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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Guardian employs transwoman Hannah Mouncey to write about intersex sport

15 replies

TerfinUSA · 29/04/2018 10:07

Yes, the men's handball player Hannah Mouncey who is now playing women's aussie rules football conflating intersex with transgender again.

www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/apr/29/caster-semenya-the-obvious-target-in-iaaf-changes-that-only-create-a-legal-minefield

Hannah seems to be rather poorly informed.

"Semenya has hyperandrogenism, a condition where the body produces more testosterone than would be usual."

Semenya produces a normal male amount of testosterone

" Should we now do away with 7-foot basketball players as well?"

The only female 7-foot basketball player ever died in 2011 from a heart attack, aged 37, so this seems in rather poor taste. There are at least a dozen CURRENT male 7-foot basketball players in only the US NBA, and the shortest male players are around 6-foot.

"Make no mistake, the IAAF’s new policy, stating that a woman must have a testosterone level of 5.0 nanomols per litre of blood will almost certainly be ruled illegal the minute it is put before any form of human rights commission; although with the IAAF based in Monaco it’s hard to know what the process for that to happen is."

Are you really incapable of looking this up? Monaco is a member of the Council of Europe and signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights.

"It’s fair to say though that if Athletics Australia tried to enforce such a rule to domestic competition it would be highly illegal once challenged federally. "

Highly illegal why? Surely you must be capable of providing some explanation?

"Complicating matters further would be different state laws, in the ACT it is illegal to exclude trans or intersex athletes based on such grounds, "

The ACT Discrimination Act says

'Part 3 does not make unlawful discrimination on the ground of sex
in relation to the exclusion of people of one sex from participation
in any competitive sporting activity in which the strength, stamina
or physique of competitors is relevant. '

Are you really telling us the law separates people based on objective physical sex but then says they can wiggle back on the basis of arbitrary 'gender identity'. Citation needed.

"while in Victoria the current laws would likely provide enough wriggle room to be enforced."

the Victorian Equal Opportunity Act states " athletes can be discriminated against based on their sex or gender "if strength, stamina or physique is relevant"" But Hannah couldn't be arsed to explain that.

"She refuses to suppress her testosterone, and so she should."

Got any subeditors ?!

"Despite not competing in athletics, as a trans athlete these new rules wouldn’t actually affect me in the slightest if I was - this is something which largely effects intersex athletes alone"

No, these rules ONLY Affect (hello, subeditors!??!) people with specific intersex conditions in specific athletic disciplines. Not transgender athletes at all.

"The IAAF has clearly decided that a drop in testosterone significantly effects performance"

Yes, they provided studies to support that. DId you even bother to read? And SUBEDITORS? Do people actually pay for The Guardian?

" so it only stands to reason that when a trans athlete whose testosterone is suppressed finally reaches the top level of the sport they will allow them to compete without question"

eh, what? Why are you conflating intersex with transgender you outrageous person?

"For while society seems to understand the effects of what would happen if you reduced an intersex athlete like Semenya’s testosterone by only a fraction"

'A fraction'? I believe we are talking about an 85% reduction.

" people still seem to think a trans athlete who produces no testosterone would somehow maintain their previous abilities."

Uh, no. A reduction in abilities for sure. But ignoring the effective decades of 'doping' using male levels of testosterone. Female athletes have ALWAYS had low testosterone. Except for the ones who doped.

" I can’t for a second imagine the IAAF taking such action against a male runner with naturally occurring elevated testosterone."

It's not 'naturally elevated testosterone', let's not beat about the bush, we are talking about a normal male level of testosterone. But in an athlete competing in a female category.

" Nor can I imagine them doing it to a white runner for that matter."

Mate, do some fucking research.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Jos%C3%A9_Mart%C3%ADnez-Pati%C3%B1o

"Even if on an unconscious level, racism and more so in this instance, sexism, is clearly very much still a factor in how certain athletes are treated."

You're a 6'3" tall, 100kg, white, biological male. Those things have nothing to do with you.

"If the specific targeting of Semenya couldn’t be clearer, the fact that the IAAF ignored research that showed other events were more likely to benefit from elevated testosterone than the 400, 800 and 1500m can only seal the deal. Hammer throw was one such event, however the IAAF chose to not impose any restrictions on those athletes for reasons only known to them."

This is not true. The study did NOT find out that one event was more likely to benefit from testosterone, what they found is that certain events had a statistical correlation between between higher testosterone and better performance, including 400m, 400m h, 800m, and hammer. To say that hammer is more likely to benefit is NOT something you can show from the data. It's true that they haven't restricted the hammer, however there were no XY athletes in the hammer, but there were in the 800m.

This ruling is about how to allow XY women to compete in sport. As there are no XY women in the hammer, restrictions seem a bit pointless.

OP posts:
Maryz · 29/04/2018 10:25

Do you know, the way that trans people (men in particular) are using intersex people to "prove points" is just disgusting.

Ultimately we are going to be left with a horrible choice. Throw intersex people under the bus to save sport for biological women. Or throw biological women under the bus to save sport for intersex people (because doing so will allow entry to female identifying male people).

Because in the end sport will be divided (if it is divided at all) either by chromosome (leaving intersex women categorised as "male") or by testosterone level (leaving male people categorised as "female" if so they choose).

Either way it's a fucking mess. And it's about time someone in authority, somewhere, got up off their arse and announced that male bodies have no space in female sport. Or ban segregation altogether, go back to square one (no female sport) and start again.

TerfinUSA · 29/04/2018 10:40

I think transgender will end up doing immeasurable harm to intersex people. Because the TRA position is that gender is simply a matter of personal opinion, whatever you say it is.

Whereas Caster Semenya's biology is very much objective. We don't know exactly what condition Caster has, because medical records aren't public, but whatever it is, it's observable, measurable, verifiable and testable.

Caster was born that way. Despite TRA appropriation, there is no evidence Hannah Mouncey can provide for being 'incorrectly assigned at birth'.

Hannah Mouncey has an ulterior motive, which is to compete in elite women's sport despite having happily previously competed as an elite male. So all this stuff about racism and sexism is far from selfless.

OP posts:
gendercritter · 29/04/2018 10:41

Amazing critique OP. If I was intersex, I'd be furious to have my issues appropriated in such a way

Rufustheconstantreindeer · 29/04/2018 10:48

Its a ludicrous situation

Going after intersex athletes and ignoring any issues (which may be resolvable) brought up by trans athletes

LaSqrrl · 29/04/2018 11:13

The vast majority of intersex persons want TRAs to leave them alone, and stop appropriating the intersex case to legitimise 'trans'.

However, there was a thing a while ago in the Olympics about some countries using 'intersex' (not sure if they were or not) in women's events, because they had higher levels of testosterone etc. There is really only the one intersex condition that puts women on a level playing field, and that is AIS intersex - androgen insensitively syndrome - and they do have the build and appearance of females, even though genetically XY.

The default human is female, this is the template. Males are the deviation from this template, and almost all intersex conditions except for one could accurately be described as 'non female'. Because all except one have the Y chromosome. XO females are the exception, they are short of stature and infertile females.

womanformallyknownaswoman · 29/04/2018 11:16

AFL women's league had only been going for a year before Mouncey invaded their turf. The AFL women were furious as it had taken years to get a women's league going. I'll see if I can find them on Twitter and direct them over here.

And The Guardian - that paper disgusts me.

TerfAndSerf · 29/04/2018 11:17

This is yet another Guardian given opportunity to muddy the waters even further.

This is disgusting.

I hope that an intersex person or an expert on intersex conditions stands up and protests.

womanformallyknownaswoman · 29/04/2018 11:18

PS not intending to incite a mob - though they might have some useful input

TerfsUp · 29/04/2018 21:29

Typical Guardian nonsense. The Guardian cannot die a horrible flaming financial death soon enough.

lightthedarkness · 29/04/2018 21:35

Really informative post OP - thank you.

I suspect that H M is in for a bit of a shock - another figure in sport that deserves mega publicity to ensure that the general public fully understand the reality of what is happening to women's sport.

Go HM I say - carry on.

AngryAttackKittens · 29/04/2018 23:53

Surely they could have found an intersex person to write about intersex issues in relation to sports? There are multiple organizations that they could have approached.

cromeyellow0 · 30/04/2018 00:56

This should be good (I can't read as I've reached my weekly limit).
Alice Dreger spent years fighting to stop intersex kids having surgeries before they could consent. She knows what she's talking about.

www.nytimes.com/2018/04/27/opinion/caster-semenya-intersex-athletes.html

(She also wrote a book on transactivist harassment of Michael Bailey because he discussed AGP.)

TrumpTrump · 30/04/2018 01:14

Excellent post OP. Please email it to the Guardian.

Pratchet · 30/04/2018 04:49

Some transactivists don't care how many lives they ruin.

Terfulike · 30/04/2018 06:29

As an aside the guardian doesn't have a weekly limit. (?)

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