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.

Cut through all the bullshite that has surrounded womens sport in the last I think 8 years

I now watch womens world athletics and get so downhearted when I see what is happening.

the 3000 stepplelchase and nearly the 200 metres. Then Rio Olympic 800

This article gives the history of testing:

https://www.nature.com/articles/gim2000258.pdf?origin=ppub

Black women are fed up. Look at this Twitter exchange:

mobile.twitter.com/Suspiria451/status/1550281545147195392?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1550281545147195392%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=

It’s hard enough having Black women knocked and scrutinized for having muscles and treated like when Black women win in sports it’s illegitimate because of myths like Black people have extra bones or stupid nonsense people actually say and believe. When Simone Biles started dominating gymnastics other countries said things like “now we have to wear Blackface.” Look at what Surya Bonaly went through in skating, or how people talked about the Williams sisters. We’ve fought so long to be seen as beautiful and worthy and human, to be allowed to even cry, especially young dark-skinned girls or girls who develop early who go through awful experiences of bullying and harassment. I told a young girl she had the most beautifully shaped face and profile and she burst out crying and said no one in her whole life ever said she was anything but ugly.

I think Athing Mu is one of the most gorgeous women I’ve seen and I’ve seen people call her ugly and masculine and even “the predator” because she is dark-skinned and tall.

Now every Black woman athlete who is muscular or gender non-conforming faces being labelled a man because of this. Just like doctors used to believe we didn’t feel pain and experimented on us - literally cutting out our wombs - now people are making up the same racial science and saying we are genetically and chromosomally different than every other race of women. And any lesbian Black athlete who may want to wear short hair or express herself in a non-conforming way is discouraged in case people start speculating, and none of this would be the case if we all knew everyone running was a female and could present herself however she likes. There’s already enough homophobia against female athletes, and pressure to look “pretty” that male athletes never face, and people who think they’re being progressive are out here telling us actual obvious males we can all see with our own eyes are regular Black women.

And people saying there needs to be another category for DSD athletes - women don’t get a separate category if we give birth and don’t get back to former performance levels, or are recovering from an ED, or are injured, or have low bone density or endometriosis…XY athletes have the same advantage of male puberty, it’s just pure patriarchal sexism to tie the entirety of manhood to a penis and see a “failed man” as a lesser category.

Sorry, but the gaslighting and straight up dishonesty around this makes me so mad. Faith Kipyegon got dragged online for having childbirth scars and showing her stomach and people want to say we are men???

Your last post @Misstache has made me so bloody angry I can't coherently articulate what I want to say about that.

Yes misstache. And look at the clothing women athletes have to wear especially the uk womens outfits. The pants barely make their hipbones and the full outfit cuts up their bums

yeah and Venus Williams Just one of the most amazing tennis players I have ever seen. Pure poetry in motion

yep them men should just go in mens

Thank you notbad. That is really interesting reading. So members of the authoring list were directly responsible for removing cheek swabs.

And this sentence has not survived well at all. As the paper was published in 2000, and the effect of testosterone on female athletes was suspected, if not known, at that point, it feels like a parallel to the inclusion of males in 2015 without surgery can be drawn.

This group argued on the basis of ‘no advantage’ which is still being used. Despite now having much greater knowledge of the effects of testosterone on both female and male bodies and the categorisation of people with differences in sex development.

After the IAAF convened and sponsored symposia on the subject with this Work Group in Monte Carlo, 1990, and London, 1992, collective conclusions were published to the effect that 1) Individuals with sex-related genetic abnormality raised as females have no unfair physical advantage and should not be excluded or stigmatized. This recommendation included individuals raised as females having non-drug induced masculinization, such as those with 21-steroid-hydroxylase and 5-a-steroid-reductase deficiency, incomplete androgen insensitivity and chromosomal mosaicism

It really is rinse and repeat with the same arguments.

Both times no consideration is given to the females of any age who miss out.

@Misstache
I felt every word of that! 🙌

Also well worth noting in notbad’s link.

Following the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games in Atlanta, strong voices arose from the IOC World Congress on Women and Sport, the Women's Sports Foundation, and the Athletes Commission of the IOC. These organizations reiterated to the IOC that chromosomal- based gender testing is irrelevant, costly, and highly discriminating; that it has caused unknown numbers of female athletes emotional and social injury; and that on-site blanket gender verification via genetic screening at Olympic Games should be abolished.

This statement above in direct comparison to this below from the same paper, show ls that yet again, the female athlete’s views were ignored.

At the time of testing, all female athletes at the Atlanta Games were offered a questionnaire written in both English and French asking whether in their view testing of females should be continued in future Olympics and whether or not they were made anxious by the testing procedure.18 Of the 928 athletes who responded, 82% felt that testing should be con- tinued and 94% indicated that they were not made anxious by the procedure. Forty-six athletes were made "anxious" by the testing requirements that preceded their competitive events.

Sound familiar?

Thank you again misstache.

The vote isn't until next Friday (29 July), I believe? www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/jul/22/rfu-to-vote-on-banning-transgender-women-from-womens-rugby

It's stated on Wikipedia that Semenya has a child, but not explicitly who the father is. Wikipedia's rules on the biographies of living people (BLP) are pretty strict, FWIW.

Anyone watching the athletics in the Commonwealth Games?

Imali?

My flag is definitely waving for Coe.

Imali is another DSD athlete and former 800m runner. There are others....

Yes Helleofabore I was watching Elaine Thompson-Herah win her heat. Imali is another athlete who isn't allowed to run 400m any more so has switched to 100m and has qualified for the semi finals.

Imali will be one to watch in the 200m

Very one sided account of athletes with DSDs featuring Imali here:
edition.cnn.com/interactive/2021/07/sport/athletics-testosterone-rules-negesa-imali-running-as-equals-dsd-spt-intl-cmd/

Including one lunatic shamefully comparing the situation to "ethical cleaning"

Claims that this disproportionately effects the global south. Well, yeah, cos DSDs aren't picked up earlier, due to pressures on health systems.

Claims that surgery is being forced on these athletes, which is completely refuted by World Athletics. I have heard that internal testes are at a great risk of cancer though, so removal is often advised.

Poverty and a better life for these athletes families, seems a major driving force behind their ambition.

I wish for a future with better support for all those with DSDs, but found it astonishing that at no point CNN talked about how 46XY is a male condition, how it is extremely rare and how the prevalence of athletes with these conditions is surely unfair for female athletes.

*ethnic cleansing

🙈

It's not quite that simple. Caster is genetically a man, but problems with fetal development led to her being incorrectly afab. I am also sympathetic as it would appear that Caster was not aware of that fact until after she smashed a world record at an international meet and investigations took place.

However it is wrong to imagine that Caster has the body of a woman. Here is a picture of her with her wife. They have two children (which her wife carried) understandably the couple prefer privacy on the matter but with the help of fertility doctors it is quite possible that Caster is the father despite her condition.

No Caster was always a boy at school. The fact that she is genetically a male has come as no surprise to her

She would have know much earlier than that, at or around 12/13 when boys normally go through puberty. At that point testosterone production takes over as normal from the testes, even if they are undescended. There is actually a lot of evidence that she attended secondary school as a boy and that local scouts and coaches knew that she was intersex and in fact scouted for males that could passibly race as female (at the time) due to high rate of that particular genetic condition in that area. And you can understand why. A way out of extreme poverty for not just the individual and the coaches but also entire villages. Still wrong though.

'5α-Reductase 2 deficiency (5αR2D) is an autosomal recessive condition caused by a mutation in SRD5A2, a gene encoding the enzyme 5α-reductase type 2 (5αR2). The condition is rare, affects only genetic males, and has a broad spectrum of presentations, most apparent in the genitalia where a male is born with an underdeveloped penis that might develop to various extents in puberty and hence be raised as female up to a certain age.
5αR2 is expressed in specific tissues and catalyzes the transformation of testosterone (T) to 5α-dihydrotestosterone (DHT). DHT plays a key role in the process of sexual differentiation in the external genitalia and prostate during development of the male fetus. 5αR2D is a result of impaired 5αR2 activity resulting in decreased DHT levels. This defect results in a spectrum of phenotypes including overt genital ambiguity, female appearing genitalia, hypospadias, and isolated micropenis. Affected males still develop typical masculine features at puberty (deep voice, facial hair, muscle bulk) since most aspects of pubertal virilization are driven by testosterone, not DHT.'

i mean it does disproportionately affect the global south, but not quite in the way the twitter zealots think it does.

This is a DSD condition that disproportionately affects people in some communities in the global south. As a result, ethically dubious scouting practices have targeted young people in those communities precisely because it was a loophole they could exploit.

Most importantly, the issue disproportionately affects the opportunities available for female athletes from the global south. That’s who is being pushed out of competitions, places in their national teams, missing out on sponsorship money and so on.

by the time she was 'rumbled', much earlier, Semenya knew she was male, absolutely for definite, she was a sports science student at a university in what's ultimately an upper-middle income country (albeit one that's so unequal that averages are largely meaningless) and it's reasonably plain that she identifies as male off the track.

I'm not really familiar with the other two cases. the one who got the by the looks of things botched backstreet 'corrective' surgery has my deepest sympathies, but this awful story doesn't make her, or other cases like her, any more female.