Article: 'The Invisible Toll of Sex Testing at the Olympics.'

[RainWithSunnySpells]

This is from a few days ago, so I hope that I haven't missed an earlier thread on this article.

slate.com/life/2024/07/olympics-2024-paris-trans-intersex-sex-testing-history.html

https://archive.ph/4BzYk

'That many young athletes—trans, intersex, or cis—may have been, for decades, pulled out of elite sports for failing sex tests is already troubling. But it is especially damaging when you consider how astonishingly subjective the tests themselves were. The sexed nature of the human body exists on a spectrum: As one endocrinologist put it to journalist Katie Barnes, sex is the result of the complex “interplay and the collective of your sex chromosomes, sex hormones, your internal reproductive structures, and what gonads you have, and your external genitalia.” Yet sports officials have, since 1936, invented and reinvented ways to enforce a strict binary anyway. The first rendition of sex testing involved crude gynecological exams, like the one Dillema refused to take part in. By the 1960s, sports officials embraced chromosome testing, but this too received criticism from scientists. It wasn’t uncommon for someone to have a difference in sex development, for example, and never even know it. The pivot to hormone testing presents its own problems, seeing as all women have a natural range of testosterone levels.

Today, these long-running efforts to keep trans and intersex women out of sports have become a mainstream political weapon. Twenty-three states now restrict the ability of trans girls and women to participate in school sports. It is the more explicit and draconian version of what has been playing out, again and again, throughout competitive sports for over half a century: Trans and intersex athletes, and potentially others who failed these highly subjective tests, are being pushed out of sports before they even get a chance to become stars.'

What a load of tripe

Trans women are not banned from sports, they are feely allowed to take part of the male (open) categories.

Has anyone ever been banned from taking part in the male (open) sports categories because of their sex?

Firefox kindly included it in its 'Thought-provoking stories' propaganda recommendations. Sigh.

Trans and "intersex" women, or men, as they are properly known. And keeping them, properly, out of women's sports.

I make sure to turn those off.
If everybody did, they would stop pumping it out.
I really dont get why people allow notifications, theyre harvesting your data simultaneously
https://nypost.com/2024/01/26/tech/companies-are-mining-iphone-user-data-through-app-notifications/

Christ with a jetpack and a Sunday hat. Can't they find interns who've at least had a biology class, and maybe passed it if that's not asking too much?

Would they consider it A-OK for last-year high school students to compete against kids 3 years younger? Just because the size differences are on a spectrum? Athletes in two very different classes don't compete because it's a sport. Not a war.

It's not a sport if only one side has a chance of winning.

It can't be more invasive and annoying than the repeated constant drug testing.

Anyway, I am not surprised. There was a completely shit article on CBC radio about this the other day. They kept talking about "females with naturally high testosterone."

Lots of people don't seem capable of understanding the basics, and especially those who have been to university for some reason.

We need to make journalism a working class profession again.

What a remarkable article! It seems to have run very fast past the truth. Maybe it waved at the truth from far away…

And when an open category was put in swimming, no one turned up. Shocker.

A cheek chromosome swab isn't invasive, I agree that genital inspections totally are.

Yep. Delicious Orie (GB olympic super heavyweight contestant this year) can't identify as a featherweight, there would be carnage.

How can you tell the difference between "females with naturally high testosterone." And females who have been doping. And men.

Just curious.

Or should we just go, crack on everyone welcome and you can do whatever you like because it'd be transphobic if we looked to see if anyone was cheating.

A buccal swab isn't humiliating. I've performed a Barr body test on myself as part of a biology degree. It doesn't even take very long!

Sex really isn't a spectrum. There are sperm, there are eggs and the corresponding bodies that produce them. Rarely something goes wrong. That's not a spectrum, it's an error.

"Yet sports officials have, since 1936, invented and reinvented ways to enforce a strict binary anyway. "

Why are they being so meeeaaan?!

Exactly. And a cheek swab only has to be done once and is accurate.

I’m sure they polled elite athletes and close to 100% were for sex tests in form of the cheek swabs, so this idea that it’s invasive or way out there is ridiculous. Also the spectrum thing is just nonsense. I only have one ovary, what percentage of male or female on the spectrum does that make me? 😂

I think I remember Sharron Davies saying that female athletes supported sex testing back in the 90s yet the IOC dropped it and allowed males with DSDs to compete as female from 1996 despite the majority support for sex testing. I could be remembering incorrectly.

The grift to try and 'queer' sex is never ending. It's holding up better than 'no debate'.

The endocrine protocol for treating trans people with hormones is binary. Males get one type of treatment and females another.

There are two sexes. There is no overlap in what constitutes healthy levels of sex hormones.

Testosterone levels above 70ng/dl in women is concerning. Levels below 300ng/dl in men is concerning. There really isn't a grey area where this overlaps.

This is correct.
The opposition to sex "passports" came from people who wanted to allow male athletes with DSDs to continue in women's competitions. The supposed "inaccuracy" was that the Barr bodies test correctly identified males who could pass as women in everyday life. The claimed infringement of privacy was based on the ludicrous supposition that the male athletes thus identified had no idea that they were not women and to find out like that was traumatising. Or outing, which of course contradicts the claim that they are women.

Thanks for the numbers. I knew there was a gap, didn't realise it was that big!

Most of the time now this is going to be picked up well before getting to the Olympics. It's also a health issue that the people involved ought to know about if they don't.

I would absolutely say that if something like that were discovered it should be handled very sensitively in terms of releasing it to the republic - ideally it shouldn't be at all. Easier I imagine if it's done before breaking a lot of national records and such.

I looked up Barr bodies and found this. I hope it's accurate!

https://biologydictionary.net/barr-body/

I have always found this chart to be helpful.

And I have saved these links for these 'high testosterone' discussions.

Sean Ingle (Guardian sports journalist) mentioned this

The latest scientific publications clearly demonstrate that the return of markers of endurance capacity to "female level" occurs within six to eight months under low blood testosterone, while the awaited adaptations in muscle mass and muscle strength/power take much longer (two years minimum according to a recent study). Given the important role played by muscle strength and power in cycling performance, the UCI has decided to increase the transition period on low testosterone from 12 to 24 months. In addition, the UCI has decided to lower the maximum permitted plasma testosterone level (currently 5 mol/L) to 2.5 mol/L. This value corresponds to the maximum testosterone level found in 99.99% of the female population.

twitter.com/seaningle/status/1537480540068225031?s=20&t=E8muLvV5kUEpbPeemz8zwQ

Plus

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/sms.14581

The International Olympic Committee framework on fairness, inclusion and nondiscrimination on the basis of gender identity and sex variations does not protect fairness for female athletes

“In adulthood, circulating testosterone concentrations do not come close to overlapping between females (0.1–1.7 nmol/L) and males (7.7–29.4 nmol/L).”

And this for people who have questions about PCOS

https://x.com/NathanielHart72/status/1550916276490477568

PCOS raises female testosterone to up to 5.5 nmol/L (and above 4 can cause serious issues).
5-ARD raised Caster's testosterone to 21 nmol/L.

Annoying how this guy's heart is bleeding for all those men stopped from competing against women by their treacherous dna, but not a single fuck is given for the women whose place they would have taken.

1936, the year that Nazi Berlin held the Olympics? Well what more proof is needed that those of us who recognise sex are evil Nazis? I trust everyone has received their 'I ❤️ Hitler' merchandise and have their copy of Mein Kampf open beside them at all times

Yes. 70ng/dl or 2.4 nmol/l testosterone in women is an indication there is a medical condition. I have read the above 5 nmol/l is too often associated with a tumour.