Really good article re Caster Semenya outcome

[Raylas]

Apologies if already posted somewhere, couldn't find it. Really worth a read though.

quillette.com/2019/05/03/a-victory-for-female-athletes-everywhere/

Lordamighty

"I don’t understand why the IAAF haven’t applied these new rules across all track & field events. All that is going to happen is that CS is going to move up to the 5000m. CS has no intention of taking testosterone reducing meds “hell no” was the reply when asked the question.
CS has every intention of continuing to enter women’s races."

This is also my view, because as far as I can see it is logical. The IAAF IMHO have messed up again, the mainstream media are not reporting the full facts - 46 XY DSD.
Last night in the 800m, what we saw from CS was pure defiance, her 3rd fastest ever time, the fastest this year (and faster than last year) and a huge winning margin.
If you take CS's 1,500m best, (around 4mins), add on 20secs and multiply by 3.333, you get a time of 14m 30s for 5,000m.

I have no choice but to be recognised as female by anyone with eyes and ears - although from reading much of what people are saying over the last few days, I’ve become increasingly aware that if we are open about our medical conditions, we are going to be stigmatised as non-women, othered & ridiculed by many

for you, Claire. I am sorry it's all been so painful for you.

If we had had accurate reporting from the get go, perhaps it wouldn't have been so bad. And the public may have got a better and more accurate understanding of DSDs, which would have helped everyone - not just with regard to sport.

Why isn't SRY used instead of T levels? Is testosterone cheaper to test for or something? Very much agree with the "woman is not a disabled man" comment- physically or chemically castrating a man does not make him a biological woman.

It’s a great article. I have huge sympathy for anyone affected by the CAS ruling, who may have been hoping for a different outcome and can only imagine the challenges of living with a DSD. Nor would I be crass enough to conflate DSDs with any of the identities under than trans umbrella.

I simply don’t believe that anyone with a Y chromosome should compete in elite women’s sport.

Gary Lineker has tweeted it

Reading that makes me think this case is more linked to transgenderism than I realised.

Is an XY athlete with one of the more severe DSD conditions technically a male with a female gender identity and legal sex? Their gender identity has been more socialised in than many later transitioning trans people as they were assumed female at birth. They may have some feminised aspects to their body which are natural rather than caused by artificial hormones or surgery. If we are going to insist on binary sex characterisation though this person is male.

No sex is not a spectrum, the vast majority of people are clearly male or female with no question about it, however gender non conforming they may be and whatever their identity.

But I feel like we may need to acknowledge that certain extremely rare conditions do form exceptions to the binary. For this extremely rare exception, maybe is it most appropriate to say what sex you are deemed to be or whether you prefer to just deem yourself "intersex" is decided in consultation with your doctor based on your own sense of identity. I'm really unsure what the best way to think of this is to not offend anyone with these conditions but also not to buy into identity politics or sex as a spectrum.

Sports need to decide what they need to do to function re eligibility. That's a separate issue, maybe more akin to Paralympics categories.

Great article thank for sharing. I’ve shared on fb. It’s infuritating how this whole thing has been reported, especially now we know for sure that at least 2 of the 3 intersex athletes who won medals in Rio would not be eligible now. 3rd athlete Margaret Wambui has not confirmed if this ruling affects her or not.
I’m glad the article mentioned Lynsey Sharp too - she’s a good example of someone who has lost out majorly due to running against XY athletes

Some fool in reply to Gary Linekers tweet said, if she was a man she would be revered Except, no, if she was correctly identified as a male at birth she would not be a pro athlete at all.

The reporting on this has certainly been very poor. Barely any of the mainstream press have even memtioned the Y chromosome issue at all.

Why would you want to win when you have a plain biological advantage over other competitors? I thought the pride of being a professional athlete was winning on a level playing field.

Well, the article indicates it as well as knowledge about what being an elite athlete can bring: fame, wealth, opportunity. Why wouldn’t these athletes who know they would be mediocre against men compete against women - as they are allowed to - where they know they can win. Once you get to that stage of the game, there is far more than ribbons for the winners.

I don't think healthy adults should be forced to medicate to compete (a ban is better than that)

But they aren’t forced to. They have the following choices:

1. Lower testosterone and remain competing against women in the events the regulations are applicable to;

1. Not lower testosterone and compete against women in the events the regulations are not applicable to;

1. Not lower testosterone and compete against men in any event;

1. Not lower testosterone and not compete at all.

Is an XY athlete with one of the more severe DSD conditions technically a male with a female gender identity and legal sex? Their gender identity has been more socialised in than many later transitioning trans people as they were assumed female at birth.

Well, I think this is complicated as sometimes it is not so much they are assumed female at birth but they are assumed “not fully male”.

In the now closed Caster thread Barracker posted some links (in last two pages) of men who had XY DSDs and in a couple cases their parents were pressured to “call them girls” because their external male genitals were not “normally” formed. So, no one really believed they were girls, they just didn’t consider them “fully boys” and it was “easier”. Often these boys who are told girls reject that “imposition” of sex and when the truth is finally revealed it all “comes together”.

For a non XY DSD issue, where everyone went along with the farce of them being a girl knowing it was a boy, see the case of David Reimer.

In regards to only certain categories of athletics. IAAF had to suspend its previous regulations which meant testosterone levels had to be under 10nmols when Dutee Chand brought a case. In order for the IAAF to reinstate its regulations it was asked to produce a study. Since the athletes in question gravitate around 400m to mile I suspect it was easier to provide data on those events. IAAF do intend to extend to all events but might need further data.

Sharron Davies is being given a really hard time about this on Twitter. Caroline Hirons is one of the people involved in giving her that hard time too.

I have no choice but to be recognised as female by anyone with eyes and ears - although from reading much of what people are saying over the last few days, I’ve become increasingly aware that if we are open about our medical conditions, we are going to be stigmatised as non-women, othered & ridiculed by many

ClairCAIS - I really don't see why you are taking that from what people have been saying - at least on the MN threads. Don't you find it heartening that people a) people understand the difference between PAIS and CAIS and hence would have no issues thinking of you as a woman and b) couldn't give a toss how CS wants to live/present/look/be in her private life - irrespective of what chromosomes she has. She would be equally accepted if she was presenting as a man or a woman or neither.

I don''t think anyone is stigmatising or othering her (or you) - they are just saying she shouldn't be competing against XX females with the biological advantage she has, while we have sex segregated sports at least. It's competing against people that haven't benefited from male puberty like her that people think is unfair.

Caroline Hirons? Insisting Caster is a woman and hassling someone like Sharron who actually knows what she’s talking about. Stick to flogging overpriced unnecessary beauty crap and stop with your misogyny, remember when Caroline retweeted Stephanie Hayden?

mobile.twitter.com/CarolineHirons/status/1124675648595873792

www.amazon.co.uk/Galileos-Middle-Finger-Heretics-Activists/dp/0143108115?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

If anyone wants to read more about the medical practise history of intersex this is a great book. It's a very balanced read.

I understand after reading this just how much the sex stereotypes of traditional societies will force decisions about non typical bodies and the struggle to overcome the physical damage imposed by this continues. It does provide context for what is happening here and how identity is being misused and politicised.

I can recommend the book, it's a good read.

The point this makes for me is that yes, Caster should be able to compete in a natural state, but that natural state is male.

This article does not think there is evidence of advantage and goes into detail:

sportsscientists.com/2019/05/on-dsds-the-theory-of-testosterone-performance-the-cas-ruling-on-caster-semenya/?doing_wp_cron=1556968433.5436298847198486328125

I don’t understand why the IAAF haven’t applied these new rules across all track & field events.

I wish they had done this too but I think it is something to do with the IAAF having to put forward a case for their rules based on actual evidence of athletic advantage from specific DSD athletes versus 'theoretical' advantage. So if CS moves up to 5000m and strolls every race there would then be actual evidence for addressing the issue in the 5000m and so on.

The Dutee Chand case has also been very relevant to why it's been so difficult to create rulings that cover all bases when it comes to XY DSDs. Chand is CAIS.

@andyoldlabour I agree that the IAAF have messed up and fudged this decision imo, but if they had included all track & field events it would have effectively ended CS’s athletics career & that would have been a huge decision. It’s a pity they weren’t brave enough.
It will be interesting to see what happens when CS moves up to 5000m, an event dominated by the Ethiopians & Kenyans. I can’t imagine they will be happy to sit back & watch CS take away medals & records from their biologicallly female athletes without some kind of protest.

Caster doesn't really have the same build as the athletes who do best in the 5k and 10k. It wouldn't surprise me to see an XY athlete dominate there in the future, but I don't think it'll be her.

As an elite athlete, Caster will have had access to extensive medical testing.

I imagine that their testes - even if undescended - will at the very least have been examined radiologically.

While I have a lot of sympathy for Caster as an individual who was raised as a female and who is living with a challenging condition, I am beginning to lose patience with the argument.

People with a Y chromosome should not compete in races for females as they have an unfair biological advantage.

I like this quote from the amazon book blurb.

"Galileo's Middle Finger is not, ultimately, about scientists versus activists, but about the necessity of anyone interested in social justice primarily being concerned with truth. For a 'sustainable justice, ' Dreger argues, 'is impossible if we don't know what's true about the world.' Liberal science, with its insistence on evidence and explicit rejection of arguments from personal authority, is the best system yet designed for distinguishing truth from falsehood. And for this reason, Dreger reminds us, 'Evidence is an ethical issue.'"

Why are the likes of the BBC just not reporting this in terms of Y chromosome?

In fact, why are the IAAF ruling in relation to testosterone, explicitly allowing Y-chromosome individuals compete as females?