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.

"Mary I give in. You seem quite determined to misunderstand me."

No I don't think I do. My point is that there's not such a big gap between certain intersex athletes and Laurel Hubbard in terms of biology. You want to distinguish them, I say 'if you have/had testes then you don't belong in women's sport'

'If all of that means that some or all intersex athletes are also banned from competing against female athletes, so be it! BUT do the science first.'

I'm not sure how helpful this is. Firstly as I noted previously, it might not be possible to study, as there aren't enough people with relevant (in sporting terms) intersex conditions, noting that you would not want to test the whole population, but only the elite 99th percentile or whatever.

And secondly, the prevaricating about this is what is used by Laurel Hubbard et al to compete. We are already at the point where it's fairly widely accepted that transwomen are actually women 'in the wrong body' or some such mental gymnastics, so I don't think it's realistic to believe that any kind of fruitless attempt to quantify whether there is a edge for a given intersex condition in a given sport will ever have the effect of excluding those non-intersex individuals who simply choose to transition to female later in life.

An individual who went through puberty with testes should not be competing in women's sport.

"An individual who went through puberty with testes should not be competing in women's sport."

If the IOC and other organisations used their brains, then this should be the gold standard in every sport.

Surely it can't be too tricky to check whether someone is male or female before allowing them to compete in sports.

We all know what we were born.

How about categories like this?

XX, no artificial hormones
XY, no artificial hormones
Open, artificial hormones permitted.

Like the bodybuilding categories of 'Natural' and 'We don't ask too many questions, so try not to die', but better regulated?

Sounds like a plan.

Something needs to be done before women's sport is decimated.

We all know what we were born.

Well, no, in the case of a few intersex people, especially in less medically advanced countries, that may not be the case. A few babies are misidentified based on external genitalia. This may apply to Caster Semenya.

Note the repeated 'few'!

*2019StandingforWomen
*
We all know what we were born

It belatedly occurs to me this may be one of the reasons some people are pushing to have sex erased from birth records.

I agree with this and cannot understand why sports bodies are tying themselves into knots trying to invent more and more complex rules when nature and science have given us an easy answer.

BettyDuMonde Mon 18-Feb-19 11:14:03

Personally, I think it’s not really the testosterone level that should be the defining factor, but the presence of a Y chromosome.

This can be determined via a cheap and simple blood test (no awful genital inspection required!) and should probably be done as a screen for ALL female athletes competing at a certain level, prior to the competition taking place.

If sporting bodies are allowed to share a single record, it would only need to be done once or twice (the second one to verify the results of the first) if not (due to data and privacy law) it might need to be repeated for each competitive body.

No Y chromosome, no problem!

• Personally, I think it’s not really the testosterone level that should be the defining factor, but the presence of a Y chromosome.

I think it has to be both.
No Y chromosome and testosterone within female range. Transmen on T shouldn't be competing against women either.

The men's category should be the 'inclusive' one.

Seb Coe on the news last night very clearly said this is about maintaining fairness "for women and girls", that sounded promising.

Intersex cases are rare and easily diagnosed these days by testing for Y chromosome, this should make ambiguity a thing of the past.

My point is that there's not such a big gap between certain intersex athletes and Laurel Hubbard in terms of biology. You want to distinguish them, I say 'if you have/had testes then you don't belong in womens' sport So no knowledge actual effects of being born intersex with internal or vestigial testes in order to aply any level of fairness then! Just a blanket ban even if no measurable benefit can be ascertained.

Firstly as I noted previously, it might not be possible to study, as there aren't enough people with relevant (in sporting terms) intersex conditions, noting that you would not want to test the whole population, but only the elite 99th percentile or whatever. On re-consideration, more/better research into the condition may well be of benefit to all.

And secondly, the prevaricating about this is what is used by Laurel Hubbard et al to compete. Which is where we agree!

...I don't think it's realistic to believe that any kind of fruitless attempt to quantify whether there is a edge for a given intersex condition in a given sport will ever have the effect of excluding those non-intersex individuals who simply choose to transition to female later in life. Why fruitless? And again there is that difference. I cannot agree that intersex indivuals should be 'lumped in' with trans individuals!

An individual who went through puberty with testes should not be competing in women's sport. But that's the point! ALL transwomen to date have gone through male puberty. Not all intersex individuals will have.

As Errol said The men's category should be the inclusive one. If, as you think Mary intersex women are the same as men they will be able to compete against them fairly. But if, as they think, they cannot then they and the IFAA will be back to square one.

Hence the need for specific scientific studies, so either side can show it has the right/wrong of it!

Intersex cases are rare and easily diagnosed these days by testing for Y chromosome, this should make ambiguity a thing of the past. Unfortunately the testing is not available in countries where young women take advantage of sport as an escape from grinding poverty.

By the time they know they are intersex they and many others have invested inordinate amounts of money, time and effort into their training. That is hwy the women who are protesting the changes are protesting the changes!

In the future it may be more possible - but any ban should be based on reality!

We lambast the TRAs for going on feelings, after all!

"Intersex cases are rare and easily diagnosed these days by testing for Y chromosome, this should make ambiguity a thing of the past."

I doubt it, in fact.

There is some history here.

www.therecord.com/living-story/6791821-the-gender-games-who-s-a-man-and-who-s-a-woman-/

In terms of the chronology, they start with testing for the Y chromosome, then for the SRY gene, which is a gene found on the Y chromosome (so a bit more specific/accurate than just Y chromosome), but that still excluded (possibly inter-alia):

5-ARD (the absence of DHT meaning ambiguous/female genitalia at birth, but full testosterone) - likely to produce fertile male gametes
CAIS (testes but no response to testosterone) - phenotypically female, but possibly taller, infertile
PAIS (testes but only partial response to testosterone, resulting in something between a undervirilized male, a phenotypical female or ambiguous) - male fertility is possible

There may also be one or two others, but those are the main ones.

In terms of what we know, while CAIS results in a typcially female gender identity and appearance, CAIS individuals are greatly overrepresented at the Olympics, around 10x more than their representation in the wider population. This suggest lingering advantages.

I don't think there is much likelihood of excluding CAIS people because the optics are different - the famous photo of Lynsey Sharp hugging Melissa Bishop after they finished 4th and 6th to 3 intersex athletes in the 2016 800m img.huffingtonpost.com/asset/57b9bd4e1700002c00d201aa.jpeg said things that the same image with a phenotypically female CAIS person would not. If certain athletes appear male, that's different from those who don't, even if both sets of athletes have XY chromosomes.

" The men's category should be the inclusive one. If, as you think Mary intersex women are the same as men they will be able to compete against them fairly. But if, as they think, they cannot then they and the IFAA will be back to square one."

That's not a given. For example, we know that Laurel Hubbard, Tiffany Abreu, and many others, were not competitive against men.

Mediocre men can beat elite women. That's an outcome of male biology.

Being Chris Froome or whomever requires elite male biology. I don't know quite what the numbers are, but you have to have lung capacity etc. that is not 'everyday'.

It is not clear what proportion of the average men on the street could replicate Rachel McKinnon's victories in track sprint cycling, with appropriate training, but I suspect it is rather high.

Concluding that someone with 5ARD belongs in the 'male' category does not being to imply that any person with 5ARD will ever be capable of beating the best men. Caster Semenya's best time is at least 10s slower than the best contemporary men.

Obviously the reclassification of an individual from 'elite woman' to 'mediocre man' would be a shock, but mediocre men are hardly unusual - 99.99% of men lack the biology to win the 800m.

I made the point earlier, but if you need to have a 1 in 10,000 physique to be an elite athlete, then it would be hard to prove whether people with a condition like 5ARD are ever capable of competing against men, but I don't think it's that important to do so.

It's better to just say 'these people have testes, testosterone, sperm, etc., so they do not belong in female sport'. Otherwise what basis do you have for excluding anyone from female sport?

Fairness/advantage is not really the point, the idea is that everyone competing has the same basic characteristics, not that everyone should be equal. There was a (male) dwarf weightlifter who did very well, and it is observed that he had less far to lift the weight. That's fine, because he still fit into the category of 'less than 56kg bodyweight', or whatever it was.

Saying 'X should be able to compete because X has no advantage from their testes & testosterone' is not the point at all. Rather, it's that if you are running a dog show, then nobody should enter a cat.

And in this case if you have testes, sperm, etc., then that should override anything more abstract like gender identity, or even 'the appearance of your genitals', and exclude you from the 'female' category.

doscussion on r4 now...

Good science-led coverage on PM with the superb Evan Davies.

"Caster is 46XX"

There’s also that trans boy wrestler in America who is forced to complete against girls (and subsequently wins everything) - He wants to complete against boys, but isn’t allowed to as he’s considered ‘female’ by birth.

Well thats easy really. Females compete with females. However, if a female has taken testosterone, they compete with the males or not at all. As its basically doping. Just because we say males shouldn't compete with females, that does not mean we have to accept females on testosterone competing with other females. Its not really the 'gotcha' that TRas seem to think it is (not calling you a TRA, just thats what they tend to say..)

The men's category should be the 'inclusive' one.

The only fair way to do it^

I agree that we should have women's categories and non-women's categories. Or at least, leave women's sport alone and let everyone else figure out what "fair" looks like amongst the remaining "non-women" competitors

leave women's sport alone and let everyone else figure out what "fair" looks like amongst the remaining "non-women" competitors

Funny how that's never an option.

"Caster is 46XX"

sorry what? citation?

It is of course possible that Caster is 46XX, but the testosterone levels publicly released for the athletes in the 800m indicate that the athletes have testes. That would be a case of 46XX SRY+.

46XX SRY+ typically results in a male phenotype, although the different gene mutations result in varying outcomes, but it's quite unlikely for a 46XX SRY+ person to be assigned female, compared to something like 5ARD.

I don’t want to speculate on Semenya in particular, but a person with 46xx in the version that creates high testosterone levels is surely going to be assigned male at birth, not female?

So a person with as yet undiagnosed 46xx wouldn’t be in the women’s competition, they’d accidentally be in the men’s.

(Mary keeps beating me today - must type faster to avoid looking like a less intelligent echo 😂)

I think saying that Caster is 46XX (if it is true) is not particularly helpful, and might be intended to mislead - they stopped testing for XX quite some time ago, in favour of SRY (testis-determining factor/sex-determining region Y protein).

SRY sometimes gets transposed from Y to X, meaning someone with XX chromosomes has testes. So you test for SRY, and don't test for XX or XY at all.

If someone is SRY+ then the sex ruling is 'male', though that could be defeated e.g. if they are androgen-insensitive.

As has been discussed it does not appear that Caster is insensitive to androgens, so I'm not sure what a 46XX declaration is supposed to show....