Canadian athlete silenced by own team

[MissLucyEyelesbarrow]

(Apologies if there is another thread on this - couldn't see one)

This is a gob-smacking story, which illustrates why today's World Athletics decision is so important.

In the 2016 Olympics women's 800m, all three medals went to athletes who are biologically male. The true winner, Canada's Melissa Bishop, was pushed into 4th place.

It has now emerged that the Canadian team management silenced the head coach by threatening a lifelong ban.

So Canada prioritised the feelings of male cheats over its own athlete and a gold medal. Literally Olympic level dick-pandering.

So the chain of events was:

Caster possibly regarded as female until puberty

It becomes obvious at puberty that Caster is not female. She may not have know her exact genotype at this stage though. There are other DSDs that do not carry such a large advantage.

South African Athletics covertly sex-test Caster but do not tell her the results.

Caster is entered in international competition as female, her sex is quickly challenged.

The IAAF/World Athletics get into 15 year muddle about how to respond, which is terrible for all concerned. In that time, Caster is awarded two Olympic golds and 3 world championships golds that should have gone to women, but also suffers prurient speculation and exposure.

Francine Niyonsaba has continued to compete, came 5th at the Tokyo Olympics in the 10000m and in 2021 broke and still holds the women’s 2000m world record despite being male. No one seems to care about Genzebe Dibaba who has her record taken.

It’s interesting that you label these three athletes as ‘cheats’ even though they were competing under the eligibility criteria that existed at the time, and complied with all of the rules and regulations.

Reading those tweets has increased my respect for Canada and its culture. Their team made the right decision in disallowing their coaching staff from launching public attacks against other athletes.

Canada allowed three men to beat a woman, and you admire that?

It’s interesting that you label these three athletes as ‘cheats’ even though they were competing under the eligibility criteria that existed at the time, and complied with all of the rules and regulations

You are right that the individuals concerned are not solely responsible for cheating women. But they do have agency. They know they are men. And they were themselves responsible in part for unfairly shaping the rules to suit them.

These athletes, especially Caster, put considerable pressure on the sports bodies. They manipulated the media through misleading claims to be female and through appropriating the racist misogyny directed at black women. PPs have already described how any attempt to stand up for actual women athletes was met with accusations of racism, and suggestions of sterotyping of female black bodies, when these were in fact male bodies. Deeply cynical, considering the burden that stereotyping creates for actual black female athletes.

When you have men shouting down women with accusations of racism, lying to the media about their sex, and knowingly competing with an unfair advantage, they are not neutral beneficiaries of an unfair environment They created that unfair environment.

What's crazy is that in the past, there was at least one Olympic level female competitor who was revealed to be a male with a DSD, and had to leave women's competition. There was never any question that he was trying to cheat, it was quite a shock from what I understand, and more than from the POV of his sex but his whole life, but also no one thought it was somehow unfair. Because why would it be unfair?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6772989/Intersex-skiing-champion-say-transgender-women-NOT-compete-female-events.html

Canada prevented its coaching staff from engaging in an ill-advised and un-winnable public relations disaster that would have tarnished the accomplishments of their own athlete.

Recognising this and preventing it from happening is an admirable achievement. They’ve earned my respect.

Ah yes, women should always be serenely accepting, in the face of unfairness. We must never be shrewish or shrill - Heaven forfend. If men decide to take our rights, our duty is to say, "Of course, what would you like?". Only by our polite compliance will we ever advance. It's the quiet, feminine, non-confrontational women who won us the vote, and equal pay.

Not only did the women athletes in 4th, 5th and 6th position get screwed over but there are three South African women whose names we'll never know who lost an opportunity to compete for their countries.

Not only did these men screw over their fellow athletes but their own countrywomen.

Watch this interview then say Caster thinks he's female.
Questions were first raised about him when he was still in his teens.

Watch this interview then say Caster thinks he's female. Questions were first raised about him when he was still in his teens

People with Caster's DSD (5α-Reductase 2 deficiency) undergo most of the normal male changes of puberty, other than genital changes. So they get tall, strong and muscular, and develop deep voices. They have less body hair than typical males, but more than females. And, of course, they develop none of the usual female changes of puberty.

Without the money to pay for health care, her family may not have known exactly what the underlying issue was, but there is no way they thought she was a typical female. And there have been a lot of suggestions over the years that she was raised as a boy, even before puberty.

They may not have known when he was young be they certainly knew by late teens.
He should never have been allowed to compete as female ones they knew.

When you consider their was a time when female athletes were visually inspected to make sure they were female. Not even trying on blood tests. Allowing him to compete is an insult to those women.

In any case, the pps are correct that this was never reported accuratly in Canada, other than perhaps in the National Post, but certainly no "progressive" person would read that, even though it generally has much better writing these days than the CBC.

The CBC is not reliable on this, or many other, topics.

Most people I have talked to here have completely believed the claim that these athletes are biologically female.

The Olympic committee that oversaw the Semenya issue understand that no female has the testosterone levels Semenya has. The New York Times reported on the IOC ruling last year AND reported on Semenya's 46XY condition.

A 46XY condition can only occur in the male sex.

"It said it was bound by the finding in May by the Court of Arbitration for Sport that Semenya’s intersex condition, known as 46XYDSD, “has a direct impact on performance in sport, which could never be achieved by other women.”
www.nytimes.com/2019/07/31/sports/caster-semenya.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare