Caster Semenya

[LilaJude]

Is anyone else outraged that sports bodies are suggesting forcing Caster Semenyer to take medication to reduce her testosterone levels?

Caster has a naturally occurring phenomenon which gives her more testosterone than the average woman, and this has been deemed a competitive advantage that needs to be medically regulated.

How is this fair? We don’t handicap other athletes for having longer legs or more muscle mass. The nature of sport is that people with exceptional bodies triumph.

It’s like these sports governing bodies are saying ‘testosterone is a man thing, women aren’t allowed it.’ But Caster does have it, naturally, and it’s just part of who she is.

I just think it’s outrageous to force a woman to medicate just because a naturally occurring condition means her body doesn’t fit with what is conventionally seen as feminine / female.

Caster just said caster ain’t going to quit

*Sport is seperated by sex.

It would be helpful to focus on this and not gender or gender identity*

This ruling opens the door for gender identity though, or am I misunderstanding?

It states an XY person can compete in womens sports, if they take testosterone blockers to reduce hormone levels. Genitalia is irrelevant.

Which is what we don’t want. I don’t want born males in womens sport. Whatever their testosterone levels.

CS is intersex, not trans. But by saying she is “born male” and insisting she is a man we are allowing a male athlete to compete against women.

That’s not a narrative I believe in. Cs may not be female in the true sense, but neither is she male. She is an exception. I don’t know what the answer is to make sport “fair”, but having been involved in elite sport all my life the absolute last thing it is is fair.

Despite all the twitter caster done. Hey hoy

bluebluezoo the TRAs would love to think this is a gotcha, that women have to choose from the lesser of two evils; accept CS as a woman/female or open the door to transwomen doping with T blockers, but there is another way that many women here would agree with I think - get rid of the rule that was made up to allows XY/CAIS/PAIS etc (that men made for men) and instead have XX only for women's sport plus open or paralympic categories. Its the only way that makes sense.

We don't have to choose from the menu we are force fed.

Caster just said caster ain’t going to quit

Can’t you bring yourself to say she?

Erm casters name is caster.

RiddleyW

Caster just said caster ain’t going to quit

Can’t you bring yourself to say she?

So now it is also inappropriate to use someone's name? JFC.

I didn’t say it was inappropriate to use her name I just thought it was weasely to so obviously avoid using a pronoun. If you want to say he then say he. Whatever.

Weasley off Ridley. Don’t police me

It’s all about “a woman denied” which is the complete opposite of what’s happening.

The journalist don't see all the women and girls denied, just one.

@RiddleyW I don't know what Caster's pronouns are. Safer to avoid offence & say Caster, no? Or is that also verboten along with so many other things?

I agree plattercake we do not have to choose. The categories are sex based and that is/should be based on biological sex. Elite sport opens the doors to fame and money that should be reserved for those deserving of it. CS has had a good life out of competing against females but now the facts are known if they want to compete it should be against males along with all other biological males eg transwomen.

Another question that doesn't seem to have been asked is regarding the actual level of CS's achievements. Given CS's condition, wth the elevated testerone levels and the fact that CS would appear to have been through puberty as a male, are the times actually that amazing? I am not saying that CS hasn't trained hard however CS's times againgst male times are not spectacular. Perhaps all this shows is that actually there should be another category for athletes with DSD.

Could DSD not be incl in the paraltmpics? They might be better able to work around the complexities of it with regards to 46XX 46XY, sensitivity to testosterone and all the other intersex conditions. That would surely be more inclusive as at present I think it's really only 46XY assigned female but who go through male puberty that are benefitting, unfairly so.

"No man, or any other human, can stop me from running.”

So that's a charming quote from Caster today after winning the 800m.

There's men.
And then there's 'other humans".

One of those 'other humans', Lynsey Sharp, came in 9th today. She talked about the death threats she's received for talking up for women's sporting rights.

www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/may/03/caster-semenya-wins-800m-doha-diamond-league-case-iaaf-athletics

You know, this is where it does start to seem horribly familiar to the trans debate. Person is revealed as XY male sensitive to androgens. Instead of actually taking a closer look at this fact and its implications, commentators in the media trip over the truth but pick themselves up and continue blithely along with the narrative of Caster as a hard done by extra special woman whom some bitter ordinary XX woman have an irrational grudge against.

I hope CS appeals and this story continues to run to its truthful conclusion. The press has been very quiet on this, someone needs to speak out for the female athletes here.

Semenya is a man embodying male stereotypes and disparaging women and taking things from them

I can't imagine it being ok to say this about Trans on this board. But it's ok now be side a person is inter-sex?

So hypocritical.

They're talking about this on Radio 5 live right now.

Robert somebody talking massive amounts of sense thank goodness. Says the media is reporting it atrociously. Pointing out CS has XY chromosomes, importance of protection of female sport category or there would be no female elite athletes, how allowing such athletes to compete in the female category is not inspiring for young girls wanting to enter the sport.

Thank goodness for someone on women's side.

Now there's some woman on, saying special women like CS need to be protected. I think she just said women who don't like it can choose to compete in other events! Unbelievable.

Can anyone explain how CS has testosterone, and is sensitive to it, yet male genitalia didn’t form correctly?

For an XY fetus to virilise normally they need to respond to androgens. For example, If there’s a androgen receptor abnormality (AIS) or enzyme defect (5 alpha reductase deficiency) this will be incomplete or absent. Testes will remain internal and external genitalia may be ambiguous or look completely female (no uterus or ovaries though).

At puberty, however, the testosterone made by the testes floods the system and allows virilisation, although it may still be less than men without the condition (except for CAIS where there is no receptor response at all).

It must be massively confusing and confronting. Everything seems fairly typically female until puberty when female changes don’t happen and male ones do.

Still, 95% of boys have started puberty by 14 years so Caster and her team would have presumably known or suspected this for a long time. The family may not have been in a position to seek medical review in early teen years when breasts hadn’t developed and periods hadn’t started but it would have been increasingly obvious that something was amiss.

Huh. I think I got blocked by ‘Fit is a Feminist Issue’ on fb for posting a comment on their article ‘Why Caster Semenya matters a great deal’:
fitisafeministissue.com/
I was very polite. I referred to Caster as ‘she’ throughout but made the point that as she was born male and is 46 XY DSD that this case could be pivotal for the future of women’s sports, with ramifications for both XY intersex people and XY transgender people who wanted to compete in XX competition. I suggested that we owe it to the next generation of female athletes to allow proper research and investigations into how/ whether XY individuals of both types could/should be allowed to compete in XX competition.
This is a self-identifying feminist blog that I have followed for around six years, and recommended to people, including on here. I know I shouldn’t be surprised but I thought that actual discussion about the future of female sport would be welcomed, even though not everyone would agree with my concern.
Feminist academics. Philosophers. Deleted my comment and banned me for suggesting that the future of males competing in women’s sports needed to be carefully considered to protect women’s sports for future female athletes.
#nodebate indeed. Fuck.
I’m assuming I’m blocked anyway - I can’t comment, follow, or like the page and it has disappeared from my notifications. Anything else that might cause that?

Someone mentioned Sean Ingle up thread. He covered the trial so I’d be surprised if he doesn’t know the full story (there’s a reference to testes in his “behind the scenes of the CS trial” piece), nor understand the relevance of CS’s genetics.

Looks like editorial meddling from the guardian.

Sorry that's happened to you 50 That is pretty disappointing. I guess you are blocked.

Unfortunately, many people will not engage the logic gear if it means having to accept they are wrong. Accepting one is wrong creates cognitive dissonance and impacts on the self-esteem.

All I can say is if one has spent a decade looking at CS and persuading oneself there is no Y chromosome at work there, the cognitive dissonance could be quite considerable. Some people just don't want to hand their woke cookies back.

“there is no Y chromosome at work” is the key phrase, isn’t it?

One of CS’s witnesses is in the Independent, he handwaves the XY problem by saying that “ The WHO clearly states that while males usually have XY sex chromosomes and females usually have XX, there are also XY females and XX males“

Whilst this is true, the WHO qualifies this as “ some males are born 46XX due to the translocation of a tiny section of the sex determining region of the Y chromosome. Similarly some females are also born 46XY due to mutations in the Y chromosome.”

Yet it certainly looks like CS’s Y chromosome is functioning as one.

Janice Turner in the Times today:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/semenya-is-casualty-of-a-vicious-gender-war-8rwz5dw57?shareToken=cecf5066b0a7718b8d040db9dc0fe3f9