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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Caster Semenya's case to be taken to ECHR

120 replies

OhHolyJesus · 25/02/2021 22:49

This is going to be very interesting.

twitter.com/caster800m/status/1364881945759522816?s=21

OP posts:
Clymene · 27/02/2021 05:09

And poor Lindsey Sharp's career was ruined because she spoke out. She trained her whole life for that moment to shine in the Rio Olympics and she and the other women were cheated out of the record books by 3 men.

I hope one day they are stripped of their medals.

DolphinDreams · 27/02/2021 05:29

I'm sorry but I see this differently. I'm surprised that, at the very least, posters don't see this as the complex, sad, messy human affair it is, rather than a clear cut case of men invading women's spaces.

It makes me uneasy, as a feminist, to hear such confident assertions of what constitutes a 'normal' woman. We fight for our rights against a history of being told how we must conform - medically, emotionally, behaviourally.

This person was born this way. She was not born a man. She can't be told she's in a human category that can't compete. She's a human being seeking to do what all athletes do - use their physical characteristics to win glory.

And why the assumption that she has 'plenty of money' to fight this ? She's from grinding poverty. Yes she has money from her winnings but not the resources needed to fight endless and international court cases.

And she is not a trans woman.

WeAreJackieWeaver · 27/02/2021 05:44

I think we do see this as messy and sad on the whole but as we are talking about sport which has rules about competition, and what is it isn’t fair, feelings are not really relevant.

Clymene · 27/02/2021 05:50

Where's your sympathy for all the women who couldn't hope to beat men @DolphinDreams?

NotBadConsidering · 27/02/2021 07:56

This person was born this way. She was not born a man. She can't be told she's in a human category that can't compete. She's a human being seeking to do what all athletes do - use their physical characteristics to win glory.

No Semenya was not born a man. Not was Semenya born a woman. Nor a baby girl. Semenya was born an infant male, and people failed to recognise that. A failure of that to be accurately recognised is the only thing Semenya has to justify being allowed to compete in women’s sport as an adult.

And why the assumption that she has 'plenty of money' to fight this ? She's from grinding poverty. Yes she has money from her winnings but not the resources needed to fight endless and international court cases.

I can 100% guarantee that Semenya has a great deal more money from Diamond League wins and sponsorship from any of the women Semenya raced over 10 years, many themselves from “grinding poverty”.

Sophoclesthefox · 27/02/2021 08:11

On a human level, I absolutely do have sympathy for Caster, who was dealt a difficult hand in the womb. It’s rotten. In social terms, I wouldn’t presume to comment on Caster’s life- it shouldn’t matter, and it’s not for me to say. But in sporting terms, having testes and XY chromosomes really, really matters, and as a lifelong sportswoman, I’m not just dabbling in this to point score from someone’s misfortune, This comes from a place of passion about the integrity of women’s sport.

But a bad start in life doesn’t confer lifelong rights to compete in a category you’re not entitled to be in. And her misfortune doesn’t cancel out Lynsey Sharpe’s- can you articulate why you take Casters side and not Lynsey’s?

I was reading some stuff on training cycles yesterday, Barracker, and there is some amazing research coming out just now about how grossly mis served women’s sports have been by decades of research that tries to extrapolate data about women from research done only on men. Training women as smaller, weaker men doesn’t just not serve us well, it’s positively dangerous. Things like menstural cycle, hormonal shifts, menopause have long been viewed as confounding factors, but actually they’re completely integral in understanding how to train women for performance. It’s fascinating.

nolongersurprised · 27/02/2021 08:40

Caster has functioning (internal) testes and is androgen sensitive, ie has gone through a male puberty.

It is so sad and disturbing that these factors do not automatically exclude caster from competing against women.

No one who has benefited from male puberty should be competing in women’s sports. It’s just so unfair.

NecessaryScene1 · 27/02/2021 08:56

I'm sorry but I see this differently. I'm surprised that, at the very least, posters don't see this as the complex, sad, messy human affair it is, rather than a clear cut case of men invading women's spaces.

It is a complex, sad, messy human affair.

And it is simultaneously a clear cut case of a male body invading a space created for female bodies.

The messiness arises from some people's inability to see that logic dictates the needs of the many must outweigh the needs of the few. Or the one.

Female sports permit 50% of the population who do not have the advantage of a male body, so cannot compete with males in general competition, to have a space they can compete and win in, with others of the same body type.

Letting male bodies into that space defeats the purpose, and excludes billions, for the sake of including thousands. Women's sports would become a space where only male-bodied individuals could win. Sure women could compete, but they could never win, unless the fates determined that no males chose to enter their event. This case arose because it reached the point where all 3 medals in a women's Olympic event went to male-bodied people. No female bodies on the podium.

And her misfortune doesn’t cancel out Lynsey Sharpe’s- can you articulate why you take Casters side and not Lynsey’s?

I think a lot of people have stunted empathy. They're so used to seeing heroic narratives in media that they automatically latch onto one person as the oppressed hero, up against the evil establishment. And everyone else are just supporting actors without their own story.

Once someone has been established as the hero, anyone opposing them is a villain. And opposition to the hero just proves how oppressed they are, making them even more heroic.

In this particular case Semenya is clearly the hero because it's the evil establishment in opposition, saying "no". Whereas Lynsey is not fighting the establishment, Lynsey is fighting Semenya. We don't know much about Lynsey, but we know Semenya is the hero because Semenya is already oppressed by the establishment, so if Semeya is battling Lynsey then she's just a minor obstacle for the hero to defeat, rather than someone important. It's a narrative trope.

A lot of this social justice-type stuff is symbiotic relationship between people who think they're the hero of their narrative, and people who believe in heroic narratives. It's ultimately an abusive relationship - the former taking advantage of the selective empathy of the latter.

Sorry, no, everyone has to be considered here. Please, try to take a step back and consider everyone's story. That's what the people here are doing. We are not just being mean to poor heroic Semenya, we have broader empathy for everyone involved. Yes, it hurts Semenya to be excluded, but it hurts far more people for Semenya (and all other 5-ARD individuals) to be included.

And even if Semenya was raised as a girl (which is in doubt) so there was really some shock "I'm male" discovery here, Semenya has had over 10 years to come to terms with their situation. An adult should realise that you cannot always get what you want, and life can deal you a bad hand.

Semenya could choose to act gracefully here, like others in a similar position have in the past. Erik Schinegger is a good example.

He really was raised as a girl. I do wonder if there is some evidence of male-vs-female socialisation here. Schinegger seems more inclined to think of others than Semenya, who allegedly was raised as a boy.

NecessaryScene1 · 27/02/2021 09:03

Semenya was born an infant male, and people failed to recognise that. A failure of that to be accurately recognised is the only thing Semenya has to justify being allowed to compete in women’s sport as an adult.

Indeed, and that's why we see multiple such individuals from African countries. In richer countries, such individuals would have been spotted by testing and would not have been incorrectly recorded as female in the first place.

I've read articles (sorry, don't have links) describing the activities of people involved with the African sports bodies going scouting for people like Semenya after the athletic sex-testing rules were relaxed. They knew that there would be a pool of 5-ARD and similar males who would have been recorded as female at birth, and hence now eligible.

Despite the fact that their maleness would have already become apparent at puberty, they could claim to be women and compete at top level, earning a hell of a lot of money for everyone involved.

We know how doping there is in sports to gain an advantage - and the penalties for being caught are massive.

How on earth do you think the same people would resist being able to gain a much larger advantage without breaking any rules?

Of course it happened.

ErrolTheDragon · 27/02/2021 09:39

Excellent posts, NecessaryScene1.

PatchworkElmer · 27/02/2021 10:10

Caster shouldn’t be able to compete in women’s sports. I felt a great deal of sympathy with her cause years ago, but the more I’ve read the more I think that I was terribly wrong. I’m a runner and there’s no way I’d stand chance against someone who’d been through make puberty. I can’t imagine how soul destroying this is for professional female athletes.

PatchworkElmer · 27/02/2021 10:10
  • male puberty
FailingMotherhood · 27/02/2021 10:50

I feel sorry for Caster, to a degree - she's built her identity around being a world-class runner, but it's an identity built on a lie. In sports, we have the male category, and the female category - there simply isn't a category to cover athletes who have gone through male puberty, but identify as female. Sadly, if they they are to be bundled in with an existing category, it should be the male one, but it seems that women athletes have drawn the short straw and are being forced to compete against men.

The higher powers have tried to alleviate it slightly by bringing in the testosterone ruling, to level the playing field a bit, but the athletes with DSD don't want that. Really, the only solution is to have a DSD category.

minchinfin · 27/02/2021 10:54

My sympathies for Caster semenya changed when I saw this interview with her:

This is clearly someone that was bought up as a boy and lives as a man. She describes thinking that girls were "soft and boring" when she was growing up with boys.

I sympathize to the extent that the SA authorities clearly looked for males with DSDs to put into athletics as they knew they could win, by cheating in women's sports, and make them a lot of money. I see that it was an obvious route out of extreme poverty, both for the coaches and the athletes, and who am I to criticise that or say that I wouldn't have done the same thing in the same circumstances.

But the jig is up. Both CS and many, many other people including coaches and officials have made life changing amount of money over 2 decades, taking that money away from female athletes, and it needs to stop now. They were allowed to do it, at the time, because people didn't realise. We do now and ontinuing to appeal just makes CS look tone death to the blatant cheating she was groomed into.

If I wer her I would retire gracefuly and be glad that noone was trying to take my winnings back.

PotholeParadies · 27/02/2021 11:22

I read this paragraph from Barracker's link and I'm absolutely horrified. Well, I'm horrified by the whole thing, as I am well acquainted with what early-onset osteroporosis looks like, but this is the one that made me sob in frustration at social ignorance.

In women, the condition manifests itself in an early warning sign – the absence of periods – which Clay maintains are still glorified in athletics. “I would have been mortified if I had had a period during my teenage years,” she said. “I would have instantly thought‘I’m out of shape, I’m not race fit.’ I thought it meant that my body fat would be over a certain percentage. That mentality was the norm.”

NecessaryScene1 · 27/02/2021 11:57

I feel sorry for Caster, to a degree - she's built her identity around being a world-class runner, but it's an identity built on a lie.

To some extent this is like the Eastern German women who were doped without their consent/knowledge.

Their stories are far more tragic than Semenya's - permanent damage has been done to their bodies, and it was done without their consent.

But we didn't let them carry on competing because they'd built their identity on being world-class female athletes, and it would be too mean to take that away.

PurpleWh1teGreen · 27/02/2021 20:19

^Caster stated: “I hope the European Court will put an end to the longstanding human rights violations by world athletics against women athletes”

I agree.

AlfonsoTheTerrible · 27/02/2021 20:51

Be careful what you wish for, Caster. You just might get it.

ListeningQuietly · 27/02/2021 21:03

Chromosome testing is now cheap and immediate.
People with a Y chromosome should be banned from women's events
because they are not women.

Testosterone and other steroid testing is still essential for both sexes

PurpleHoodie · 27/02/2021 21:53

But the jig is up. Both CS and many, many other people including coaches and officials have made life changing amount of money over 2 decades, taking that money away from female athletes, and it needs to stop now. They were allowed to do it, at the time, because people didn't realise. We do now and ontinuing to appeal just makes CS look tone death to the blatant cheating she was groomed into.

Yes.

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