Sex testing and the Olympics

[ArabellaScott]

Crikey. Some article in Slate on sex testing - mostly batshit, with a few interesting nuggets:

'We do have the estimate, based on population-level genealogical patterns and not hard evidence, that 1 in every 504 Olympic athletes has failed a sex test. But the International Olympic Committee has never publicly acknowledged how many athletes it disqualified for failing to meet its highly subjective (and ever-changing) definition of female.'

'For decades, certain federations have tested even teenage athletes, effectively cutting short their careers if—for one reason or another—a test flagged them as insufficiently female'

Finale:

' Sex testing, they noted, “is the canary in the coal mine for what we’re allowing people to tell us about ourselves. That this organization and their scientists and doctors can tell you who you are,” they said, referring to athletic federations—that is a dark signal of our times no matter what'

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

😂
That wretched word "No" again.
No you can't take a woman's place in sport if you're a man.
No you can't be in the women's changing room if you're a man.
No - not even a piece of paper turns a man into a woman.

These people are exhausting.

NO is a single sentence.

' Sex testing, they noted, “is the canary in the coal mine for what we’re allowing people to tell us about ourselves. That this organization and their scientists and doctors can tell you who you are,” they said, referring to athletic federations—that is a dark signal of our times no matter what'

Just wait until they find out about about tape measures and scales.

Or indeed the horrific things the athletic federations use - stopwatches.

It's a dark signal, I tell you.

Or is that a mobile phone with poor reception?

If an athlete discovers through IOC testing that they are a male with a DSD having somehow made it all that way without having an inkling, they have my sympathy. People get bad news everyday though; I'm leaving you, you're dying, you failed, etc. It's sad, perhaps they deserve help to learn to live with it. We don't reorganise the world to pretend it's not happening. Or rather we shouldn't.

If people are genuinely convinced they can change sex, then they shouldn't mind taking the test, should they.

Oh.

I think this is the same article I posted about recently. The bias of the writer hits you right between the eyes, it's so blatant.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5125511-article-the-invisible-toll-of-sex-testing-at-the-olympics

Yes, I missed that thread, sorry!

It's a doozy of an article. certainly stunning and possibly one might call it brave. 😁

Or indeed the horrific things the athletic federations use - stopwatches

BUT I IDENTIFY AS HAVING BEEN THE FASTEST! WAAAH!

Most athletes are well above the age when normal puberty would have started. So a serious female identified athlete who had not started her periods, or shown breast development, but who was at the same time showing some male pubertal signs, such as a deepening voice, bone growth, male muscle development etc would have been noticed and tested.

I doubt if there are many DSD athletes who have no inkling by the time they are in senior competitions, quite the reverse, they, and their trainers and sports bodies will probably hae known for some time and will have in the past been prepared to capitalise on the knowledge.

Completely agree @viques but it's not entirely outside the realms of possibility, who knows what these youngsters might be told by unscrupulous coaches.

Well I might agree it’s a canary in the coal mine, but not in the way the writer purports.