Caster Semenya has lost appeal

[Mumsnut]

Hard on Semenya, but the right outcome overall I think

This is just silly, you can’t diagnose an infant with CAIS.

This is not correct. This can be diagnosed following inguinal hernia in girls.

If testes are found as part of the exploration and you then confirm at puberty that there is no androgen sensitivity at all. In approx 1% of inguinal hernia repairs in girls. So I concede yes, technically it can be suspected in infants given those rare factors all aligning together. And gonadectomy is not recommended for infants otherwise they won’t go through any puberty.

That wasn't the case previously. Early gonadectomy was performed because of perceived risk of tumours, and oral hormones administered to induce puberty. This is less prevalent now, but it will vary by country/doctor.

Whether a person with CAIS had a gonadectomy as a child or not is immaterial to the fact that person with a Y chromosome has a sporting advantage which was the point of mine you were responding to with your infant/CAIS reply. And none of the discussion about CAIS is even relevant to Semenya. Women have missed out because the IAAF have been too soft on stopping people with Y chromosomes from competing against women.

And it’s clear that there is a sex-based difference in sports performance in prepubertal children. All of my DC do sport, running, athletics, swimming etc and even before puberty as a class and matched for age on average, boys outperform girls in sports where time/distance/speed is measured. The overlap is greater than after puberty and individuals are more likely to counter that trend but it’s clear. Just last week I watched DS6’s group of boys jump further than DD8’s group of girls in long jump. At swimming the boys’ times for age are faster. Even before puberty we recognise that boys and girls need to be segregated for sport to ensure fair competition.

Puberty - any puberty - amplifies this difference. But Y chromosome confers advantage before puberty.

All the discussion around Semenya and DHT is merely to determine if Semenya had 99% of male advantage over women or 100% male advantage over women. That final bit of DHT missing is a drop in the ocean of advantage.

The inability to protect and ring fence women’s and girls’ sport for those who meet the biological criteria for women - not those, plus anyone who doesn’t quite make full male - is a failing that needs to be prevented in the future.

Shoots and NotBad, this is fascinating! Thank you both for explaining your points so well.

This is what happens when males are excluded from women’s sport. You get two Scottish women going head to head racing their guts out and winning prestigious races and money as a result:

www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/sep/17/jemma-reekie-savours-diamond-league-800m-win-over-laura-muir

For the record, each winner of a Diamond League race takes home 10,000USD, with 2nd getting 6000, 3rd 4000 and so on, with the potential for 40,000 more for the Diamond League trophy.

Semenya won 21 Diamond League meeting 800m races and 3 Diamond League trophies.