The IOC: “ we don’t want a return to the bad old days of sex testing”

[InterrudelyUpted]

I want to give some really important context to this: it was a classic “throwing the baby out with the bathwater “ argument.

Of all the many types of DSDs that affect people born with XY chromosomes, Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (CAIS) is one of the rare ones that confers no male puberty advantage at all. That’s because no matter how much testosterone may be circulating inside your endocrine system, your body is completely immune to it. People affected by this have zero male advantage, apart from possibly being a bit taller than average. They grow up looking completely female on the outside, with pretty typical female muscles and speed and strength and pelvis width and everything.

But CAIS people were used as an example of whataboutery to show the flaw in a straightforward argument that “all XY people have an advantage because of going through male puberty”.

It’s actually quite simple to separate out CAIS from other people with XY chromosomes, your genetic test comes back showing you have XY chromosomes but then they very quickly establish that you no receptors and therefore no male puberty and no male advantage. And CAIS women tend to be pretty shit at sports anyway due to the aforementioned lack of testosterone. But hey go, that’s where we are.

Can’t do sex testing in sports because it might theoretically offend a small bunch of people with a DSD who actually want to be left completely out of it anyway.

Same!

Very grateful to MN, especially the FWR threads to help educate me on matters I would have previously thought 'ah well, that's just what happens...' 😳

How many biological females sit on the IOC? I'm off to Google...

Elite sports are by definition not inclusive!!

Quite! I've never been allowed to compete in any category in any Olympics- who can I take that up with?!

Why was sex testing scrapped? If every single athlete is tested then nobody is singled out. I don't see the problem with a genetic test. You could run qPCRs for SRY genes for all participating athletes in a day.

I can't quite remember the reasoning, but Helen Joyce talks about it at length in the sport chapter in her book Trans. It was very illuminating.

If it is a 'massive topic of discussion' in sport science, does that mean that the exclusion of CAIS individuals from competition on grounds of fairness is openly debated, and, if not, why not?

The reason I ask is that not even the exclusion of 5-ARD individuals is debated transparently (they're described as women with raised T rather than gonadal males with normal T and somatic development). Why the obscurantism?

Lots of people have speculated here about corruption and sexism contributing to this, and Joyce and Davies address it in 'Trans' and 'Fair Play' respectively. I wonder if it's also a reluctance to question athletes who are very successful, draw the crowds, and are likely to kick up a stink and get the media on their side (as Semenya mostly did). Because they can have very aggressive and dominant personalities (can you guess why....?)

(My young TWAW friends are still furious with me for dissing that nice lady boxer BTW 🙄)

The IOC want to overwrite sex with gender identity. That's why everything.

Sex testing was stopped in 1999 by the IOC for the very reason that it could pick up males with DSDs, including CAIS males.
The focus was moved deliberately by TAs to current serum testosterone levels, which are irrelevant.

If it is a 'massive topic of discussion' in sport science, does that mean that the exclusion of CAIS individuals from competition on grounds of fairness is openly debated, and, if not, why not?

No. Due to the fact there is no sex testing anymore, we don’t know how many CAIS athletes there are, what sports they’re in, and they don’t come to attention because they don’t look male.

If sex testing comes in as standard, which it should, then it will come up. And there can’t be a logical discussion without considering periods. It can’t be considered on one hand that the menstrual cycle has a performance impact, or an injury risk impact, or whatever without considering that athletes that by nature of their biology never have to worry about any of it.

It’s clearly an advantage. The debate would be whether it’s significant enough to exclude an athlete from competition.

As is their nationalities - surely if Russia was picking athletes to target they would be from countries Putin has a grudge against.

Ig, the sex testing was stopped in the late 90s due to pressure from
a group who argued that it was cruel because it caused these male athletes with DSDs to be excluded. They argued this was not inclusive and impinged on those male people’s (they used the term women of course and female too I think) human rights. No consideration at all was given to the needs of female athletes.

I will go and find the link I post. I don’t have it handy on my phone and I will post it. It is a nature paper published from the group who stated it was the information they used to convince the IOC.

😂

Is this covered in the 'Sports' chapter of Helen Joyce's Trans?

IMO, if there is an advantage, the size of it doesn't matter because the source of it is maleness.

And thanks very much for the source of that figure of 1 in 1,000 - I have been trying to find it for ages!

No wonder the IOC don't want to go back to the 'bad old days'.

Apart from everything else, would it mean that all the timings are undermined? If DSDs account for a significant proportion of records, the IOC won't want that unearthed, will they?

Future athletes consistently failing to live up to their predecessors isn't a draw.

Are they now panicking that having allowed unfair advantages in a significant number of fields means they've compromised the event itself?

Apart from everything else, would it mean that all the timings are undermined? If DSDs account for a significant proportion of records, the IOC won't want that unearthed, will they?

Zdeněk Koubek was one of the first athletes to discover they were affected by a VSD. Koubek is reported to have (voluntarily) handed back all of the medals they'd won and their records were cancelled. Koubek decided to live as a man and this was reported in a positive manner by the (then) contemporary press.

I read a discussion somewhere about whether the Olympics has 'peaked'. As in with modern diets, funding for training, excellent medical care have we reached the point where fewer records can be set and there's nowhere left to go if that is the case. Less moments of never seen before athletic greatness = less interest in the Olympics.

Under those circumstances rule bending in all manner of ways might be seen as a good marketing ploy. More difficult in men's sport granted but women's sport which has, in some quarters, been more celebrated and garnered more attention in recent years could still present opportunity for some of those wow factor record beating moments.

Of course that can only work if you wilfully mislead the public, gag the media and demand that everyone rejects the evidence of their eyes.

Yes.
It's always worth mentioning that there have been several male athletes in the past who have had the honour and decency to have withdrawn from female competition as soon as they found out that they were male.

They wouldn't even correct the record after the East German doping scandal, although many of the medal holders offered to return them, and the records are sufficiently complete to be corrected.

Took the words right out of my mouth. All the background noise about competitive advantage is largely irrelevant. It's simple. Women's events are for women, ie grown up biological females. Not for men, however shit they may be.

I'll revisit my Euro 2004 example. Why did UEFA not invite Burkina Faso to enter Euro 2024? They had no competitive advantage over anyone and wouldn't trouble the European teams. Why? Because it's a competition for European teams.

Inclusivity is driving all this shit and it's not the lovely, warm word that many give it credit for. Some things are just not intended to be wholly inclusive. Elite sport is one. And single sex spaces are another!

So, men ..... I'm out of fucks to give for your sob stories and pity parties. Piss off and leave women alone 🤬

They wouldn't even correct the record after the East German doping scandal, although many of the medal holders offered to return them, and the records are sufficiently complete to be corrected.

I've lost track of whether Sharron Davies ever had her rightful medals despite all the talk about this. afaik, no?

https://x.com/JournalismSEEN/status/1819652821202972696?t=eE-WiaOUttEGuFpviA5qgw&s=19

Thomas Bach, IOC President, on the boxers, in the last few minutes.

Professional analysis: this is unlikely to calm the situation.
Clip attached in above link. I can't really believe what I've just watched.

Full video

https://www.youtube.com/live/NXciEQWZghM?feature=shared

Obliviously no one can ever run/swim 100m in zero seconds so eventually records will hit a stick point where they can't be broken.
Many of the newer sports that have been introduced to the Olympics are those with marks for skills (skateboarding, breaking, BMX freestyle etc.) or with races over an event specific course (mountain biking, speed climbing etc.) so world record times are less of a thing - new tricks and skills will develop that push up scores and maintain interest.
The IOC should focus on keeping sport safe, fair and clean and let the interest arise from amazing athletes pushing themselves to the limit.

Bloody hell! How dumb can he be?!

”I invite anyone to come up with a better definition [than someone recorded at birth, raised as a woman, passport F] of woman and we will listen.”

Watch now how an extensive list of highly qualified people give him a definition and he and the IOC ignore it.

I was blown away by the spokesman's patronising, controlling attitude as he said that. It was the IOC's version of 'no debate' but it just won't wash.