Latest Caster Semenya Race

[NotBadConsidering]

www.bbc.com/sport/athletics/48603383

"I can run any event I want. It can be 100m, 200m, the long jump, heptathlon, you name it."

The double Olympic and three-time world champion added: "Even if I have to withdraw from the 800m, it doesn't matter no more, I think I have won everything I ever wanted.”

Tell me again why I should have sympathy for this person?

Caster Semenya is not and has never been a cheat.

But could reasonably be described as a fraud.

I don't think it quite as simple as that. People born with complete androgen insensitivity, with XY chromosomes, do not have the sporting advantage of testosterone. Their bodies are blind to the testosterone. There are degrees of androgen insensitivity with greater or lesser degrees of androgenisation. There is no doubt that CS was 'a girl' when she was a child, with the societal disadvantages that confers.

"do not have the sporting advantage of testosterone."

If this was the case, then CS would not be winning anything.
It is obvious to anyone with a basic knowledge of physiology, that CS has a body shape, musculature more resembling that of a male athlete than a female athlete.
If there really was no advantage, then CS would not have this distinctive musculature.

similaminimer
Have you watched any of the interviews that CS has done?
CS is very open about the fact that CS's childhood and adolescence was spent hanging out with the boys.

I think CS has shot CS in the foot there. The open admission that CS could win any sport event CS entered - i.e. an admission that their genetic/hormonal make up gives them an advantage over XX women no matter what event. As the condition has been known for a decade to CS it is plain that CS sees no problem with exploiting the fact to the disadvantage of XX born women.

It was one thing when CS was thought to be a 'tomboy' that liked traditionally boyish things (as many girls do), quite another to either blindly (or knowingly, which is worse) carry on with fingers in ears pretending they are just a good athlete. It is fraudulent.

People born with complete androgen insensitivity, with XY chromosomes, do not have the sporting advantage of testosterone

Semenya doesn’t have CAIS as the ruling specifies those whose bodies have the benefited from the effects of androgens.

However CAIS still confers an advantage: at the Atlanta Olympics the incidence of CAIS was found to be 1 in 423, compared to 1 in 20,000 of the general population. CAIS offers skeletal and likely cardiovascular advantages, and crucially no periods, which as highlighted in the recent BBC article have a major impact of the way women train, obtain injuries and race. This is something Semenya has never had to contend with either.

There is no doubt that CS was 'a girl' when she was a child, with the societal disadvantages that confers

I think any possible societal disadvantages disappeared as soon as the biological advantages took over at puberty.

There is an opportunity here for the IAAF to protect more women from losing out.

If you want cheering up - just have a read of the WISE twitter feed that JackyHolyoake posted upthread. It's all about .... Women and sport & Exercise - so many fascinating topics. Looks brilliant (and much needed).

twitter.com/wiseconf

I should have been clearer, that I was talking more broadly than CS. The discussion upthread was that anyone XY should not be able to compete, that they were men and probably cheats. I think that people with CAIS would legitimately consider themselves women.

I am as gender critical as you like, but CS, socialised as a girl and woman, finds out in her 20s that they are XY, suddenly did not have the disadvantages of girlhood? Bollocks.

You can't have it both ways. She did not confirm to female gender roles in her teens (as it turns out,physically responded to testosterone in a partially male way, without her knowledge or understanding). Therefore she was always a boy? Isn't that pretty close to saying that performing another gender role makes you another sex?

I understand the argument but a reductive XY thing misses some nuance

I would also argue that the starts do not distinguish between complete and partial androgen insensitivity. There is no competition in which all participants are karyotyped. So any CAIS women will not be picked up and therefore do not contribute to the averages - more androgenised, partial androgen insensitive people will be studied.

I am as gender critical as you like, but CS, socialised as a girl and woman, finds out in her 20s that they are XY, suddenly did not have the disadvantages of girlhood? Bollocks.

Why do you say 20s? It would have been evident at puberty, when periods didn’t happen and virilisation did.

I think it is unlikely that a 15 year old female athlete with no periods and big muscles would intuit that they had a rare condition

I hope that if you wandered around running clubs and told all the 15 year old girls with no periods that they were obviously men and cheats, someone would give you a cup of tea and a cold compress.

Firstly Semenya found out at 18, not as a 20 something year old.

Second, how does “female socialisation” as a child or teenager impact Semenya’s ability to run as hard as she runs now? It makes no difference whatsoever in my view.

Third, if female socialisation is considered to be important, the onus should be on Semenya to demonstrate how this has led to disadvantage over other males, rather than the onus on the IAAF to demonstrate how biology overrides any socialisation.

Finally, female socialisation (debatable) and identity is the only female thing about Semenya. If the question is framed as:

Should a male whose external genitalia didn’t form correctly be allowed to race against women?

What is the answer to that?

I hope that if you wandered around running clubs and told all the 15 year old girls with no periods that they were obviously men and cheats, someone would give you a cup of tea and a cold compress.

You mean all of those virilised “female” athletes who had a sudden spike of performance at pubertal age?

It’s also a myth that amenorrhoea is the norm in elite female athletes. A link I posted a few days ago showed that 75% of elite female athletes have periods.

bjsm.bmj.com/content/48/7/655.1

And here is the experience reported by several top athletes, including Elish McColgan, middle distance runner with hardly any body fat:

www.bbc.com/sport/48243310

Socialisation is irrelevant. There’s a huge difference in the class backgrounds of footballers and canoeists. Sport is about performance within categories segregated primarily by sex, and occasionally by age or weight. We don’t have categories for ‘fastest runner socialised as a girl’ any more than ‘canoeist who didn’t get into Oxbridge’

So 25% don't have periods? And should automatically assume they are men and withdraw from sport?

Tell me again why I should have sympathy for this person

Because she grew up believing herself to be a woman and found out as an adult that she had a disorder of sexual development, was infertile, has male chromosomes and internal testes. You may disagree with her decision to keep running, but it's pretty hard hearted not to have sympathy for her. What other career was she offered?

The authorities have ballsed this up - rail against them - but to blame her, or say as others have done that she should have realised that she was a bloke when she was a child with no periods who could run fast, or say that she is a deliberate cheat? Really?

Can't we just have separate XY events? Surely that's the way it's going? Give CS her own Olympics. I can't take to her at all. There's something deeply unpleasant about her self-centred views.

'Intersex' events, as a separate category. Then they can all compete amongst themselves. If there are lots of intersex athletes, then this can surely be accommodated.

Men's 100 metre final, women's 100 metre final, intersex 100 metre final.

Before Caster knew about being intersex they weren't a cheat. Once the medical investigations were carried out and it was discovered she is XY with all the physical advantages that confers and she continues to race against XX - that's what makes her a cheat. I do feel some sympathy for her situation but I feel a hell of a lot more sympathy for the female athletes who have devoted their lives to a sport they have no hope in hell of winning when they're competing against XY intersex athletes. Fucking awful.

Because she grew up believing herself to be a woman and found out as an adult that she had a disorder of sexual development, was infertile, has male chromosomes and internal testes. You may disagree with her decision to keep running, but it's pretty hard hearted not to have sympathy for her. What other career was she offered?

Again, Caster did not find out as an adult.
The reason people don’t feel sympathy, is because for at least a decade, likely more, they have been competing knowing of their advantage. As for what other career was offered, offered by who? Nobody owes you a career. You make it yourself. Added to that, her coach has referred to Caster as he, Caster refers to girls and women as ‘them’, and has said numerous misogynistic things. Now here you are on a feminism board asking why we don’t feel sympathy. My god.

So 25% don't have periods? And should automatically assume they are men and withdraw from sport?

No, but any teenage girl with PRIMARY amenorrhoea at aged 16 should be investigated for health reasons.

but to blame her, or say as others have done that she should have realised that she was a bloke when she was a child with no periods who could run fast, or say that she is a deliberate cheat? Really?

I have never once said Semenya should have known “she was a bloke as a child”. Semenya found out she was 46XY as an adult. Plenty of athletes, even those poor in parts of Africa don’t get to pursue the athletic career they want. Semenya was poorly advised to continue racing against women. But that’s not the issue. My complaint about Semenya is the ongoing inclination to find any way whatsoever, over any possible distance or event, to seek to use that unfair advantage over women. I view that as cheating the same way as cyclists using therapeutic use exemptions for drug use is technically “within the rules”, and I view it as an attitude that doesn’t remotely respect women athletes. They’re just in the way it seems. Semenya is now 28 years old and responsible for her own actions. She is now showing, with the post race interview in my OP, that she holds female athletes in contempt.

So while I had sympathy for what happened 10 years ago that led to this situation, I don’t see why I should continue to have sympathy. Instead my sympathy is for those women who missed out on medals, money and sponsorship as a result of races they never could hope to win.

I have sympathy. As similar describes: she thought she was a girl, grew up and then found out she had a condition/diagnosis/difference. Not pleasant. Not nice.

But she chooses to continue to run and compete. And her latest statement basically says :'I've been told I can't compete in the 800? Not to worry I know I'll win any other race I choose to enter'.
Actually confirms our views and concerns on this matter and of how she sees herself.

What a mess. how has this been allowed to happen? and how can we move on from this now?