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

I agree, but I thought someone should correct the statement that “There is no third sex, no third gamete, no fucking spectrum. You cannot be something other than male or female.” - I know everyone here is keen on being accurate.

But that’s true though.

They don't have a functioning SRY gene which is a more reliable way to define male/female than XY so I disagree with you. Women with Swyer Syndrome are 100% female.

I think you probably meant to use a better edge case such as ovotesticular disorder which can (not always) be harder to parse.

Can you explain please why a functioning SRY gene is a better basis on which to determine sex than having XY chromosomes, or the nature of the gonads?

The (functioning) SRY gene is what "switches on" the process that causes what we would recognise as male pattern sexual development.

The vast, vast majority of the time that means that the fetus has XY chromosomes because SRY is found on the Y chromosome. But very, very, very rarely, the SRY gene can translocate to the X chromosome and an XX male will be born, or it can be non-functioning and an XY female will be born. SRY gene: MedlinePlus Genetics

None of this is relevant to CS who has XY chromosomes, male gonads, and a functioning SRY gene.

Not angry but it isn't true. People are one or the other. Hermaphrodites do not exist.

Thank you for explaining. So is your view that every person with a functioning SRY gene is male, and every person without a functioning SRY gene is female?

Could you explain the more borderline cases you mentioned please?

No thank you. This is a thread about Caster Semanya so this all feels like a bit of a derail. There have been other (and at least one recent) threads that discuss this which you will be able to find very easily.

Ok, fair enough, I missed that - I’ll have a search

On the specific issue about CS, my observation would be that - specific technical questions about testosterone levels and their impact on sporting ability aside - people are talking about her as if she were clearly and straight-forwardly a man, which seems to me misleading. We don’t know to what extent CS had at female-appearing genitalia at birth or whether she was raised as a girl or a boy. Although people claim to know she doesn’t actually identify as a woman, I haven’t seen anything to confirm this. It appears that a significant proportion (though not a majority) of those with the same DSD end up identifying as women (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5489130/) - which is hardly surprising, particularly in cases where a child is born with what appear to be female genitalia and is raised as a girl.

As I said, we don’t know all of the specifics of CS’s case, but comments implying that she is simply a cheating man seem to me to grossly oversimplify the situation.

We don’t know to what extent CS had at female-appearing genitalia at birth or whether she was raised as a girl or a boy.

It doesn’t matter! Semenya has:
XY chromosomes in every cell
Testes producing testosterone
Been through male puberty with all the benefits of testosterone
Male lung capacity
Male cardiac output
Male VO2max
Male muscle mass and myonucleii
Male skeletal structure
Male pelvic angles and running gait
No uterus, has never had to deal with a period in training or competition

The only thing different about Semenya from other males is a lack of fully developed external genitalia.

Semenya has known this since 2009. So has South Africa athletics. So has the IAAF/World Athletics. Semenya chose to continue to compete knowing all this. South Africa Athletics pushed for it. World Athletics couldn’t do anything.

There is nothing about Semenya that qualifies Semenya to be in the women’s category from a scientific and athletic point of view, only a clerical error on a birth certificate based on an erroneous observation.

It is also not true that the majority of 5ARD end up identifying as women because the article you’ve linked says

More recent studies showing that over half of patients who underwent a virilizing puberty because their gonads were not removed adopted a male gender identity in adulthood

Why, with all this, has Semenya been allowed to take medals, millions in prize money and sponsorship away from women over the last 10 years? Why, with all this, should Semenya be allowed to compete against women? What qualifies Semenya to be eligible for the women’s category?

As I said, we don’t know all of the specifics of CS’s case, but comments implying that she is simply a cheating man seem to me to grossly oversimplify the situation.

Obviously there's a financial advantage to complicating the situation. Which is why he's still doing it.

And I believe that to all intents and purposes CS pretty much identified as a male during their early life, wore a boys school uniform, did activities that were seen as male oriented etc, all in a probably pretty conservative environment where a child not conforming to the accepted gender stereotypes appropriate to their sex would be generally frowned upon.

Doesn't this person live and present as a male for every aspect of life EXCEPT when competing in sport against women? Hypocritical and pathetic.

Carole Hooven, who wrote the book on testosterone:

https://twitter.com/hoovlet/status/1678772398617956355

"So the “decision makers” are aware that athletes affected 5-ARD are male, and that they experience the benefits of male puberty. The requirement to reduce T to typical female levels isn’t discriminatory, since these are males who are asking to compete in the female category. But more significantly, all the relevant scientific evidence shows that reducing male T in adulthood does not undo the physical benefits of male puberty.

It’s too bad that almost no mainstream media outlets will tell the whole truth. We need to rely on journalism report facts, so we can arrive at informed views about relevant policies. And the truth about sex is important when it comes to protected female spaces, like women’s sports. #sexmatters"

I don’t think for a minute that CS’s family set out to scam anyone. But the fact remains that a young undoubtably talented athlete from a very poor background achieved international success . Clearly as you say this was not by their family’s efforts. But at some point in their career CS’s potential was spotted, they were coached and launched as a runner. A female runner since that is what is on their birth certificate. At which point they would have been medically examined, thoroughly. And it would have been abundantly clear at that point that CS is male, in every respect except for their birth certificate. It would also have been abundantly clear that talented as they were as an athlete CS’s potential was not going to be enough to win as an international male runner, the only way for them to succeed would be to run as a female, and luckily - they had the birth certificate.

It is worth considering for a moment two related pieces of information.

Of the billions of people on earth the cohort of women who are good enough athletes to compete and win internationally in women’s middle distance running events is tiny, probably a few thousand at most.

Of the billions of people on earth the cohort of people who have a DSD like CS, ie with XY chromosomes ,ambiguous genitalia, internal testes etc is also tiny. Of that cohort the number who are mistakenly identified as female at birth is even smaller. The number of those who are talented runners reduces the cohort even more.

So how come so many of the second group , a tiny cohort, appear as competitors in the first group, an even smaller population? Co-incidence, or a deliberate attempt at cheating . Bearing in mind that funding grassroots sports and supporting athletes for many years is expensive and does not guarantee results , is it not likely that some Sports Bodies choose to focus on individuals who are pretty well shoo ins for medals because they will be running with all the advantages that male puberty gives a human body, but competing against natal females.

Allowing genetic males to run as female athletes is cheating, it denies female athletes medals, sports scholarships, sponsorships and records. It means funding for spotting, training and supporting talented female athletes is diverted to supporting male athletes. It is a scandal as bad as the doping scandals of the eighties and nineties, is even worse in some ways since everyone knows it is happening because it is pretty much happening in the open.

Rio Olympics Womens 800m.

Seriously?

What of it? It is the testosterone derived puberty that is the whole issue with this case. What the fuck does it matter about what genitals Semenya has?

Semenya has known officially since 2009 and I would bet long before then too. Semenya has chosen to continue to compete as a male person in female categories.

Genital configuration is actually irrelevant at this time.

No, there is no evidence that CS has fathered his children.

Human Rights look awfully like Male Demands these days.

no, there's nothing about that in the public domain, and understandably so. the most that can be said is that some people with the same physiology as CS have become fathers, whilst none have ever or will ever become mothers, for obvious reasons.

@NecessaryScene
Human beings are male or female. Male human beings have an athletic performance advantage over females. This advantage is derived from the fact that they are male - their outward appearance is not the point as that is not the source of their advantage. Despite not going through male puberty, a CAIS athlete still has advantages over female athletes, and does not have the disadvantage of periods or pregnancy. It's unfair to make little girls compete against little boys because those prepubescent boys outperform girls on every athletic performance measure except flexibility and balance. Males, even if their development is compromised, outperform females, as proved by the results of CAIS individuals in female sporting competition.

Anyone with CAIS will have known since 16, 18 years old tops that they are not a girl. It's only the external sex characteristics which appear female - they have internal testes and no uterus. So what if they are not as advantaged as men who can utilise the androgens their bodies produce? In my book, a bit of unfairness for women is no more acceptable than a lot of unfairness. Even the tiniest bit of unfairness is not permitted in the male category. Socks which gave a fraction of 1% advantage to cyclists were banned last year.

Fwiw, I would have no difficulty accepting a CAIS male as a woman socially, because it's unlikely I'd know any different! And it's very likely that they have been socialised as a woman. But think it through - we can't treat these males exactly as if they were female in all circumstances. On hospital wards, in sports, they have different needs in the one case and an unfair advantage in the other. Why does our natural sympathy for the difficulties caused by having CAIS mean that a man can pass the burden of his condition onto women who are striving for sporting success? Women's dreams matter.

This is not an edge case for sport. There are no edge cases because all of us are male or female, and the women's and girls' categories are for females only.

Some women with Swyer syndrome have become pregnant and carried a child to term when implanted with donated eggs. From a functional point of view that means they are female.

Question then....

What IS the third gamete?

What IS the spectrum?

What IS the sex that is neither male nor female?

That was a true statement, it does not "need corrected".

As I said, we don’t know all of the specifics of CS’s case, but comments implying that she is simply a cheating man seem to me to grossly oversimplify the situation.

In biological terms, which is what counts in sport, that is exactly what CS is. Socially, as @BellaAmorosa and others have said, her gender identity may be more nuanced. But her body is that of a male, with the normal male athletic advantages.