Caster Semenya has won in the ECHR

[QuimReaper]

This is quite confusingly written. Is the ruling just about discrimination, or has it actually overturned the testosterone judgment?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/66162083

It seems to say the testosterone ruling is an ongoing battle and CS will "never stop fighting". But they have won a discrimination case.

CS seems to believe their human rights include thrashing natal women in running competitions despite the obvious unfairness to women.

The thing is though, is that discrimination is absolutely necessary to protect women's rights. Not everyone can have them. They won because CS is "legally" female despite the truth being somewhat different. Legal fictions are the problem here.

The BBC fails to mention that Semenya doesn't have increased testosterone because of a DSD, but because of being male. I'm pretty sure that's the situation anyway.

Iirc Caster has normal testosterone for a male, as evidenced by the child Caster is the biological father of.

I took it to be a procedural issue - the "win" is not that the judgement (that she could only compete if she took testosterone-lowering drugs) is wrong, but that there were inadequacies in the procedures used to make the decision.

No one should have to change their natural hormone levels to compete.

The issue here is that Caster is actually biologically male and they are trying to find a way to allow Caster to compete in the female category while retaining fairness for females.

These two aims are clearly incompatible and the rules need to be such that Caster as a biological male cannot compete in female events.

Haven't the regulations now been changed to include something about male puberty or does that only apply if their birth certificate said male too? There has to be a way of phrasing the regulations to prevent people who have an unfair advantage competing. This is not natural ability it is someone with xy chromosomes and a normal testosterone level competing with females

World Athletics are urging an appeal, the judges were split 4:3. Fwiw I agree Caster shouldn't have to take drugs to suppress testosterone. Testosterone is irrelevant in this case. Caster should only compete with other males because Caster is not biologically female.

This.

yeah, that's fairly standard reporting of the issue - imply that the T got into CS's bloodstream after she pricked her finger on a spinning wheel, rather than having been pumped out by a well-functioning pair of testes.

That.

Women also have human rights not to have male people insisting on them playing along with fictions that fuck over female people.

Yes - this. If you muddle through, making rules up as you go along, you end up in court.

Exactly. Caster is completely right not to want to meddle with their healthy biological functioning and should not be expected to.

The testosterone issue in this case is a red herring and there should be no question of someone with testicles participating in female sports, the remedy for Caster is to compete in the male category (or call it Open if it makes more people feel comfortable).

Fucking hell what a nasty and untrue comment

Semenya is a biological male.

Is this a situation where a separate category could work? Given that the gold, silver and bronze medals in Rio 800m were all taken by athletes with DSDs, it seems that there would be sufficient competition. No lowering of testosterone needed and the women's category remains fair.

Is Semenya keeping up the story that they are female with a DSD?

The DSD they have can only be one diagnosed in a biological male so I'm not sure what @bexyo is finding to be 'nasty and untrue'.

Fwiw I agree that Semenya shouldn't have to medicate and potentially alter their chemistry in ways with unknown long term effects in order to compete, but they also shouldn't be competing in the inappropriate sex class.

Why would it be nasty? Why is it untrue?

This.

I had favoured a third category but realise it would just mean mediocre males having a second chance.

No - have open and female and transwomen and people like Caster can compete in the open category. However, Caster isn't good enough to compete at male elite level.

Some people do genuinely believe that Caster is biologically female. You do have to follow things reasonably closely to understand that Caster is male. It's very rare that the media actually state it. It is time that the women's races were limited strictly to xx chromosomes

It's interesting that in interviews Semenya often refers to women and girls as 'them'. Almost like Semenya doesn't identify as a woman (except on the race track).

Caster is an Adult Human Male. I believe that there is a common word to describe such people.

As an aside, the fact that legal sex is considered relevant in this case gives away the lie that was repeated a lot in the Scottish self ID debate where TRAs would say self ID would have zero bearing on access to spaces, sports and services and it was merely "admin".

Every single Semenya thread there’s always someone who still believes the lie that Semenya is female. Years of lies being reported are to blame.