Thread 2: TWO “Female Boxers” Set To Compete At Paris 2024 Were Previously Disqualified From Women’s World Championship For Having “XY Chromosomes”

[Signalbox]

A second thread for those who wish to continue the discussion.

Thread 1 can be found here...

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5129412-two-female-boxers-set-to-compete-at-paris-2024-were-previously-disqualified-from-womens-world-championship-for-having-xy-chromosomes?page=1

XY apologies.

I'm looking forward to what Andrew Doyle has to say about this tonight. He could be looking at it from an angle of free speech, as the IOC have been trying to close this down right from the beginning, without backing up their statements with facts.

Ma Bridges is definitely fuming over on X. Apparently it’s both transphobic and interphobic (wtf?) to want sex testing in sport.

🤣🤣

@Danfromdownunder

No, intersex isn't a thing.

XY is the male chromosome complement. There is no such thing (cf guardian on saturday) as a woman with high levels of XY chromosomes.

'The woman in red'.🙄

I feel a song coming on.

@Danfromdownunder intersex is an out dated term. There is no mysterious third sex where someone is neither male nor female. What they are very rare individuals born with a difference of sexual development (DSD) however they are still either male or female

www.nhs.uk/conditions/differences-in-sex-development/

The other thing that is being ignored by a lot of the “be kind” brigade is the statistical likelihood of someone with a DSD even making it to the Olympics.

We know that 0.018% of births result in a DSD, and of course only around 49% of those will be males.

We know that a tiny percentage of the general population will make it as Olympic level athletes.

We also know that a % of those with DSDs will face acute health conditions that prevent them even contemplating a sporting career, let alone an Olympic level one.

So, given the maths involved (and I’m not a statistician so can’t work it out!) the likelihood of an athlete with a DSD making it to the Olympics should be pretty minute.

So why is it that everyone on this thread can point to at least FIVE cases in the last 8 years of DSD males “allegedly” (and I’m using the big finger quotes here) competing?

The suggestion is that the figure is actually even higher as Sharron Davies alluded that she had been informed by female athletes in other combat sports in Paris that there were big questions about a number of athletes competing.

The probabilities involved have got to be encroaching on miracle territory, right?

OR, using Occam’s Razor, the most likely explanation is that males with DSDs that give a female appearance at birth have a substantial advantage over natal females.

Who would have thunk it?

(Edited for spelling)

I’ve been trying to think of a parallel situation in which men could be horribly disadvantaged in their sport. No transman, or person with an XX type DSD, is going to deprive men from winning medals. Men always get a level playing field. Women are the only ones who suffer if kindness and inclusion is seen as more important than fairness.

Let’s say that the next step for IOC and #bekind is this: Believe all athletes. Nobody lies, these are distinguished sportspeople and it’s cruel to ask them to prove themselves. So… let’s say that when it comes to doping, there will be no tests. It’s really degrading for all these lovely law-abiding athletes to have to pee into a cup. All they have to do is sign a solemn statement declaring they have not taken any performance-enhancing drugs.

Now imagine you’re an honest male athlete at the top of your game. You know you’re clean and playing by the rules. You end up being dramatically outclassed by your opponent and deprived of your rightful place on the podium. But you can’t say a single word in protest because it’s bigoted and cruel to accuse others of telling lies. We must believe athletes and take them at their word.

Did your opponent beat you fair and square, or did they cheat? You’ll never know, but the simplest test would have revealed the truth.

Men wouldn’t stand for such crap. Why should women?

@Danfromdownunder someone posted this article upthread - it’s a very good explanation of what’s most likely happening in this case, and why both boxers are very likely to be males with a condition that means their bodies didn’t quite develop properly in utero, but they have XY chromosomes and normal (ie high) male levels of testosterone, so normal male strength and power.

It's extremely clear and a good read.

No doubt there are others. The only reason we know about these two is that they previously failed a sex test and that information was made public.

I fear that this will result in the sporting organisations that have implemented 2.5nmol/L and no male puberty rules, will roll back on these and those organisations that are hesitating, will not push these changes forward.

Let’s say that the next step for IOC and #bekind is this: Believe all athletes. Nobody lies, these are distinguished sportspeople and it’s cruel to ask them to prove themselves. So… let’s say that when it comes to doping, there will be no tests. It’s really degrading for all these lovely law-abiding athletes to have to pee into a cup. All they have to do is sign a solemn statement declaring they have not taken any performance-enhancing drugs

And that kinda spells the end for the Olympics, if you take it to the logical conclusion, surely? Or, indeed, any competitive sport? Because this whole ideology is based on ‘I am what I say I am, no debate!' So what’s to stop anyone identifying into any event they fancy, no matter what their obvious competitive advantage, or lack of disadvantage? It’s what they believe that matters, and heaven forbid their feelings aren’t hurt…?

This is why the whole debacle is so completely insane. The only logical end is that sporting competitions as we currently know them cease to exist.

Edited to say: and while all this is going on, they pat themselves on the back about their minutely-graded categories in the Paralympics, while knowingly and deliberately ignoring the massive elephant in the room of women as a sex-class being obliterated. Please make it make sense, because I can’t.

I can't help thinking about how, when the IOC took over responsibility for female boxing, they could surely have chosen to re-instigate sex testing, even though it's not their normal policy, just as a one-off solution to a highly unusual situation, because it's, you know, boxing and a woman could suffer permanent injury or even get killed. And yet they chose not to.

They fucked up and now that their fuck-up is in the public domain and they're cornered, I guess they feel they have little choice but to fight it out. And yet they do have a choice - they could still do the right thing, even now.

I expect their defence will get increasingly aggressive and unhinged. We all know that people can be dangerous when cornered, especially when those people have power.

I’ve been trying to think of a parallel situation in which men could be horribly disadvantaged in their sport.

Sports where flexibility and ligthness is crucial - figure skating, some parts of gymnastics, synchronised swimming.

It takes a special kind of hard-faced, entitled dishonesty to carry on with deceit for years which is what we are seeing, and what we saw in Rio on the 800 metres podium. Yes the IOC and an ineffective press are enabling cheating, but do the athletes involved have no integrity and self-respect? I find that incredibly depressing.

So one of our journalists just needs to speak up at the daily briefing( tomorrow?) and confirm that K will be tested for testosterone.

Even better, Sharron Davies should go to the briefing and ask the questions! She’s got press accreditation and the swimming has finished now…

The only logical end is that sporting competitions as we currently know them cease to exist.

I was shocked to see someone had posted a perfectly serious comment on FB, in response to a lengthy post about K most definitely being female. The commenter largely agreed with the post but said that maybe the answer was to ban contact sports. What the actual heck?!

I am no fan of boxing but I absolutely support women who want to box. And I support them competing fairly and safely.

Has any able bodied athlete ever attempted to self identify into the para Olympics does anyone know? Surely only a matter of time.

The next fight is happening now.

Round 1 to Lin

Round 2 to Lin, unanimously

Yes! In 2000, the Spanish basketball team in the classification for athletes with an intellectual disability. They were stripped of their gold medal.

There is all sorts of rum stuff that goes on in the paras, although it’s usually things like demanding an athlete get a cm shaved off their amputation site to fit into a different category, rather than total self ID!

There is an interesting documentary on it, I’ll try and find it.

Nicola Adams has well and truly peaked - publicly speaking, she may have been there already privately.

She’s just Tweeted:

”Research this DSD 46XY-ARD it explains everything”