Caster Semenya out of world 5000m as Coe signals tougher female sport rules

[Helleofabore]

Sean Ingle’s article today is very clear on more than one point.

amp.theguardian.com/sport/2022/jul/21/caster-semenya-out-of-world-5000m-as-coe-signals-tougher-female-sport-rules

“We’ve always been guided by the science, and the science is pretty clear: we know that testosterone is the key determinant in performance,” he said.

“I’m really over having any more of these discussions with second-rate sociologists who sit there trying to tell me or the science community that there may be some issue. There isn’t. Testosterone is the key determinant in performance.”

Coe insisted it was his responsibility to “protect the integrity of women’s sport”.

“We have two categories in our sport: one is age and one is gender,” he added. “Age because we think it’s better that Olympic champions don’t run against 14-year-olds in community sports. And gender because if you don’t have a gender separation, no woman would ever win another sporting event.”

and then there was this below about Caster Semenya. No more tip toeing around. It is like the new wording being considered by Coe has led to sticking to facts.

Semenya had previously won the world title at 800m three times, including in her last appearance at London 2017, but is now barred from running international events from 400m to a mile unless she takes medication to reduce her testosterone levels.

That is because, as a 46 XY athlete with a difference of sex development, the Court of Arbitration of Sport has ruled that Semenya has an advantage over the female competitors against whom she races.

2 female athletes missed out on a place in the 200 m semifinal and it would have been another 2 missing out on the final if Beatrice Masalinghi hadn't pulled up injured in the semi final .

@Helleofabore

How do they seek them out, though? So how would they know who had a DSD?

I would suggest they would seek them out through representative sport. Ie. School athletics etc.

There was a really good article someone shared on here from the Telegraph that looked into the history of why so many athletes with DSDs were selected.

It turns out that some of the exact same corrupt coaches who gave Eastern European girls testosterone (and told them it was vitamin injections) went scouting for young boys who obviously had DSDs so they would have an unfair advantage.

There is big money to be made in Olympic sport and corrupt people will take advantage of any loophole.

Is it possible that the claim of a DSD would make the use of exogenous testosterone undetectable? So they look for athletes with intersex conditions and then improve their performance using testosterone doping, but claim the surplus testosterone is endogenous?

Drug testing labs can tell the difference:

https://www.wada-ama.org/sites/default/files/resources/files/wada-td2016eaas-eaas-measurement-and-reporting-en.pdf

Ross Tucker provides a good explanation of why Seyni can run in the 200m but not the 400m on this Twitter thread:

threadreaderapp.com/thread/1422079268637523971.html

She then went on to say that PCOS people are "considered female" and it is a DSD

Well, if you define DSD as any abnormality of the gonads/reproductive organs then it is.

Which is how TRAs get away with saying DSDs are more common than redheads.

It's bait and switch. We say, "incredibly rare DSDs aren't proof that sex is a spectrum. They're outliers. And nothing to do with trans anyway." They say, "Ohhhh it's even more common than red hair." Ignoring that, to get to that number, you have to draw your definition so wide that 99.9% of people included are by any sane measure 100% male or 100% female.

All the corrections I would have made to Seb Coe's statement have already been made by pp.

Sex not gender.

Testosterone uptake at puberty, not only testoterone.

These are pretty crucial facts. Coe made me do a quirky smile with 'second-rate sociologists' though. Let's hope he sticks with the medical science. Maybe a second-rate sociologist absolutely peaked him. Coe's an intelligent bloke.

www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=11394312

Exactly. The whole pussyfooting around with the word gender has to stop. There is sex. There is gender. They are now two wholly different things and the days of gender being a coy term meaning sex has to stop because it has been intentionally exploited to colonise female spaces and resources.

It makes no odds at all if the people in a race happen to be feminine, frost gendered, goliath gendered, demi boi, or self define as agender. It's wholly irrelevant. It is absolutely relevant whether or not they happen to be biologically male or female.

I’m really over having any more of these discussions with second-rate sociologists who sit there trying to tell me or the science community that there may be some issue. There isn’t. Testosterone is the key determinant in performance.

LMAO. I do like Seb Coe. It's just refreshing to have someone in a senior position who is good at their job, speaks and acts like a human being and isn't a creep- all three at once seems incredibly rare.

I know what you're saying, it all muddies the waters for them which plays into their agenda.

If you define a DSD as ANY abnormality of the sexual organs, then yes, the stats would be very different indeed.

The definition, ignored by the TRAs, is that the abnormality has to exist during development of the foetus. Not something acquired after birth.

""Disorders of sex development (DSD) are defined as conditions involving the following elements.
congenital development of ambiguous genitalia (e.g., 46,XX virilizing congenital adrenal hyperplasia; clitoromegaly; micropenis)
congenital disjunction of internal and external sex anatomy (e.g., Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome; 5-alpha reductase deficiency)
incomplete development of sex anatomy (e.g., vaginal agenesis; gonadal agenesis)
sex chromosome anomalies (e.g., Turner Syndrome; Klinefelter Syndrome; sex chromosome mosaicism)
disorders of gonadal development (e.g., ovotestes)""

Development being the key word.

It's very frustrating, not to mention insensitive, ridiculous and illogical.
12% of women have PCOS!

That's a hell of a lot of people being "considered" female.

Meanwhile, certain occasional cycling MN ploppers are losing their shit on Twitter. Again.

The second half is correct.

but the whole “white women hating on black women” is crap.
I don’t know any woman that thinks Serena or Venus Williams is less than amazing. (Although unfortunately I know both of them have been subject to racist abuse, including whilst playing matches, which is disgusting)

Awwww! They haven’t visited for a while. Not since they flounced.

Good.

Caster is a man who has fathered children.

I have some sympathy, as I do not know exactly when these athletes found out they were DSD. I have no knowledge about healthcare in developing countries but imagine it is not as good and there are definitely unscrupulous agents who would exploit the situation for their own gains.

How they have been treated makes me uneasy. World athletes have made a difficult situation harder by not thinking it through properly when they first became aware of DSD athletes and amended the rules over which events they can participate in. There should have been a formal review covering all events. Not this ridiculous situation where only some are covered. From one side it does look like they are picking at certain individuals, which to some could look like discrimination.

The fact Caster wore a boys uniform means little. I know plenty of females who preferred to wear trousers over skirts. In my day they were referred to as tom boys. She was raised believing she was female.

In an ideal world the main sporting bodies would commission a joint study and plan a strategy covering DSD/trans athletes from grass roots to elite including the creation of new open categories that include trans/DSD/non binary athletes or attach additional requirements to female entrants e.g. if you have been through a male puberty you can not compete in female division no matter level of testosterone.

As it currently stands the situation in athletics does not benefit DSD or female athletes. Just causes animosity on all sides.

Given this thread, I was gobsmacked to see this Nike ad in the front inside pages of today's Guardian:

Headline: Every Body Has The Right To Run

Sub-head: How good can a woman be until "she's too good to be a woman"?

Body copy:

I am Mokgadi Caster Semenya.

I am a woman and I am fast.

I worked, I trained, I dedicated my entire life to running.

That's what makes me good.

But apparently, too good for some.

So good that I'm denied the right to run my race, unless I take medication to change the body I was born with.

So good that I'm left with no choice but to compete in a distance 6 times longer.

So good that my genitalia and DNA are scrutinised.

Why must womanhood fit within such narrow standards?

Being "too good" doesn't make a woman any less of a woman.

It only challenges limitations of how good a woman can be.

(with a signature at the bottom)

She was raised believing she was female

Away from the track (s)he lives as a man. It's pretty cynical to argue you're female when it comes to elite athletics, but live as a man for everything else.

As it currently stands the situation in athletics does not benefit DSD or female athletes. Just causes animosity on all sides

Totally agree with this. I imagine if DAS fails to get a medal tonight and Seyni does, it will do a bit more to crystallise the issue in the UK and more people will get it.

There is an interview with Semenya where they definitely do not think of themselves as female.

In fact they are quite sexist, scathingly referring to girls as 'soft.' Semenya's own coach refer to them as a boy.

The media have been utilised to do a massive propaganda job to make people think otherwise

I always wonder when people say this about Semenya how closely they’ve looked! Or is it just a euphemism for “no penis?”

I think that's exactly what it is yes. They mean no visible external genitalia.

Notice as well that the majority of the women who missed out on medals due to Semenya's competitive presence were black, as have been most of those who have medalled in the 800 metres since the rule change. For some reason those black women don't matter, though.

Caster could, presumably, enter the men’s category in anything at all, as long as he was faster than the qualifying times. Is the issue that Caster is only faster than biological women?

This disingenuous nonsense pretending that not being allowed to compete against women is the same as not being allowed to compete is pure gaslighting.

It’s not hard, is it? If you’re not female you still have the right to run. Just not in regulated professional competition against females.