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.

Datun

It could be argued that the virilisation in a 46XX female with congenital adrenal hyperplasia could lead to increased muscle mass and strength, but that would need to be balanced with their need to take replacement medication for other hormones and potential to have salt-wasting problems.

NotBadConsidering

Ok thanks! I don't really understand that, but I'm assuming the answer to my question is it's unlikely!

What's going to happen when all those children who were put on puberty blockers at 11 and then given CSH to erroneously go through either a testosterone or oestrogen fuelled, puberty join the cohort?

As people have pointed out, puberty blockers affect bone density. Not something normally considered characteristic of an elite sports person.

And children who are going through this are in and out of hospital, all the time. Many of whom have other mental health issues or difficult family circumstances.

They simply don't have the profile of an elite sports person. Which requires commitment and utter dedication to their field, living, eating and breathing it 24/7.

Not something you could apply to trans kids, certainly at the moment.

I don't see how the two profiles could ever be reconciled.

I should really have kept a link to an instagram post I read a few months ago from an Australian woman who ran the 800m. She said that DSD/intersex women were particularly advantaged in the 800m because they tended to have better stamina meaning they had really good finishes. She listed several other DSD athletes who had extremely good performance times in the 800m. No idea about the 5000m though!!!

I am sorry for Caster as I think South African athletics have pushed her into the limelight and made her more famous for being DSD rather than her running. However, I think this is a better compromise. Incidentally, when she was taking treatment a few years ago her performance really fell off. Not sure how RM etc would respond to that inconvenient fact

For Caster Semenya they have now set a limit of 5 nmol/l. If they lower it to 5 across the board it will at least be a move in the right direction.

I don't see how they can justify anything else.

Ye Gods who was that bloke on before Sharron Davies on WATO?

"It's so difficult to tell who's male or female .....when someone is assgined a female at birth," etc.

Even with treatment to reduce testosterone the person with testerone will still have the advantage as having gone through a male.puberty will confer whole body physical advantage, muscular, vascular, aerobic.

Sharon Davies talking about sex testing, like she and her peers went through which will avoid men winning men's competitions and those with 'Y' chromosome winning all the women's titles too.

"Born with the wrong diagnosis"

Sorry! Congenital adrenal hyperplasia is a genetic enzyme deficiency in the adrenal glands. Both boys/men and girls/women can have it, so even though it’s an “intersex” disorder, it’s not an example of a 3rd sex as some people claim, in fact it’s a good example of how intersex/DSD is a broad term that encompasses multiple very different conditions so is not demonstrative of a “3rd sex”.

Anyway, the steroid pathway is worth googling just to see how complex it is. With CAH, there is a deficiency in an enzyme. When that happens the hormone manufacture is pushed along a different pathway, resulting in deficiencies of some hormones and excess of others, like testosterone. In baby boys, it’s hard to spot because their external male genitalia are effected slightly and need a trained eye to pick. As a result baby boys can die from losing too much salt in their urine - a result of the lacking hormones. Baby girls on the other hand have female genitalia that is exposed to androgens like testosterone and virilised ie made to look more male. There is clitoromegaly and ambiguous genitalia. If this virilisation continues then a female would have exposure to androgens throughout life and could potentially have increased muscle mass.

In this scenario I would actually think it is a genuine case of a 46XX female with a natural advantage that should be allowed to compete.

That TW are currently competing with levels of 10 mmol/l when women are competing with 2 mml/l.

CS knows they didn't go through female puberty, and therefore don't have periods, never can, as they have testes.

Both my nieces are outstanding runners. Both have seen their performance hit by issues around menstruation (one suffering low bone density through very late onset, the other suffering severe cramps affecting training and performance at specific times).

This never affected Semenya and certainly never affects men identifying as women who decide to compete against women.

That's just one issue.

One wonders how long CS has known about those XY chromosomes?

All those XX females who went through oestrogen driven puberty who lost out to CS in terms of a space on the track, in terms of prize money and sponsorship deals must be feeling truly awful today.

I believe it seems fair to rule out any with genetic conditions that align them with the opposite sex competitively, if this gives them unfair advantage.

I don't think we know that Caster Semenya didn't go through puberty or about her sexual organs, Smotheroffive, as her precise condition has not been disclosed. We just know she has elevated levels of testosterone. She was socialised as a girl definitely.

Caster has internal male testes and all of the biological advantage that comes with that. She was raised a girl due to the lack of external male genitalia.

Has this actually been confirmed? Is she genetically male or female?

Because that’s the crucial matter.

A woman with naturally elevated testosterone is not a man; a ‘woman’ with a Y chromosome is.

A Y chromosome will produce higher testosterone but high testosterone doesn’t mean a Y chromosome is present.

A woman with naturally high testosterone should be allowed to compete just as a woman with long legs.

Again, I don’t know the specifics of Caster’s case; others either do, or they seam to think they do.

The specifics of the case are her sex, not her testosterone. Testosterone levels are a proxy for sex; they are not sex.

There is no such thing as a third Sex. People are either male or female; they should be allowed to compete on that basis.

If we say that women with naturally occurring high testosterone levels should not be allowed to compete with other women we are saying the binary doesn’t hold.

If we are saying that competition depends on testosterone levels we are opening the door for men with low testosterone.

Agreed Holy like I said before, all the language is avoidant, and sounds to be actually in full knowledge.

What's sad is that, as Sharon Davies said, promoters are responsible for having picked CS for training to compete against women, taking full advantage of CS condition

Presumably Semenya never menstruated, no uterus, and went through something more akin to male puberty.
Doctors would I expect have looked into the amenorrhea.
It's hard to imagine it wasn't very apparent something was up from early teens.

In this scenario I would actually think it is a genuine case of a 46XX female with a natural advantage that should be allowed to compete.

It would be interesting to know if there were any elite athletes with this NotBadConsidering.

Does the condition have different effects that might preclude being an elite sports woman?

I don't think we know that Caster Semenya didn't go through puberty or about her sexual organs,

Yes, we do. Have a read of the press release which refers to 46XY condition:

www.tas-cas.org/fileadmin/user_upload/Media_Release_Semenya_ASA_IAAF_decision.pdf

See also from 2009:

www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/11/30/eitheror

See my link upthread for specifics about the XY status.

The restrictions CS challenged applied only to 46XY athletes.

They are though, TW are competing with 10mmol/l.

Actual women competitors are not happy and this ruling supports them.

The advantage conferred with testosterone trumps others.

Sex was decided with an easy inner cheek swab.

CS went through male puberty.

Barracker

That is the crux of throwing out the whole attack by the South African government/authorities that it is “racist” to deny Semenya. The only reason Semenya’s lack of periods didn’t come to any medical attention earlier, ie as a teenager, is because Semenya grew up poor and black in South Africa. No way a white teenager in Cape Town who had never had a period wouldn’t have been diagnosed earlier.

I'm not outraged at all by the decision. I am outraged at the media calling Semenya a 'female athlete'. Semenya has a Y chromosome and testicles (undescended, but still present and secreting male levels of testosterone, and caused Semenya to go through male puberty, giving Semenya male physical advantage). Semenya does not have any female sex characteristics as far as I know. The correct description that the media and sporting bodies should use is a 'male athlete with an intersex condition'.

Datun yes, so I would be surprised if there was an elite athlete, except maybe power athletes like weight lifting. People with CAH need to be on adequate replacement of hydrocortisone and fludrocortisone to stop them from having low blood pressure, low blood sugars, low sodium levels and high potassium levels. It would take a lot of work to keep those adequate with high intensity sport. It’s certainly possible. When people with CAH get sick or have stress - medical stress like fasting, vomiting, illness etc, not mental stress - they need a sick plan to increase those levels, so there would be risks with sport where you could potentially deplete yourself.

Cs was misdiagnosed at birth and has been taken advantage of by promoters.