IAAF and the Semena Case

[MillytantForceit]

IAAF denies Times report that they want to call Caster Semena a male athlete if she refuses to lower her testosterone:

www.iaaf.org/news/press-release/iaaf-response-to-media-report

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/47233633

IAAF case looks good. A win for Semena would be seismic and perhaps the end of female athletics.

Poor Caster. She really has been dragged through the mud on this.

She has, and the media have been very unpleasant about it. I feel extremely sorry for her. It brings out all sorts of racist and sexist undertones.

Atheletes with any DSD type condition should be assessed with their confidentiality protected by a medical committee on a case by case basis. There should be a blanket ‘no’ to men competing against women in single sex events.

The two issues intersect but are not totally the same and I feel that on top of some pretty vile media coverage, semenya amd other atheletes with medical conditions also are being used as a pawn for men who want to cheat.

Think of it from Caster's point of view. She was born and brought up a woman with no reason to think otherwise. She was born into a poor family and when she made her breakthrough in her late teens she was able to help her family etc. To be then told she may not be a woman and have to undergo tests etc must be awful.

She has always competed within the rules of the IAAF, she is the first athlete to congratulate and help others (she peeled Jess Judd off the track at last year's Commonwealth's), she has spent a lot of time and money distributing menstrual cups to poor girls in Africa.

It's up to the IAAF to sort this out, Caster has followed their rules. She didn't retaliate when Lynsey Sharp slagged her off last year.

Think of it from Lynsey's point of view. She finishes the olympics in sixth position - her personal best and should have got the bronze medal.
But as gold, silver and bronze all went to athletes with an unfair disadvantage that she can't ever beat, she gets nowt.
She was right - two separate races were being run.

The trouble is it's sad for caster but it's very unfair to actual biological women athletes. I would imagine that given the huge amounts of money involved in top athletics there will be unscrupulous agents now seeking out intersex children to train up as athletes and race in the women's races.

I think maybe the men's category should be made open to anyone and the women's category be for biological females only . It's not good enough to say that they have to lower their testosterone because the levels they give are not levels that a woman could reach naturally anyway. But of course you've got all the additional advantage of a male physique.

"Poor Caster. She really has been dragged through the mud on this."

I totally agree. By now folks on here should know my views on transwomen competing in women's sport, I think it is completely wrong.
However, I have never seen any reports that Caster presented as a male, only that Caster was brought up as a female from birth.
If, as I suspect is the case (and the IAAF have been shocking at releasing full details), then Caster has external genitals of a female, internal testes, and a higher than normal testosterone level than the vast majority of females.
If you look at athletic performance, her personal best at 800m is 1m 55.16s, which is nearly 2 seconds behind the World record set in 1983 by the Czech athlete Jarmila Kratochvilova.
Her best is nearly 15 seconds behind the men's World record.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caster_Semenya

There should be a hyperandrogenic category. But, like third spaces/neutral spaces, it won't validate identities so will be deemed unjust. In the meantime, Lynsey, Joanna and Melissa get thrown under the bus.

I think it should also be noted that Lynsey Sharpe is not the British record holder, Dame Kelly Holmes set a time of 1m 56s in 1995, just 1 second slower than Caster's personal best.

The Czech communist government ran a doping program.

Semenya has been badly advised and badly supported in South Africa, arrangeing photshoots in pretty dresses, 'see, she's a girl,' accusing her critics of racism and colonialism, etc.

She is not a cheat and has never sought to gain an unfair advantage.

Win or lose, the case will have massive implications. If CAS rule in Semenya's favour, it could mean the end of female athletics under IAAF governance. If the governing body win, it is an implicit recognition that female sport is inferior in performance to its male equivalent, which will raise questions about the growing calls for equal prize money across many sports.

The following article to my mind brings an element of racism to the subject.

"She, Marina Arzamasava of Belarus, American Kate Grace, Poland’s Joanna Jozwik and Canada’s Melissa Bishop, who finished fourth and set a Canadian record, did look as if they were running in one race, this for slight, slender, conventional-looking white women.

Semenya, Wambui and Niyonsaba, all strapping, powerful, flat-chested African women, looked to be running in another."

nationalpost.com/sports/olympics/christie-blatchford-female-athletes-competing-against-intersex-women-a-difficult-complex-issue

Jarmila Kratochvilova was pumped full of allsorts by the communist regime. Like the 400m record of Marita Koch of the GDR, her record has zero credibility.

"The Czech communist government ran a doping program."

I have been involved in sports - competing and administration - for forty four years, and I am well aware of "state sponsored" doping, but it wasn't just communist countries which were at it.
Scandinavian countries - blood doping at athletics and winter sports.
USA - cycling 1984 Olympics

baltimorepostexaminer.com/tainted-blood-relives-doping-scandal-1984-la-olympics/2016/04/04

Marion Jones and others - the BALCO scandal
Lance Armstrong
Carl Lewis had positive doping tests covered up.

www.nytimes.com/2016/08/05/sports/olympics/lest-we-forget-the-us-too-spent-time-in-the-doping-wilderness.html

So, if you are well aware of state sponsored doping, why are you giving Jarmila's record credibility?

it is an implicit recognition that female sport is inferior in performance to its male equivalent,

But it is inferior in terms of speed, endurance and power. That is the whole point of you gender critical feminists arguing against trans women competing with women. What about that oft quoted statistic that Serena Williams would not beat any man above 100 or so in the male seeding.

Semenya, Wambui and Niyonsaba, all strapping, powerful, flat-chested African women, looked to be running in another."

They don't look like women- "strapping" or otherwise. And if you are going to indulge in racist stereotypes to make a point they hardly fit a typical black African body type of curvy and large bospmed.

This is the Rio race. The 3 athletes in front do not look like women.

Do you mean the Zurich diamond league? The clue is on the numbers!

I don't think anyone is arguing that the athletes don't have masculine features. It's just whether DSD athletes should be allowed to compete.

I don't know the answer. I can see it from both sides. It's not like these athletes have done anything to gain advantage and if there's a third category formed it will always be the poor relation and won't count for anything.

slate.com/culture/2011/08/the-women-s-track-and-field-record-book-needs-to-be-expunged.html

I have a lot of sympathy for Caster Semenya, who wasn't aware that she had an intersex condition until after she started winning major competitions. Accusing her of 'living as a man' is as nonsensical as saying that someone can 'live as a woman' though. It relies on the reification of stereotypes.

That said, as unfortunate as it is for her, I don't think she should be eligible to compete in the women's category.

There are people who want to co-opt her case to suit their own agenda, like in this article: www.independent.co.uk/voices/caster-semenya-rio-2016-gold-800m-intersex-gender-femininity-doesnt-look-the-way-we-want-a7203506.html which compares not wanting actual men to compete in the women's category to homophobia, and horribly conflates sex and gender. (And that headline...)

"So, if you are well aware of state sponsored doping, why are you giving Jarmila's record credibility?"

Because I am a realist, and to pick out one person because they came from a certain country at a certain time is simply lazy, and ignores the fact that doping has existed across race and country for decades.
Carl Lewis was the "golden boy" of US athletics, he could do no wrong, except he could because he was a doper.
In 2003, Wade Exum the USOC director of drug control from 1991 to 2000, gave copies of documents to Sports Illustrated, that revealed some 100 US athletes failed drug tests from 1988 to 2000, arguing they should have been prevented from competing at the Olympics, but were cleared to compete.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Lewis#Use_of_stimulants

I do not give anyone credibility, I just point out the hypocrisy of sport and different countries approach to doping.

I do agree with the hypocrisy about doping. Does anyone actually believe that Farah was clean (notice that he makes a big deal about drug testing now he has retired from the track?). He associated with basically the whose who in dopers for years, avoiding tests (broken doorbell?), loads of dodgy stuff. If it ever comes out about Farah it will be like Lance Armstrong how everyone knew but no one blew the whistle.

Drugs are everywhere. It's a massive shame for the clean athletes out there but it's so hard to know who is clean or not.

Regarding Caster’s personal bests, I will speculate, with a good degree of confidence, that in competition she runs within herself. I watched her win her events at the Commonwealth Games last year with ease. She could clearly go faster. The fact that only a known doper and men are running faster is telling.

And I find it a bit rich that South Africa accuses coverage of Caster of racism. Systemic racism and poverty in South Africa lead to this: if Caster had grown up rich and white in SA or any other country, the fact she hadn’t had a period by 16 would have lead to medical assessment and diagnosis. It’s notable that only athletes from poor backgrounds get to this stage without a diagnosis.

Can't women with DSD race against women, but have more medals available? They do have an advantage (though of course its not their fault.) But if the IAAF aren't careful they will have track races where only women with DSD win medals (which has happened) that is clearly not fair on other women.
This has absolutely nothing to do with transwomen in sport though.

The fact that record has stood since 1983 is a strong indicator of doping in itself

RageAgainstTheVendingMachine

That article in Slate.com is incorrect.

"In 1983, Jarmila Kratochvilova, a previously mediocre 32-year-old Czech middle distance runner, set a world record in the 800-meter run."

Kratochvilova was not previously mediocre, she had won the silver medal at the 1980 Olympics in the 400m, so she certainly had enough speed for the 800m.