Caster Semenya has lost appeal

[Mumsnut]

Hard on Semenya, but the right outcome overall I think

I feel sorry for Semenya that she was born with the condition she was born with. It must be very confusing and isolating.

However, she has competed in women's sport, despite having all the male physical advantages. That is unacceptable.

It's clear to everyone that Semenya's body is male. And I say that as a female with a figure that people describe as inverted triangle or athletic.

If Semenya is (correctly) not allowed to participate in women's sports, then hopefully no males will e.g. men who identify their gender as female.

Gender is NOT sex. Sports must be based on sex not gender.

@PurpleHoodie

Datun

Page 81 point 319. Is a VERY interesting read.

Page 81 point 321. They have purposefully redacted the numbers of male athletes (and the % numbers, as well as names) from the report.

Yes

...at the 2017 IAAF World Championship in London, at least [redacted] our of 958 female [sic] athletes had a 46 XY DSD

Who knows how big that number is, but the fact it isn’t zero is all that matters.

She’s 75 and already complained to her gym about a transwoman in the changing area. She goes every day asking for the policy and warning them she’ll chase any man out if she has to. If my old Ma has the guts to do that, we all need to shrug off the fear and stand up for ourselves too.

Wow. Good for your Mum! I want to be like her when I grow old.

OhHolyJesus me too! She goes back every day to ask them for the policy. We’re getting to it, is the answer. So she said, well I’ve warned you I better not see males in there again... she knows the equality act and knows self ID isn’t legal in NZ yet but she said even if it was she’d still chase a male out and doesn’t give a shit if she’s arrested.

That’s the joy of being 75. No fucks to give.

@KatVonlabonk

I believe Cais Claire on twitter has the same DSD as Caster. She writes very movingly about the condition, if anyone wants to know more about what it's like to go through this: differently-normal.com/2020/06/10/example-post-3/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

I do think the right decision has been reached regarding the rules around the 800 metres.

Thank you for sharing that link - it's such a good piece of writing - I learnt a lot. And yes very moving.

No fucks to give

I want to be there now! How much more could women get done if we don’t wait till we’re in our 70’s to stand up and give no fucks if anyone thinks we’re nice or not. Fuck it, should be my motto but I still have this creepy voice in my head telling me people won’t think I’m nice

I, of course, agree that gender is usually a fair charactheristic to categorize athletes

Well of course you do ...

Since last night I've been looking at news etc online, and only the Mail Online (that I can find) mentions that Semenya has XY chromosomes.

But so, interestingly, does Semenya's wiki entry, quite near the beginning.

An article from Ross Tucker in July 2017.

"Research at the 2011 World Champs revealed 6 athletes with these so-called “Disorders of Sex Development” (DSDs), and there are certainly others since then."

sportsscientists.com/2017/07/testosterone-performance-intersex-athletes-will-iaaf-evidence-enough/

I, of course, agree that gender is usually a fair charactheristic to categorize athletes. But I am sure there are many other traits that do give unfair disadvantage. So I cannot help but feel that Caster's situation do highlight the unfairness of it all. If we start digging as deep in every athlete we will find advantages in all of them. Some will be considered a "genetic gift" others will be considered "cheating".

Sex not gender. If we have that rule we can't make exceptions.

@SerenityNowwwww

I remember reading an article about a female Olympic skier with a similar issue who was medically ‘diagnosed’ as male in middle age.

He (Erik Schinegger) gave back his medals and seemed quite apologetic (and relieved) and went off to have a wife and child.

He would agree with this ruling (by his past comments).

Well that's sent me down a fascinating rabbit hole of how you can tell the same person's life story two ways and put a diametrically opposed spin on it...

Dickipedia, not surprisingly, views everything through the lens of trans ideology, so for them "Erika" was assigned female at birth and later transitioned and hence has a DSD and is trans.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Schinegger

In contrast, this article tells his biography (using interviews and footage from a documentary about him) very much in terms of "he was wrongly told he was female, found out he was actually male in his late teens, opted for corrective surgery, and has lived as a man since."
www.skiinghistory.org/news/erik-schinegger-forgotten-world-champion

It also underlines how complex gender is (properly understood as an externally imposed set of stereotypes). His mother had her suspicions from the start that the midwife had got it wrong, but didn't challenge them. (Desperately wanting a daughter after 3 boys? Not wanting to challenge an authority figure?) Schinegger was also offered surgery (presumably gonadectomy) and hormone treatment to enable "her to live as a woman", and continue competing in women's skiing, or have what was apparently the more invasive surgical option of trying to sort out his male genitalia and gonads - which is what he opted for. It seems neither option was straightforward for him in terms of other people's responses. He was from a very conservative Catholic rural background and already knew he (or she as he then thought of himself) was sexually attracted to women. So he had the choice of being vilified for being a lesbian or being vilified (as was the eventual outcome) for upending everyone's expectations built round their assumptions about his birth sex, and being stripped of his world title, something the village took great pride in.

Sex not gender. If we have that rule we can't make exceptions. Just worth repeating

@highame

Sex not gender. If we have that rule we can't make exceptions. Just worth repeating

This.

gender is usually a fair charactheristic to categorize athletes

Really?

"I will now announce the 800 metres for people who like crochet, have long hair, prefer to wear make up and high heels and feel emotional, empathic and nurturing."

What exactly is the point of grouping these people? To what purpose?

DianasLasso - yes it’s a pretty amazing story. Erik is pretty straightforward about his own story (get lost wiki) - I guess he is one person who could genuinely say that the midwife made the wrong call and ‘assigned’ his sex.

It makes me angry that the whole narrative is that CS is being treated unfairly without a thought given to the women who lose out because of this unfair advantage they can't compete with. I'm shocked there is such a prevalence of this. That is something I hadn't been aware of.

CS's statement talks about being female, and I find that leaves a bad taste as a misrepresentation of the facts.

DH and I fell out about this this morning. He says CS didn't cheat and that's all he is bothered about, otherwise it's been humiliating and unfair for her. He's more bothered about the drug cheats. I agree it must have been lousy for her but do not agree that she should compete against women. DH says if we get into looking at physical advantages we will say it's not fair that men over 6 foot are better at basketball or Jamica produces so many high class sprinters.
For him it boils down to she was raised female, has considered herself female and that should be enough. But a couple of people here have referred to interviews where CS has indicated she doesn't think of herself as female, or thinks very little of women. Can anyone direct me one such interview please as I think it might make a difference?

I did not know about the other 2 800m top 3 at the Rio Olympics also having DSD. I wasn't great but used to do long distance running competitively at school, usually 800m upwards. I can not imagine having kept at it to be competing in races I stood no chance in getting anywhere with. Also very interested that scouts may be on the lookout for female athletes with DSD.

We need to clone your mum. NZ could use an army of her.

Incidentally - can anyone confirm or refute this? My understanding is that the "massively invasive drugs regime" Semenya is being threatened with is in fact simply taking oral contraceptives.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/sep/08/caster-semenya-loses-appeal-against-world-athletics-testosterone-rules?CMP=ShareiOSAppp_Other

This is the lead paragraph in the article:

"The double Olympic 800m champion Caster Semenya appears to have lost her long-running legal battle against regulations requiring women with high testosterone to take medication to compete internationally between 400m and a mile."

Can anyone spot the problem?

This is why so many people are confused about the facts in this case.

Caster is not a woman with high testosterone levels.

Caster is a man who despite having an intersex condition has benefitted from the physical attributes (lung capacity, bone density, limb length, pelvic alignment, muscle mass etc) as a result of male puberty.

This type of reporting is imho incredibly irresponsible.

Also taken from the same article is a quote from Caster:

"“I am very disappointed by this ruling, but refuse to let World Athletics drug me or stop me from being who I am,” she said. “Excluding female athletes or endangering our health solely because of our natural abilities puts World Athletics on the wrong side of history. I will continue to fight for the human rights of female athletes, both on the track and off the track, until we can all run free the way we were born.”

Yet again let's look at the language here.

Caster has known since 2009 that they are biologically male and are thus (by definition) not trying to exclude them because they are female - quite the reverse.

To run free as Caster was born would be to compete as a male.

Rather what Caster wants to run as is how they identify (at least for the purposes of sport).

There is a deliberate attempt here to use intersex conditions to confer sporting advantage which also has the power to act as a way to breech sex based categories that enable trans competitors to claim similar rights.

If Caster as an XY can compete as a woman then why not a trans woman?

This is why the case is important and I'm increasingly irritated by the poor reporting on this issue.

The facts have been known for a very long time and Casters condition is not hard to explain in layman's terms.

Finally I wish sporting bodies (yes IOC I'm looking at you) would stop this obsession with testosterone levels in and of itself.

It's indisputable that the primary benefits males have physically over women are not the sole result of current testosterone levels but the physical development testosterone conferred on the male body during puberty - something a reduction of testosterone level would not reverse (also note the reduced levels are still vastly in excess of natural testosterone levels in women).

scout

I think it's this one

]

@Scout2016

www.letsrun.com/news/2019/05/what-no-one-is-telling-you-about-caster-semenya-she-has-xy-chromosomes/

You might want to get your DH to read this...

Eketahuna it could!! I lived in the Manawatū and have heaps of family around eketahuna & Pahiatua!

Scout16 show the infographic on page 2 to your husband & The article as well about how 15000 boys & men beat the lifetime best of the women’s 100 metres Olympic champion in a single year