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.

Fair. The only part making me wince is the penultimate word.

Didn’t really like that article Janice, sorry.

It reads a bit fence sitting (sittingly?) but I'm glad she makes clear the threat to women's sport by allowing transwomen to compete unquestioningly.

Irony of it all is to compete they are asking affected athletes to take the contraceptive pill, something women do all the time.

The death threats Lindsay Sharp has spoken about, is being mentioned on the BBC news headlines.

I’m surprised the BBC would report this, given their history.

We are also hearing Caster speak, which is quite rare and very interesting.

Yes, hearing her speak has been quite illuminating.

This article sums it up for me. Sorry if it's been linked to already - I've read most of the thread but not all:

www.letsrun.com/news/2019/05/what-no-one-is-telling-you-about-caster-semenya-she-has-xy-chromosomes/

Yes that article is good.

The article said Caster Semenya is a great woman athlete. The article also states that 'presumably' CS has not benefited from testosterone.. but she has high levels of testosterone in the normal range for men and not for women, indeed at least over 5 times that for women. The CAS states that advantage conferred to athletes due to Y chromosomes and testsoterone is the very reason why sports segregated by biological sex and not legal gender or gender identity.

What is in comprehensible at this time is why they choose to maintain a testosterone that is almost 3 times that of the maximum range observed in healthy women and to make an exception for XY without external male genitals (which we assume in the case of CS based on the chatter surrounding this case) despite stating that it is not the presence or absence of genitalia but the presence of chromosomes that determines sex.

The Telegraph, while loudly trumpeting its support for women's sport (hollow laugh) then proceeded to rail against the ruling for forcing CS to mute her innate biology to gain acceptance

They seem to be missing some important points here.

This has just been featured on the BBC paper review with the reviewer completely confused about the difference between sex and gender.

The argument that anyone can be who they want to be (gender) is entirely different from testosterone levels and what is the ‘right’ level for her SEX.

@spreadingchestnuttree yes that is a good article

I know, it is early to be shouting at the television on a weekend.
I despair at the BBC.

spreadingchestnuttree
Thankyou for the link to that article. Vety coherent and clear.

Has anyone seen the video of CS on holiday with her wife in Mozambique? It is also very illuminating. In it she speaks and acts like the alphaest of alpha males. Her and her wife clearly have a very typical man-woman type relationship. Her speech is stereotypicaly male - using "man" liberally as in "come on, man, lets go' to the male interviewer. Does anyone know any women who speak like that? I know some very butch lesbians and I don't think even they come across as so stereotypically male. Not that there is anything wrong with any or that of course and it is nice to see what seems like a very happy couple. And CS clearly being herself. But there is clearly no way anyone could say her Y chromosomes have not featured in her development. It make me realise how gaslit we have been about CS for the last 10 years and how hard it must have been on the other runners to watch.

Thanks for the share, Igneococcus. I wonder what would happen to young athletes with the same condition at the start of their career.

I think Janice has done a good job explaining the pressures on CAS and the contrast with self id. If nothing else, the reaction to the CAS decision has shown how many people don't really understand biology. I don't think it's about rejecting it (at least not here). I have seen lots of tweets comparing her to Serena Williams, as if this were simply about visual appearance. (Also ignoring the fact that Serena Williams has has a baby.)

I just read the Gaby Hinsliff piece in the Guardian. Oh, dear God.

Then turned to the letters. Waffle about people being excluded because they don’t conform due to their ‘natural genotype’ and the ruling being ‘incredibly disheartening’. Then one from a professor in Cambridge describing CS as an ‘elite female athlete’ and claiming their ‘high level of testosterone is genetic and due to failure of the tissues to respond to testosterone secreted by the testes’. And links CS to Duttee Chand as if their cases are exactly the same.

I don’t get any of this. Just what is so very difficult to understand when people on this thread appear to have grasped the issues at play more or less at once?

she has high levels of testosterone in the normal range for men and not for women, indeed at least over 5 times that for women

What is CS’s testosterone level? i can’t find a figure. Nearest I’ve got is several articles that reference “3x normal”

Just what is so very difficult to understand when people on this thread appear to have grasped the issues at play more or less at once?

I disagree. People on this thread are drawing conclusions from conjecture. The details of CS’s condition aren’t published, and they, to me, are buying into the trans narrative of “looks like, behaves like” which means they are that sex, regardless of genitalia.

For me this is far, far, more complicated and goes beyond fairness in sport. If anyone is involved in elite sport it is not fair right from the ground up. Young girls and women are subject to mens opinion right from the start- most of those wielding selection power in governing bodies are men. I have known phenomenal athletes not make selection because they have the “wrong” body type- which usually means not “typically” athletic. I have also known extremely talented youngsters forced to retire through refusal to fund or select them.

CS is intersex. It is not as simple as she’s a man or a women, she has traits of both. Calling her a man is as incorrect as calling her a woman.

Where it leaves her place in sport is beyond me, as I do not have the full facts regarding her condition and the effects it has on her performance. Pointing and yelling “but she looks like a man” isn’t enough of an argument.

Taking t- blockers is not a solution. In fact it opens the door to trans athletes, which I categorically do not want.

The trans lobby is suprisingly quiet. Possibly because CS is getting even women to argue their point?

Didn’t really like that article Janice, sorry.

Agree about certain parts of it....."Caster always lived as a girl".for example...when evidence, interviews and photos suggest that this may well not have been the case at all ( for al practical purposes). I think we've all had a pretty swift induction over the last few days and all of the information is still not 'out there'.

Plus, Janice turner, like Martina, is probably hedging her bets in certain respects, because they both know that the trans issue is the one that is going to dominate in years to come - and they want to set aside the inter-sex issue, for now, so that it can't be used to justify transwomen competing in women's sports.

The trans lobby has long used people with inter-sex conditions to further their cause - and as many 'old school' transexuals are harmed by the radical trans movement, so are people with inter-sex conditions.

There is ignorance and there is what my mum used to call "wilful ignorance".
There is an awful lot of both around.

I have seen lots of tweets comparing her to Serena Williams, as if this were simply about visual appearance. (Also ignoring the fact that Serena Williams has has a baby.)

..and which is, of course, deeply racist. Not only are the Williams sisters biologically female, but they also look like women. Stereotypes about black people, and black women in particular, are being perpetrated. The South African sports association is now trying to suggest that the ruling around Semenya is racist. Which it is not.

Trying to make out that a black woman is being judged on her looks. the fact is that Semenya looks the way she does not because she is black, but because she has been through male puberty and has male chromosomes. She looks the way she does because for all intents and purposes she is male.

forced to "mute her innate biology" yes, muting her male XY biology.. an XX woman with no DSD would not have any male XY biology to mute. What is wrong with people?

If people have DSDs then that is a medical condition, a disability surely. Its not a natural advantage, by any measure its generally a disadvantage (difficult to come to terms with, fertility, medical risks and procedures, identity issues, sexuality and relationships, people's reactions, possibly less masculinisation/ T than other genetic males etc)

46XX genetic females who have the SRY or some other factor that produces male biology and phenotype (to a greater or lesser degree) but who are most often raised and seen as males/men, do not have a natural advantage against other men in sport as they are likely to be shorter and smaller, and possibly are not as fully masculinised.

Having a DSD is only a natural advantage if you are virilised by testosterone and/or have a Y chromosome/gene and are competing in sport against women who don't.

As someone else said upthread, and has been said over and over CS' success is due to category manipulation, not supreme physical ability.

There is ignorance and there is what my mum used to call "wilful ignorance".There is an awful lot of both around.

Well, yes, and the trans lobby are right in there too - manipulating as usual; and all of their media allies.

People on this thread are drawing conclusions from conjecture. The details of CS’s condition aren’t published, and they, to me, are buying into the trans narrative of “looks like, behaves like” which means they are that sex, regardless of genitalia.

No, the ruling includes the condition, it’s also been available for 10 years.