Should there be a DSD category at the Paralympics?

[GerbilsAllTheWayDown]

I think it would be a great idea to have a DSD category, but I lack the knowledge to really assess whether it would be a good idea and what the merits and pitfalls might be. What do the wise women of FWR think?

Why? (not wanting to be confrontational, I just can't see why it would be appropriate)

What aspect of having a DSD prevents an athlete from competing in the Olympics as they stand?

Caster Semenya and others could compete in the male athletics if they wanted to, they just wouldn't win because as male athletes they just aren't good enough. They win medals because they are competing against women.

(Seeing as almost no one is good enough, I don't see that as a disability)

there already is, called "women".

I would say, it depends on whether there are categories of DSD that stop people from competing fairly in mainstream sports.

Not all disorders etc mean a person can't compete in normal sports. There are top level athletes with all kinds of different disorders or injuries which don't affect them at all as far as sports performance go.

So you would need to define DSDs that mean a person could not fairly compete according to their sex, and also you'd practically need something where people didn't have such severe health issues competing was out of the question.

And enough such people to compete in that sport or it wouldn't be likely to get off the ground at the grassroots level.

What's "DSD" ?

As a woman it's not my problem to worry about; I'm busy protecting the women's category.

I'm guessing it's not darling step daughter

Differences in sex development

@lovelyhat ok.....🤷

There's me wondering why step daughters need their own category 😂

What Turophilic said.

Reminder that there are

130 babies needing specialist input every year at birth… For most babies with a DSD diagnosis sex assignment will be clear. In about 7 or 8 babies annually this is not the case.

https://archive2021.parliament.scot/S5_European/Inquiries/CensusBill_DSDFamilies_CTEEAS518CB33.pdf

Other matters aside, it would have to be confirmed VSD, not self-asserted and self-diagnosed which seems to be extraordinarily common. I've never forgotten reading about Ela Xora. I have to admire the bravado of the non-falsifiability of Xora's position despite a chromosomal test that contradicted the self-diagnosis but nonetheless still reinforced personal cognitive biases.

"That mask is a potent symbol of her struggle to rip apart preconceived notions of gender and gain recognition of her own gender identity--that biology is not black and white and that shades of gray should be celebrated, not denied.
Xora was raised as a boy and began presenting as a woman when she turned 25. For years, she believed that she had androgen insensitivity syndrome, or AIS, a condition that causes person who is genetically male, with XY chromosomes, to not respond to male hormones. She identified as intersex, and she thought she was lucky to escape to invasive, painful, and often lengthy surgical procedures that other intersex children undergo, a practice that the United Nations has recently denounced as "torture."
Early this year, chromosomal tests showed that Xora was mistaken—she does not have AIS. She says that this only adds to her belief that gender does not exist on a binary—and that neither trans nor intersex people should have the suffer for that."

https://archive.is/ARGbR

For sports, I can't see the justification. Did you have any particular VSD conditions in mind, OP?

Why should people with DSDs get a special category? There are many other genetic variations within XX and XY that result in an athletic advantage or disadvantage but we don't subdivide them.

... and anyway, why should we go to the hassle for a few men that throw a strop when they can't cheat in the women's category

I read it as step daughter first also!

Yes, I'd call them men. They ARE men.

Is a soldier who loses his genitals after standing on a landmine a woman?

is a woman who has a hysterectomy and double mastectomy due to cancers a man?

No, because it's denying a person's sex.

I understand how difficult it must be for a person to find out they are not the sex they have been told, but in sport fairness should be the goal.

Those with 5ARD will discover they are male during puberty if they were first assigned female. They are definitely not finding out during testing once elite athletes.

The issue is the people that seek out those with these types of DSDs because they know they have an advantage over women. Those are the ones truly in the wrong, using those with DSD's for their own goals.

Hopefully with the advances of science, DSD's becoming less stigmatised in developing countries and more accurate sex determination at birth being possible the issue will eventually fizzle out.

But in sport there will always be cheats, and I'm glad this issue is getting airtime because it matters.

There's not enough athletes in that category for any meaningful events.

What they should do is rename all of the events to have an "open" category that anyone of either sex is allowed to enter if they choose (so no one will misgender you if you are competing as a gender diverse person but plenty of people in both sexes are there) and people with DSD belong just as much as anyone else. It can also include transmen who take testosterone as long as their T levels aren't above the normal male range.

Then for each sport where there's a significant difference in men's and women's performance (eg don't women outperform men in very long distance running?) there should be a second category that is for that disadvantaged sex, with no allowance at all for gender variation, DSD etc. So everyone gets to complete and no one is in a category that mislables them. It's understandable for trans athletes to dislike having to compete in their appropriate category when it's named for a category they don't want to claim membership of. Normalising an "open" category should help.

These kids are pretty much always identified early on in places like the UK, and raised as boys. So it really doesn't come up as an issue. If they get to the Olympics, it is because they are high level male atheletes.

The only group there would be a need for this would be a group of males who were, due to their DSD, not able to compete in a male field. Maybe something like CAIS, which is now a group that completes with females, but that could change with more research.

An open category would clearly not work for such people.

Difference in Sexual Development. There are different forms but essentially external genitals deviate from the norm: they may be underdeveloped or look more like one sex than the other.

The issue in sport is that a person may have external genitals which don't correspond with their chromosomal sex. Specifically, recognised as female at birth but have the sex advantages which come from being male (muscle development, bone density, height, reach etc).

Allowing people with XY (male) DSDs to compete as female leaves women athletes at a major disadvantage. Not just performance but safety.

It also creates potential for abuse by unscrupulous coaches, sporting bodies etc. Pick a country where birth records may be sketchy, identify some athletes who look more female. Away you go, you have an opportunity to manufacture a winner. The athlete has all the advantages of their chromosomes plus a male pattern training programme.

Yes it's going to be huge shock and it's not necessarily their fault, (although I'm not sure if they can go through male puberty and not realise they've been assigned the wrong sex) - but they still can't compete against women in elite sport. They need to be angry with the doctors who didn't diagnose them correctly, not the women who do not want biological men competing against them.