AIBU to think it was never that complicated to define a woman.

[Abisequer]

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has ruled that eligibility for the women’s category of Olympic events will now be limited to biological females, starting from the LA 2028 Games.

AIBU to think the category ‘women’ was never complicated and the obfuscation by certain governing bodies has compromised fairness in sport for women.

Examples of obfuscation include claims that genital checking would be needed or that biological men with lowered testosterone would be on an even playing field with biological women.

AIBU to think it was never complicated to define a woman and a cheek swab is all it takes.

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I am also really suspicious of the focus on the ‘it will be a surprise and that will be so unfair to find out’ being used as some kind of defence at the moment for campaigning to now reverse the new IOC policy.

It makes less than no sense. If we do discover a load of athletes in the female division aren't actually female then that just means the problem was even worse than we thought and now we can correct it. It's the biggest argument in favour of sex testing... if one is in fact truly supportive of female sports and not actually trying to undermine them by getting men with DSDs into them while claiming not to.

Why are you posting a photo of someone who does not have AIS, as if it were somehow relevant to what I posted?

Didn’t most of the athletes, all of the biologically male runners that competed in the women’s races have 5α-Reductase 2 deficiency?

I see you have still ignored my post about Angela Carini.

I am almost pissing myself laughing at the men crawling out of the woodwork saying they are trying to protect the dignity of women from having to take a sex test to compete.

Caster Semenya, that oh so famous lesbian with internal testicles, even said it was a child safeguarding issue.

Men, women don't need you to protect them from anything in life except misogyny, and you aren't doing very well at that in this case!

Most during what period?

When gene testing was first used, in the 1996, of the 8 athletes who failed the SRY test, 7 had AIS (either complete or partial).

I won't be able to post it in here but if you look at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complete_androgen_insensitivity_syndrome
under "signs and symptoms", you will see a couple of examples of nude adult bodies with CAIS.

PAIS can present very similarly, but with a small variance from typical email genitalia.

@DeepBluDeer

Do you have any sympathy for the female athletes that were knowingly competing against biological males?
Do you have any sympathy for Angela Carini and the way she was vilified in the press for crying and quitting against Khelief who knew he had failed a sex test BEFORE he went in the ring?

You haven't mentioned that you do have sympathy for all the female athletes that have lost out and been put in danger.

That’s very telling

Didn’t most of the athletes, all of the biologically male runners that competed in the women’s races in Rio have 5α-Reductase 2 deficiency?

You are talking about tiny numbers of people who might be disadvantaged.

A DSD male who has won a gold medal at World level has disadvantaged hundreds, probably thousands, of women on their path to that medal.

Not intentionally, and I'm not sure what points you're trying to make with it.

I agree with the IOC decision, I agree that some instances of males with DSDs in athletics are glaring obvious and ought to have been identified and prevented, and some entered competitions knowing they had a genetic advantage (one that risked the safety of females). I am just saying that is not universally true, and not all athletes with DSDs deserve to be labeled as cheats, or similar.

And I'm, again, saying I agree with the IOC's decision and rationale for that reason.

But I do not agree that all athletes with DSDs, particularly those who appeared to have a female physique, secretly knew about it and competed in bad faith.

Do you have any sympathy at the way the biological women have been treated.

It’s just you haven’t once mentioned that it has been an absolute travesty and damn right dangerous for women in sport.

You also haven’t mentioned that most if not all the male athletes knew they were male. This is the scandal!

What about the ones that did.

Would you consider the men who knew they were men cheats competing in the female category?

I agree with you on that, it isn't fair to call CAIS people cheats but then they aren't as the IOC rules allow that they compete as female.

I haven't called them cheats myself but I have huge doubts that anyone male DSD without androgen insensitivity can possibly, in this day and age, be completely unaware of their situation. Not least because I understand that sports agents have been seeking these people out for their sporting prowess as females, together with the fact that an elite athlete has a whole team of medics and other sports profession around them who can't all be that ignorant.

This subject really annoys me.

You have a penis or a vagina thus making you male or female.

Occasionally someone is born intersex.

I find the whole "identify as" just a mental illness. Every child I have taught who identifies as non binary has had huge MH issues.

How do you identify as something that is just a body part? Unless you are actually referring to stereotypes to identify to which are so massively outdated and have been fought against to treat males and females as equal (other than when physically competing).

And yes, stereotypically I would have been classified as a boy. I was always mistaken for one. Tall, short hair, football playing etc... but I'm female due to having a vagina and I really dont see why that matters or why anyone has to identify as something that actually doesn't even have an identity.

I don’t quite understand the arguments which support an individual not finding out accurate information about their bodies. That has always confused me with this angle of how devastating finding out this information is and how it then stops them from achieving their dreams.

Unexpected medical information that is sports career ending is sadly not an uncommon thing. Should there be mental health support, certainly. But it should not be a reason to stop that medical information from being established.

There should never be an onus on society to allow a dream to be achieved because someone thought themselves to be the sex they are not, and that belief means a person is competing in a category they should be excluded from. Where the fuck did that thinking come from?

And yet, Arne Ljungqvist and team successfully convinced the IOC that society was cruel to establish accurate medical history of an Olympian because it could detail life changing medical conditions. Unless this is viewed through the lens of a philiosophical theory, it is bonkers to think this happened. It really was an instance of putting theoretical philosophy ahead of established science.

To think that with all the barrage of tests the Olympic support teams do and did, that this medical information should be withheld and actually ignored is absurd. And what it also says in a way, is that those athletes deserve to be treated with less care. The argument they used can be and I think, should be, treated as treating a group of athletes in a discriminatory way.

That team started this thought that a group of athletes who lacked adequate medical treatment facilities needed to have established these conditions in childhood should then remain ignorant of their medical condition. This then led to decisions where these athletes were unable to make fully informed decisions about their future. Including whether they ever wanted to risk their future reputation of being known as someone who was male yet won acclaim as a female athlete.

They sold this concept as being ‘inclusive’ and a way to eradicate what they seem to have believed as inherent racism. Yet, couldn’t the outcome, when you evaluate it with hindsight be considered just as inherently wrong?

I believe that the second boxer from the Olympics, Lin Yu-ting had been cleared to box. Visually, that is surprising. There has been no statement that she is XX. If she is XY but androgen insensitive then I'm afraid I'd want to look very hard at who actually made the androgen insensitive judgement and how tightly controlled her home drug testing regime is.

Some - yes. Others, no.

For example, people with PAIS knew (after a failed test) that they were genetically male but have long been allowed to compete, because they were (wrongly) thought not to have an advantage. They are now (rightfully) excluded. CAIS males are still allowed to compete as females, and I'm okay with that (no male puberty effects at all = no benefit).

Beyond that, I'm not sure if "cheat" is always the appropriate word, because I'm sure the diagnosis can be a life-altering bombshell not easily processed.

Anyone who concealed or evaded a test that would have prevented them from competing - a cheat.

Someone who was allowed to compete following a test - maybe - but the biggest failing was on the governing bodies who failed to protect women's sports.

I posted a picture of the Indian athlete who has suspected AIS who you are using as an example of someone who was somehow “shocked” to find out they were male. It’s your example!

I agree, but I do think it's a good argument for including better support to those affected, along with the testing.

The athletes who are most involved with this are male with a vagina and testicles inside them.

There are women born without a vagina.

It's chromosomes, mainly, that make you male or female, not body parts.

No you didn't.

Edit: sorry, yes you did - confused with the other post.

Santhi Soundarajan is a good example of someone I feel a lot of sympathy towards - even though I also agree with the new rules that would exclude them from participating in women's sport.

I posted pictures of Santhi Soundarajan.

Ok you edited your post.

So those are photos of the Indian man you think was “shocked” to find out he was male. Everyone can decide how likely that is by looking at the photos of the man.

I think that this specific case has no transparency at all. I am not even sure that it isn’t a case of a legal challenge finding a loophole that has been exploited.

There really needs to be further information publicly released because it seems to be mired in confusion. The IBA tested for masculinisation as well and the boxer failed on that masculinisation evaluation. How and why has this boxer passed this time? Different tests? Or different criteria ?