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Original poster

Female Namibian runners change events due to too high testosterone

451 replies

KevinBaconsJeans · 02/08/2021 07:55

Just spotted this on my newsfeed and very confused. I've seen on another post that there is no maximum limit for women's natural testosterone. So does that mean that this BBC article is lying by omission about the sex of the runners to create a story that isn't true?

It talks about two Namibian runners who have had to switch to different events because they have high T...

www.bbc.com/sport/africa/58029941

Extract:
Her initial excitement at an Olympic qualification however was crushed when she was informed by World Athletics that she would not be able to compete in the 400m event at the Games due to high levels of testosterone.

"In the beginning I was very down, you can't come and tell me now I am not a woman. That is really frustrating and gets me on my nerves but there's nothing we can do about it at the moment," she told BBC Sport Africa...

"It is really unfair because you cannot expect everyone to be the same, everyone to have the same abilities, we are born with different abilities, we can't be the same it doesn't make sense."

Masilingi was only informed in July by World Athletics that her testosterone levels were beyond the allowed limit for female athletes wanting to run in distances from 400m to one mile, unless they medically lower their testosterone for a period of at least six months

OP posts:
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PennineSpring · 02/08/2021 07:58

The BBC, like many journalists at the moment, leave out the important part of the story - these athletes are only subject to the T rules because they have XY chromosomes. If they had XX chromosomes, the rules wouldn’t apply to them.

Original poster
KevinBaconsJeans · 02/08/2021 08:02

That's what I thought, and why I posted. I feel like I'm going mad. It is epic gaslighting!

How many people will read that and think "that's terrible, those poor women being singled out because their female bodies naturally produce a bit more testosterone than some women"?

OP posts:
Aroundtheworldin80moves · 02/08/2021 08:02

More info...
www.google.com/amp/s/olympics.nbcsports.com/2021/07/02/namibia-400-christine-mboma-beatrice-masilingi-testosterone/amp/

Limit of 5mmol rather than 10mmol in other sports

Barwell76 · 02/08/2021 08:03

But she is still allowed to run in the 200m? The same rules should apply to all events.

PennineSpring · 02/08/2021 08:04

An explanation of the bonkers rules by someone who knows.

twitter.com/Scienceofsport/status/1422079268637523971?s=20

Wanttocry · 02/08/2021 08:05

I've seen on another post that there is no maximum limit for women's natural testosterone.

I’m not sure that’s correct - this article says “In addition to the rules impacting transgender athletes, World Athletics ruled that women who were assigned female at birth but had naturally high testosterone also needed to meet the five nanomoles per liter testosterone requirement in order to compete with women in the 400, 800, and one-mile women's races. This year, Christine Mboma and Beatrice Masilingi of Namibia were banned from participating in the 400 meter race due to their naturally high testosterone levels.”

www.forbes.com/sites/kimelsesser/2021/07/27/what-makes-an-athlete-female-heres-how-the-olympics-decide/?sh=335b66f94f9c

ArabellaScott · 02/08/2021 08:07

@PennineSpring

The BBC, like many journalists at the moment, leave out the important part of the story - these athletes are only subject to the T rules because they have XY chromosomes. If they had XX chromosomes, the rules wouldn’t apply to them.
FFS
Wanttocry · 02/08/2021 08:09

@PennineSpring

The BBC, like many journalists at the moment, leave out the important part of the story - these athletes are only subject to the T rules because they have XY chromosomes. If they had XX chromosomes, the rules wouldn’t apply to them.
The Namibian national Olympic committee have said that this athlete has XX chromosomes
Clymene · 02/08/2021 08:09

@PennineSpring

The BBC, like many journalists at the moment, leave out the important part of the story - these athletes are only subject to the T rules because they have XY chromosomes. If they had XX chromosomes, the rules wouldn’t apply to them.
Yep. They aren't women. They're men who were born with ambiguous genitalia.
Original poster
KevinBaconsJeans · 02/08/2021 08:10

But why do they have naturally high T @Wanttocry? I know some women do, but so do most men, and we know that the IOC's priority is setting rules that allow men into women's sports.

At this point I've zero trust in the authorities to 1. Make a sensible rule and 2. Communicate it honestly. It's the same as the headlines where 'women commits [violent sexual crime]'. My first thought is always 'i bet that's not a woman'

Thanks for the links Pps, I'll have a read

OP posts:
Lordamighty · 02/08/2021 08:10

Yes they have naturally high testosterone because they are male. The BBC are being completely dishonest with that article.

Clymene · 02/08/2021 08:14

The Namibian Olympic committee is being dishonest then. Women don't have testosterone levels that high.

And it's not true that they can't compete. They can but they have to lower their T levels with medication. They don't want to do that because they know it will adversely affect their performance.

My sympathy is with the women who are losing out on medals.

bellinisurge · 02/08/2021 08:15

The BBC and trans extremist activists want to pretend that DSD conditions, previously called intersex, are the same as being trans. Even with DSD conditions the person is either male or female but with different sex organ development.
It is not magic pixie dust that means a trans person has DSD, it is a biological medical condition that needs proper care .
People should compete in the sport appropriate to their sex.

PennineSpring · 02/08/2021 08:16

Wanttocry they may say that but the facts are these rules only apply to XY athletes with a DSD.

Clymene · 02/08/2021 08:17

Interestingly, Wambui is now arguing for a third category: Kenyan runner Margaret Wambui says athletics needs a third category beyond men and women. www.bbc.co.uk/sport/av/africa/57335910

NecessaryScene · 02/08/2021 08:18

And either the Namibian Olympic person is lying, or the athletics people have misapplied the rules. If the latter, it could have been overturned immediately, so I assume the former.

NotBadConsidering · 02/08/2021 08:18

The Namibian national Olympic committee have said that this athlete has XX chromosomes

  1. post a link 2 if they say so in link they must be lying because otherwise this rule wouldn’t apply to them
  2. if they are genuinely XX then it should have been easy to appeal to World Athletics and the Court of Arbitration for Sport, just show them a chromosome result.
NotBadConsidering · 02/08/2021 08:18

X post NecessaryScene!

NecessaryScene · 02/08/2021 08:20

And yes, an XX female with that T level would be very ill, not an Olympic contender. Or doping. Being XY is far more likely, even without inferring it from the rule application.

BattyOrange · 02/08/2021 08:22

People should compete in the sport appropriate to their sex

Yes, I'm sure I remember something about 'fair play' being valued in the Olympic's dim and distant past.

ViceLikeBlip · 02/08/2021 08:23

I was really surprised to read on here the other day that the testosterone levels only apply to XY athletes. But I've not been able to find any mention of that anywhere else online. And now apparently the Namibian Olympic committee are saying that these women are in fact XX.

I'm torn. I have so much empathy for women who have been told their whole lives that they are women, and they've trained (and sacrificed) accordingly, and then they discover they are in fact male with unusual /ambiguous genitals. And now the whole world (and me!) is discussing their genitals, which I also feel awful about. And if I suddenly discovered I had an internal testicle and suddenly a bunch of strangers were telling me I wasn't a woman, I would be distraught (I understand that it's different if you're competing at the Olympics! But several people have asserted that these athletes are objectively "male", and that doesn't sit well with me. It's completely different from someone who is unambiguously male bodied suddenly deciding they "feel" female)

But I also understand that it's not fair on other athletes, especially if we're reaching a point where coaches are deliberately searching out these people.

QuarantineQueen · 02/08/2021 08:25

There's a BBC article on 2 July saying both girls have DSDs (sorry, not sure how to add a link on my phone).
Apparently neither girl knew until the Olympic testosterone testing. I can believe that, and it must be utterly devastating for them - but I am very cynical that their coaches weren't aware or had an inkling.

NecessaryScene · 02/08/2021 08:28

There was an actual quote from someone high in the olympic committee about XX chromosomes. That much is true. A bold claim.

I think the athletics authorities really should be pushing back harder against general press misreporting about "female testosterone limits", but I guess they feel unable to counter a direct lie like that by revealing information.

They could at least restate the rules? Dunno...

Clymene · 02/08/2021 08:30

I do not believe that they didn't know. That's the story that was spun about Semenya too.

But Semenya wore boys school uniform and wasn't allowed to do PE with girls at school.

It is a racist trope that these athletes come from remote villages where they don't understand that that not starting periods and instead going through male puberty where their genitalia changes to reassemble a more typically male presentation is perfectly normal.

PennineSpring · 02/08/2021 08:37

I have so much empathy for women who have been told their whole lives that they are women

Women who never had a female puberty? Come on! Think about it. Even if we accept the story that they have always seen themselves as women, what should have happened at puberty didn’t happen, something else happened instead. What do you think that might be? If these athletes have internal testes pumping out testosterone, what form do you think they puberty took?