Surprisingly clear news article from Australia re XY humans competing at Olympics in female sports

[StealthSpinach]

I was extremely surprised to see such a clear, well articulated article in an Australian newspaper.

I was not surprised to see TWAW from IOC representatives.

I truly hope the article writers (named on the website) do not get abuse and vitriol - although I doubt that will be the case, unfortunately.

I do hope the writers publish any abuse they do receive.

If any females are physically or otherwise hurt by males (XY/DSD inclusive), I hope every TWAW IOC official endorsing their inclusion is held responsible.

https://www.couriermail.com.au/sport/olympics/paris-olympics-2024-xy-factor-puts-games-in-turmoil/news-story/11e7a22a6514709eb1d538eebeceb0ac

@Christinapple "I'm sure the people who make the decisions at the Olympics know better than any of us."

Would that be the same people that continuously ignore evidence of doping in tests of Chinese athletes? 'Oh, the food was contaminated? Well then....'

The IOC is a commercial affair, not the footie club round the corner, where fairness reigns supreme. They and their local subdivisions are only interested in money.

'The Press' don't get to hide behind - the IOC told us not to write this - excuse.

Freedom of the press is enshrined in the Declaration of Human Rights.

This has been an issue since 2016 when athletes were banned from speaking about it and were told 'the authorities' would 'sort it out'. Women who spoke about unfairness were threatened with having their sponsorships removed and with loosing their places in teams.

When the Court of Arbitration in Sport ruled, they were only ruling on a small section of events and then in 2021, the Olympic Committee put inclusion above all else.

There are thousands of people who have stood by and watched this play out.... what is even more galling is the silence after the 800m final in Rio and the amount of praise heaped on the Zambian footballers - not to mention the amount of money that was paid in transfer fees for them - record breaking in the women's game.

I am glad that journalists are starting to write about this.... but they have stayed silent and indeed, abused, cancelled and silenced women who have spoken out before.

Too many people have stayed silent and continue to insist that we should protect these individuals. It's not a witch-hunt against the athletes, IOC - it's a witch-hunt against everyone who decided that the women's competition did not matter!

Read the IOC Framework. https://olympics.com/ioc/documents/athletes/ioc-framework-on-fairness-inclusion-and-non-discrimination-on-the-basis-of-gender-identity-and-sex-variations. and see how many times women are being told that they do not matter... and if they can prove, with specific verified evidence that in a particular event, sex matters, the competitor can simply transfer to another event. The presumption throughout the framework is that inclusion in the category should be on the basis of identity.

Dear god - just look at the olympic records, there is not one single event where women are faster, better, longer or stronger than men.. (human on horse events excluded)...

Everyone in sport who is involved with writing frameworks and policies cannot fail to have read the decision by the Court of Arbitration of Sport in 2019:

'This is because the reason for the separation between male and female categories in competitive athletics is ultimately founded on biology rather than legal status. The purpose of having separate categories is to protect a class of individuals who lack certain insuperable performance advantages from having to compete against individuals who possess those insuperable advantages. In this regard, the fact that a person is recognised in law as a woman and identifies as a woman does not necessarily mean that they lack those insuperable performance advantages associated with certain biological traits that predominate in individuals who are generally (but not always) recognised in law as males and self-identify as males. It is human biology, not legal status or gender identity, that ultimately determines which individuals possess the physical traits which give rise to that insuperable advantage and which do not.

Accordingly, the purpose of the male-female divide in competitive athletics is not to protect athletes with a female legal sex from having to compete against athletes with a male legal sex. Nor is it to protect athletes with a female gender identity from having to compete against athletes with a male gender identity. Rather, it is to protect individuals whose bodies have developed in a certain way following puberty from having to compete against individuals who, by virtue of their bodies having developed in a different way following puberty, possess certain physical traits that create such a significant performance advantage that fair competition between the two groups is not possible.'

Everyone should read this!! https://www.tas-cas.org/fileadmin/user_upload/CAS_Executive_Summary__5794_.pdf

If that hasn't been superseded by a subsequent judgement, that is fantastic. But if that was the legal background, I'm very surprised that CAS made World Athletics prove discipline by discipline that there was an advantage for males.

If I understand correctly, CAS didn't make World Athletics prove anything.. it is the IOC that stated that advantage needed to be proven, by individual event.

As for the fact that the court of human rights found the ruling against Caster Semenya to be a breach of human rights.. I find the human rights aspect, frankly terrifying. No one is advocating for the human rights of women to have fair competion and there are many arms of Human Rights organisations advocating for the rights of men.. (without meaning to derail... not least the group of legal experts at a WHO level who issued a statement that inforcing the age of consent was a breach of human rights and also some awful seedy suggestion elsewhere of decriminalisation of incest.)

Human Rights Lawyers are not always on the side of women and children.

What was surprising in the 2019 CAS judgement is that they restricted the judgement to certain events, however, the International Athletics Federation has since extended the requirement for 46XY athletes to conform to defined testosterone levels to all events and if I am not mistaken, also reduced the level (but I have read so many policies, I don't hold every detail at the front of my mind)

I see. Thanks.

Well, not for the stuff about human rights, that's just terrifying! But thanks for the other information about the CAS case.

But this:
What was surprising in the 2019 CAS judgement is that they restricted the judgement to certain events,
..is sort of what was at the back of my mind, I think. Made no sense in principle.

I wonder if they applied it across the board if it would affect sports like equestrian?

It's a classic 'appeal to authority' argument. Calling it utterly sycophantic and pathetic would be understating my disgust.

Christnapple hates the thought of us pesky women knowing things. Our silly pink brains couldn't possibly understand complicated science stuff. Just be good girls, sit there looking pretty and accept that the men know better than you.

Yes, of course I know that, but we don’t know if they are DSD or trans.

Why would that matter?

Helleofabore · Today 10:57

Being able to have competed before is not a defence when the regulations change with the international federation.

It's akin to a guy getting stopped for drunk driving and complaining that he was allowed to, before they brought it blow-in-the-bag, so it's unfair to stop him now.

Yes. It was a surprise to see someone use it without showing an understanding of the background.

Because if people assume they’re DSD then a debate ensues about medical conditions. Of course to me and to the fairness argument it doesn’t matter, neither should be in the women’s category, but for accuracy we shouldn’t refer to them as DSD athletes if they’re not.

Truth and accuracy are not something that poster considers important

Yes. This has been shown to be true.

I think what I didn't realise, ten or twenty years ago, is that articles about Semenya were being written by people who truly believe that the reason women's records (and sporting ability generally) are below men's is due to socialisation, lack of resourcing of female sports, self-sabotage, and not due to the differences between male and female people.
They believe, because Semenya was raised as a girl, that she is on a level playing field with all other (female) people who had been raised as girls.
It's bonkers, but I've seen enough coming out of the academy now to see it clearly.
(The frustration is that girls' and women's sport are often under-resourced, aren't respected, aren't encouraged - but changing that won't lead to a world where women's records are the same as men's in all sports).

But if you say "women" on here or twitter you then have a dozen people with gender critical views replying to ask "what is a woman" or "how do we know they are women" or something similar.

So there are times when it is helpful to say cisgender to make it clear you aren't referring to transgender to avoid this.

No, because in terms of this discussion, it's a binary. Men or women.

All you're doing is trying to insert your sexist beliefs into the conversation, by using the language of sexists.

All the major dictionaries are "sexists"?

https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/cisgender?q=cisgender

"cisgender
adjective
describing or connected with people whose sense of personal identity and gender is the same as their birth sex

• Many ask whether cisgender actors like Redmayne and Fanning should be playing trans characters.

compare transgender"

The dictionaries are produced by institutions notorious for being captured by gender ideology. Such as universities - Oxford, Cambridge.

They believe, because Semenya was raised as a girl, that she is on a level playing field with all other (female) people who had been raised as girls.

Wrong on 2 levels. Semenya was not raised as a girl.

@NoBinturongsHereMate gosh that's quite a disinformation program I've been, well, disinformed by!

@Christinapple It's not sexist of the dictionary to record the definition of cisgender. It's sexist to assume that the vast majority of women are cisgender, i.e. (per the dictionary definition you have provided) have a sense of personal identity and gender that is the same as their birth sex.
Perhaps some women conform in their sense of themselves to what they have been taught is appropriate for their birth sex, but it's sexist to attempt to reify that further, and to assume all women do that.