Caster Semenya has lost appeal

[Mumsnut]

Hard on Semenya, but the right outcome overall I think

I have been reading this, shows how people read the MSM and believe it, but there are people on there talking about facts.

www.facebook.com/TheIndependentOnline/posts/10158701526741636?comment_id=10158701656586636&reply_comment_id=10158705446316636&notif_id=1599984598079696&notif_t=comment_mention&ref=notif

sorry forgot the link

No not Simone!!!!

I wonder if Simone knows about the Y chromosome and testes?

No one else on Facebook seems to 🙄

@SerenityNowwwww

No not Simone!!!!

And this is where the disinformation comes into play.

Simone Biles has undoubtedly experienced racism in her career. It is also unequivocally true that one of the forms of racist attack commonly used against black women in the public eye in the USA is to say that they look like men (it was commonly used against Michelle Obama, FFS! )

If in addition what Simone has read about the case is that CS is a "woman with hyperandrogenism" (which, as is pointed out upthread, is how the media is reporting this), then of course she's going to see this as yet another case of shitty racism directed at a black sportswoman.

She may well not realise that CS has XY chromosomes, internal testes and has undergone male puberty. She's probably thinking that CS's raised testosterone is hyper androgenism in someone who's been through female puberty rather than normal androgenism in someone who's been through male puberty.

Caster also seems to have grown 3 inches taller since she was 18, from 5ft 7 in 2009, to 5ft 10 now.

I wonder if Simone knows about the Y chromosome and testes?

Given that even the BBC are omitting large chunks of information from their reporting, I doubt it.

Making these decisions will always exclude someone, so it’s easier to say ‘it’s not fair’ than acknowledge the difficulties, particularly if you are an athlete being asked a direct question.

Simone doesn’t need to worry about her medals - her discipline is fairly safe from this. Considering the sex abuse scandal in US gymnastics (wasn’t it 000s of young girls that doctor abused?) you’d think she’d stand up for women and girls a bit.

And people are gunning for Nicola Adams on SM for saying something along the lines that men shouldn’t boxing women.

She may well not realise that CS has XY chromosomes, internal testes and has undergone male puberty.

I am a bit confused by this. Obviously I don’t know what specific DSD Semenya has, but I understood that e.g. individuals with CAIS cannot respond to androgens and therefore don’t go through male puberty.

Also leaving aside the effects of puberty would the effect of testosterone be the same on somebody whose body doesn’t process testosterone normally?

These are the kinds of questions I would like BBC articles to address, but they seem to be avoiding them, maybe out of sensitivity?

However, I don’t think lack of information is helping people with DSDs at the moment.

merrymouse I used to think that CS had CAIS, but following the recent hearing (and evidence given at it), the consensus seems to be that CS has 5-alpha reductase deficiency and thus has benefitted from the testosterone surge associated with male puberty. There's some posts upthread by people who know their developmental biology inside out who are a lot clearer on this than I could be.

I think the level of the debate is probably beyond me but my simple thoughts are that all athletes have natural gifts that mean ordinary people can't compete against them. Michael Phelps has enormous feet, does that mean he shouldn't be allowed to swim against normal sized men? Peter Crouch would never have played at the level he did if he was average height etc etc. The playing field isn't level, no matter how much we want it to be. Black sprinters naturally have significant advantage, although they still have to work hard to exploit it, as all athletes, including Semenya do. What do we do about that?

@SimpleComforts this thread by sports scientist Ross Tucker
twitter.com/Scienceofsport/status/1123960874979549186
is really excellent at explaining why the situation is not in the slightest bit like Michael Phelps.

Basically ask yourself "Why is it that we segregate sport into men's and women's sports, and this is seen as fair, but we don't segregate swimming into large feet/small feet divisions, or football into separate over six foot/ less than six foot divisions?"

Michael Phelps has enormous feet, does that mean he shouldn't be allowed to swim against normal sized men?

It’s level of difference.

Some male runners aren’t that tall, but they are still much faster than similar sized women.

Gold medal Olympic female runners have times that can be beaten by average Male college runners.

Without categories women would never feature in any major tournament. Outlier females - the female Michael Phelps - would always be beaten by an average male.

all athletes have natural gifts that mean ordinary people can’t compete against them

Semenya is a mediocre athlete that is only able to win by being a biological male competing against biological women. There are no natural gifts here it is systematic cheating, done with the backing of the SA athletics authority.

Michael Phelps has enormous feet, does that mean he shouldn't be allowed to swim against normal sized men? Peter Crouch would never have played at the level he did if he was average height etc etc. The playing field isn't level, no matter how much we want it to be.

These advantages do not give the kind of benefit that having experienced puberty as a male does. As others have said, it has been carefully explained by Ross Tucker, I’ve included the actual words in this thread as well. You should always try and read a thread to understand the issue before commenting.

Michael Phelps has enormous feet, does that mean he shouldn't be allowed to swim against normal sized men?

Sporting categories are artificial, human-created, things.. You could lump everyone in together and just see adult able bodied males on every podium. Or you can can make some categories so others can have some competitive fun too.

1. It has been decided to have male and female categories.
2. Having created a category, it is policed or it is pointless. Males in the male, females in the female.

We have also created size categories in some contact sports e.g. boxing, judo. Once the artificial category is created, it is policed and the big 'uns kept out of the lower weight categories.

We also have categories for people with disabilitites so that they too get to compete on a decently level playing field.

There is no category for swimmers with large feet. Yes we could create one! I'd be fine with this, in fact I think Olympic swimmers are getting so outsize that it is turning into a bit of superhumans-only sport and I would be happy to see an Under-Six-Foot-Tall-With-Feet-To-Match category brought in. I would then expect it to be policed and Michael Phelps kept out. Until then, he is a red herring. Also I think he's retired.

As pp's have already mentioned Ross Tucker has already given one good explanation why the Phelps argument doesn't stack up.

Here's another.

There is perhaps the misconception that Phelps success is ALL about his physical characteristics - specifically he's tall but with a long torso and relatively short limbs, with large hands and feet.

It's true those characteristics make him ideally suited to swimming.

However he's not a unique phenomenon. In a world of 7.8 billion people of which roughly half are male, statistically speaking there will be not just one other but many men who share virtually identical body shapes to Phelps.

The reasons why they are not Olympic swimmers are vast.

Maybe they don't like swimming, maybe they don't have access to a pool, maybe they were never taught to swim as a child....etc etc

You see what made Phelps great was not just his physical characteristics but years and years (from childhood and before those traits were fully known) of coaching and training. Phelps himself also was willing to put in the hours and dedicate himself to the sport - something not everyone even if they had the latent talents could or would want to do.

Still, theoretically speaking there are absolutely men in the world who had the capacity to beat Phelps if they had access to training and the appropriate self discipline.

In the case of CS there are no women on the planet who have the same traits - because CS is genetically male, thus no woman who could with the right training/self discipline "match" their performance.

CS isn't an outlier in woman's sport - that rare combination of physical characteristics/training/dedication like Phelps is in men's swimming.

CS excels not as an outlier but as a intruder into a class they should not be able to compete in because the advantage of male puberty and testosterone provide a level of advantage no woman could match ever.

Black sprinters naturally have significant advantage

This isn’t true.

If you are talking about people whose recent ancestors are from the African continent, there is huge variation in body type.

However even if geography related genetic inheritance can confer advantage in some sports, there is no comparison to the difference between men and women.

Kipchoge is just under 5’ 7”, which is an average height for a woman, but he isn’t being challenged by 5’ 7” women from any part of the world.

South African school years are different and poor rural African girls are likely to be delayed in their schooling.

I'll repost what I said with some minor clarifications to address this confusion.

Caster started running at age 14. Year 11 in South Africa, when her coach found out Caster "was a girl", is age 16 -17, by which time presumably Caster had found out they couldn't cut it at a high level competing with men. Caster was competing in international women's competitions and winning them within 1-2 years at most of the big reveal.

Caster wore the boy's uniform to school - and presumably used male pronouns or Caster's coach would have known Caster "was a girl."

HTH.

@merrymouse

Black sprinters naturally have significant advantage

This isn’t true.

If you are talking about people whose recent ancestors are from the African continent, there is huge variation in body type.

However even if geography related genetic inheritance can confer advantage in some sports, there is no comparison to the difference between men and women.

Kipchoge is just under 5’ 7”, which is an average height for a woman, but he isn’t being challenged by 5’ 7” women from any part of the world.

Agree it's a ridiculous trope...

Hypothetically (because you'd never get an exact match) a black athlete and white athlete with the same body shape/training/dedication have exactly the same advantages.

That in certain sports you see a convergence of successful sportspeople that share a common racial/geographic heritage is explained by many factors.

The popularity of the sport in the country of origin, access to quality junior and then elite training by way of two examples which explain why Nordic skiers are over represented at an elite level in relation to population size.

There are of course counties that have "average" physical characteristics that would explain why per head of population they might punch above their weight in sports where that attribute is significantly performance enhancing - for example Swedes being on average taller than Britons might have a larger pool of talent to draw on for basketball, but that's not to say that the U.K. could not produce a first class player - the more likely hurdle is that it's a minority sport in the U.K.

@DeRigueurMortis well said. We simply don't know IF michael Phelps would beat every male. Not every male would or could train from a young age to swim. We'd have to train every boy from a young age, give them access to great coaches and swimming pools, etc. and then host several worldwide swimming competitions.

Black sprinters naturally have significant advantage, although they still have to work hard to exploit it, as all athletes, including Semenya do

Why does ignorance and casual racism go together with conflating being gifted with having testes?

Caster started running at age 14. Year 11 in South Africa, when her coach found out Caster "was a girl", is age 16 -17, by which time presumably Caster had found out they couldn't cut it at a high level competing with men.

This is not very clear. Do you have a link on what you mean here?

Why does ignorance and casual racism go together with conflating being gifted with having testes?

Because both require the use of brain cells to first understand the issue and then to apply some critical thinking and empathy?