLUS it actively removes the equal opportunity for those female athletes to achieve their full potential and all the opportunities that gives them.

I am confused as to why you have positioned this as being 'far right'?

Sports are won on on bodies. We cannot base discrimination legitimately on emotions and emotional histories.

There is inclusion. And then there is male inclusion that simply continues the discrimination, and oppression, of female people.

It says very clearly having a Y chromosome doesn't mean you have the STY male switch on or you can process testosterone in a way that advantages you if you produce it.

Ignoring the evidence from our eyes and not talking about physique for a moment, Khelif's own coach has said that she has high testosterone ad a justification for why she's so good. How could someone with CAIS benefit from testosterone if they're insensitive to it? That doesn't make any sense

This is quite good

The other poster was asking what evidence you (as an individual) have that you are female. Only females can birth children. So saying 'I birthed children' is a legitimate answer to the specific question asked.

The question was not what defines the female sex. That would be producing a large immobile gamete ( an egg).

In the article. Read it again. It says so.

I can't remember who tweeted it but I liked the suggestion that the IOC should use each boxer's weight at birth to determine their weight class. It makes just as much sense as taking a passport as the true assessment of someone's sex.

What makes you a woman is having a physiology and reproductive system that develops in line with the production of large gametes (eggs) - Mullerian pathway.

Men develop to produce small gametes (sperm) - wolffian pathway.

Disorders can disrupt these developments, but we all fall into one or the other camp.

If sex isn't binary whats the name for the other sexes please?

I am confused as to why you have positioned this as being 'far right'?

There is a strand of the left that seems to have totally forgotten that women's safety, opportunities and dignity matter. Perhaps they never believed it in the first place.

It's like Whack-a-mole around here. You think the issue has been clearly explained and yet another 'but I don't understand' post pops up.

The BBC sex and gender correspondent understands but is muddying the water as much as they possibly can.

It's really not that complicated.

The boxers have been tested and have been shown to have

1. XY Chromosomes AND
2. A competitive advantage

That's why they were banned from competing in women's competition.

The testing wasn't carried out by the Russians. It wasn't carried out just once.

Furthermore the IOC has clarified that this is a 'DSD' issue

It's a DSD that confers competitive advantage so will not be Swyers or CAIS - it is likely to be 5ARD.

It doesn't matter what these boxers personal history is, or whether they have been exploited by their coaches. It doesn't matter what their body looked like when they were born, or even now.

IOC's policy is based on inclusion - they are allowing them to compete because they do not need them to be women, they are happy to accept a passport with an 'F' in it.

Let's hope that changes for the next Olympics.

For now medals and monetary prizes have been stolen from women - not just this olympics and not just in boxing.

Sex is binary.

There are only people with genotypes that are male or female genotypes. And after further testing, there are then people who fit into a particular sex category.

There is no third sex. There are no people who are not either male or female. And reproduction requires an ova and sperm.

There are plenty of body variations around male and female, but those do not mean that humans only come with bodies either formed around the production of large or small gametes, regardless of the production status of either of those gametes in the lifetime of that human.

What? I never said that not birthing a child is evidence that you're male?! But pushing a baby out of my vagina is enough evidence for me that I'm female.

(i can't believe I need to clarify this, but to be completely clear this doesn't mean that I'm arguing that women who have c-sections are also male. It's not an "if and only if" situation).

Quite.

I also think that somehow, due to the current horrors of what is happening in the UK at the moment regards riots, 'far right' has become a catch all for thoughts that good people should not have. Or something along that line.

It is remarkable though that people cannot see the discrimination against female athletes in this situation. It is so clouded by the emotional story that they simply cannot analyse it for themselves.

Yes exactly. It's just a way of shutting down points of view people don't want to hear.

I expect that with this topic, it's to do with the considerable cognitive dissonance people are having to maintain to convince themselves that men should have the right to fight women in the name of sport. Because surely very few people genuinely believe that (at least I hope they don't)

That's not a statement from the expert, it's the author of the article who either hasn't understood what she's been told or has an agenda to push.

Note to self: What I got from this thread:
Understanding is binary: get it/ do not get it
Thanks and adios amigo

And Keating, how many times over these weeks of boxing threads have we seen people who declare that discussions around this special group of male people are nothing like the discussions around males with trans identities?

When, because it is sports and relies on bodies not feelings, it absolutely is the same discussion.

All because those very very rare males with DSDs that don’t lead to virilisation of their bodies. Those with CAIS and Swyers etc have now been politicised again by people trying to force inclusion of a group of male people who should be excluded.

The campaigns have always been clear though. It has always been about illegitimate negative discrimination against female athletes.

Well quite. But not in the way you think it is.

@MushMonster I think you'll find it's amigas

If your point was valid you would be able to argue it. So we all draw our own conclusions here.

OMG! Another one! What’s this absolute obsession with shoehorning two male people into female sport! The evidence is obvious for anyone with functioning eyes. Moreover, they have XY chromosomes. Interestingly, the ‘ooh, but they’re women’ group seem to have now largely accepted this - but have, as a consequence, moved onto Swyers and CAIS, all in a desperate attempt to squeeze them into female boxing 🙄

They’ve gone through male puberty so don’t have CAIS or Swyers. Ooh, but it’s complicated, see? No, it’s not. This looks like another example of people with DSDs being used to, basically, cheat at female sports - with their consent, of course. They bloody well know they’re male.

Elite sport is not about being kind and giving everyone a go.

If the cheek swab test was used, coaches, sports bodies, parents would be using it from early on. It wouldn't come as a surprise to anyone at the Olympic Games.

If you have XY chromosomes and can't/won't cut it competing in the male category then elite sport is not for you. Yes, this will also exclude some potential athletes who derive no benefit from having XY chromosomes.

The binary approach is for elite sport. This is not about how people should live their lives outside of sport.

Having birthed a child is incontrovertible evidence of being female.

This does not in any way imply that a woman who has not given birth is not a woman.

OK, so where is your proof that Imane hasn't gone through female puberty or had periods?

And mentioning the contested test she underwent pre Olympics isn't proof.

Many people getting expectedly het-up about my replies but you're all missing my points, which are to point out flaws in your own logic. (Many press outlets are contributing to this.)

Regarding Imane, this is all speculation, nothing else. The test results people keep referring to are contested, they haven't been verified.

Without the test results all accusers have to go on is her physical appearance.

It's deeply offensive to all women to accuse Imane of dishonesty about her sex because to some people she looks masculine (tall & muscular, not unusual for an athlete). Fatima Whitbread must be so relieved she's not competing now.

The irony is that so many gender critical people protest that people aren't trans simply because they don't look stereotypically male /female or have stereotypical male/female interests...and yet the same GC critical people using stereotypes to justify bullying athletes such as Imane.

While there are legitimate safety & fairness concerns in gender-segregated sports, doubling-down on gender-segregation isn't the way to resolve them.

Note also how I don't resort to insults & slurs to defend my points.

I encourage people to not take opposing educated views as personal attacks - or to assume the holder of them is stupid - because they may not be immediately understood. I encourage people to do more than read sensationalist headlines and articles which fan the culture war flames. And I encourage people to suspend their own views for a time to give themselves the space to consider that the logic they're using may be flawed, and that they be basing their judgements on falsehoods and not facts.

“What’s this absolute obsession with shoehorning two male people into female sport!”

Don’t forget Banda in the Zambian football team. And Racheal Kundananji. Both who the Zambian Football organisation decided not to put forward for sex testing because they would fail so didn’t put them in the team when one competition tried to protect female sports. I wish FIFA would protect women’s sports too. But so far they have been very weak.