Thread 4: TWO “Female Boxers” Set To Compete At Paris 2024 Were Previously Disqualified From Women’s World Championship For Having “XY Chromosomes”

[Signalbox]

To continue the discussion...

Thread 3

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5135868-thread-3-two-female-boxers-set-to-compete-at-paris-2024-were-previously-disqualified-from-womens-world-championship-for-having-xy-chromosomes?page=1

Thread 2

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womensrights/5133749-thread-2-two-female-boxers-set-to-compete-at-paris-2024-were-previously-disqualified-from-womens-world-championship-for-having-xy-chromosomes?utmm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=share

Thread 1

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

No one is going to allow Khelif to do this from within Khelif's team. Who would employ them again?

Dr Ekkart Arbeit (East German doping associations) has had some hiccups but has been employed by a variety of agencies even after the revelation of his activities.

Despite items like this, there's a strong suspicion that he's been retained by some agencies to seek out young people with VSDs.

www.insidethegames.biz/articles/10522/south-african-athletics-hit-by-doping-scandal-involving-east-german-coach

Surely they explain the implications to these young athletes? They must need their buy in. Otherwise they could suddenly pull out when they realise all the implications.

There’s a whole thread about the promised legal action, though it got very heated very quickly so the comments on the actual topic are a bit overshadowed. This was one, though:

Having looked at some legal type accounts in X, their consensus seems to be that if any litigation is gone ahead with, it would be about personal harassment of Khelif - not about stating that he is a male. Equally it looks a lot like showboating, so it probably won't happen

Oliver Brown in the Telegraph has really got his teeth sunk into this

https://archive.ph/33upE cross-cross the paywall

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/olympics/2024/08/12/thomas-bach-ioc-presidency-stands-town-olympics/

Apologies if this has already been linked.

I didn't know there were two sex offenders! I knew about the Dutch paedophile but not the other guy.

A final stereotype posits that the two main biological genders are clearly distinguishable, denying the existence of more complicated cases. For example, a scientific meta-analysis from 2000 estimated the proportion of intersex individuals – in other words, people with sexual characteristics that do not correspond to the traditional definition of their gender, and fall outside a binary classification – at 1.7% of live human births.

Le Monde should have clarified that in most of these 1.7% there's no ambiguitity about which sex the person is even at birth...that's much rarer.

Coe (from Telegraph piece): "The reality is very simple: I have a responsibility to preserve the female category, and I will go on doing that until a successor decides otherwise or the science alters.”

Judging by the current BMA stramash, my experience of colleagues across a range of disciplines and organisations, and as a reviewer for medical and clinical science journals, my deep apprehension is that there are far too many professionals who are willing to declare that scientific understanding has altered. Even where that 'change' is based on misinformation and purposeful conflation or even untruths.

Le Monde should have clarified that in most of these 1.7% there's no ambiguity about which sex the person is even at birth...that's much rarer.

They never do, whenever that 1-7% figure is trotted out. Basic dishonesty, that we've seem from most of the MSM.

I blame the IOC too.

However, DSDs can be more complicated than some critics suggest.

People can indeed, very rarely, have a combination of organs from both sexes.
So it's not as straightforward as some say.

For example, this is from NORD -
"Ovotesticular disorder of sex development (ovotesticular DSD) is a very rare disorder in which an infant is born with the internal reproductive organs (gonads) of both sexes (female ovaries and male testes). The gonads can be any combination of ovary, testes or combined ovary and testes (ovotestes). The external genitalia are usually ambiguous but can range from normal male to normal female."

Athlete eligibility I think needs to be taken on a case by case basis. As Khelif's condition hasn't been made (completely) public I can't be certain, but what has been shared indicates their very probable ineligibility if we want a fair and safe women's competition.

We need to find humanoid extra- terrestrials who are 10% faster and much stronger than men. Then they will get it.
Until then I think many men just won't understand that the little ladies aren't just a bit slower because they are smaller but that our bodies are different in so many way.
The idea that men with DSDs will have a level playing field with women if they reduce their T goes to show that even those who should know aren't factoring in reach, lung capacity, blood volume, skeletal and muscular differences etc.
No amount of testosterone reduction is going to change the Q angle in the fully grown person.

What's wrong with, if you're XX, you're in. Anyone else, out by default, but special cases are free to appeal if they can offer evidence of no male advantage?

Because some people with XX DSDs develop male bodies.

Just as some with XY DSDs develop female bodies, don't go through male puberty and probably don't have male advantage.

As a famous meerkat once said, 'Simples!'
Contrary to what some people like to claim, human biology isn't that complicated, sex is binary, and screening for XX and XY is straightforward, non-invasive and any 'edge' cases can be dealt with individually, as duc748 suggests.

The likelihood that people with the tiny number of 'edge' chromosomal conditions are going seek to be Olympic athletes is very small - one of these conditions causes weakening of the bones, so we can exclude them from women's boxing for obvious health reasons.

..people with sexual characteristics that do not correspond to the traditional definition of their gender, and fall outside a binary classification – at 1.7% of live human births. Le Monde.
Is that the 'intersex people are as numerous as red-haired people' nonsense again??
It's so frustrating that no matter how many times dodgy stats are definitively disproven - oh look, there they are again, being presented as scientific fact, and in a reputable newspaper, too.
Head/brickwall interface😡

An opportunity to link to the charts that summarise VSDs.

https://www.theparadoxinstitute.com/read/sex-development-charts

There's a useful summary table somewhere but I can't find the link or the screenshot.

I don't think Khelif should have been allowed take part but I'm more uncomfortable with the name-calling.

Really? I am far, far more uncomfortable that women were hit by men and lost out on medals.
And how much of the "name calling" has been simply stating the obvious?

The number of people with XY chromosomes who could genuinely be considered female is so effing small. It's frustrating to here "oh but some people are this that or the other" all over social media.

The two boxers in question are so obviously masculinised that, along with the info that they have XY chromosomes and high testosterone, we know that these "oh but some people" far edge of a fart in outer space edge case scenarios just don't fucking apply.

I'm seriously pissed off. Reading some commentary about the closing ceremony on another forum, apparently this Olympics had a "woman theme". Fuck off with that, if it is true, they are fucking trolling us.

It was the first Olympics ever to have "gender parity" of athletes whatever they reckon that means.

I mean, apart from the boxing thing they also had a paedophile rapist competing, a sex offender coach, and a woman disqualified for this:
www.bbc.co.uk/sport/olympics/articles/cgm7v44wg0wo

It kind of did have a woman theme, according to this:

press.paris2024.org/news/paris-2024-reveals-the-face-of-its-games-a3c1-7578a.html

And Marianne, the image of France. With its feminine features, the Paris 2024 emblem pays homage to one of our country’s symbols. Marianne embodies the revolutionary spirit that infuses these Games. She encapsulates the generosity, boldness and creativity that inspires the Paris 2024 Games, as illustrated by the decision to propose breaking as an additional sport or the desire to bring the events out of conventional stadiums and stage them in the heart of the city. Her face is also a nod to history and female athletes, who were first allowed to compete in the Olympics at the 1900 Games in Paris.

It makes the situation with the boxers even more galling. Nobody who gives a shit about female athletes would make them compete with biological males.

Those gonads are often not fully functional.

What is clear is that not one person on earth has produced both ova and sperm. Rather some people might have 'streak' gonads or underdeveloped gonad tissue of one type of gonad vs a more developed gonad of the other type.

The degree of development is what is considered.

And if one of these people with ovotestes wishes to compete in the female category of sport, then should need to be established as to whether they have had any degree of virilisation due to their body using testosterone.

It really is not as complicated as so many people try to make it by attempting to bring in specific DSDs as some kind of 'gotcha'.

First, does a body have XY chromosomes, yes? Then assess if the body has functioning testes, if yes? then test whether the body is capable of utilising any of that testosterone. If no to functioning testes - they are included in female sports at the moment. If no to capability to process that testosterone - they too are included at the moment.

Discussing what DSD someone may have is irrelevant. Has their body virilised to any degree? That is the relevant bit at this time.

Discussing what DSD someone may have is irrelevant.

Agreed. And it's largely relevant only if someone wishes to compete in the women's category.

I anticipate yet another working group should be formed to conduct a rapid review. I would think that the majority of people with VSDs will not present edge cases and could be addressed with some useful criteria and thresholds.

The very rare VSDs that might merit greater consideration might be covered by a 'case-by-case' exception for those that fall outside the greater volume or represent VSDs that are not well-specified nor understood as yet.

Khelif competed in the 60kg category in the Tokyo Olympics (held in 2021 because of covid).

Three years later in Paris, Khelif competed at 66kg.

So Khelif went from lightweight to welterweight in 3 years, putting on 6 kilos of what we can assume, judging by appearance, is pure muscle.

I wonder is it physically possible for a woman to increase her weight by 6kg in the form of muscle like that, or is it a result of XY chromosomes/male puberty?

Note - I'm not asking 'is it possible for a woman to increase her weight by 6kg' because I think we all know the answer to that😆

Sorry, that was a reply to someone and obviously I didn't express myself clearly. I meant I was more uncomfortable with the name calling - by which I meant people on SM saying cheater, because she definitely knows she's a man etc - than with people saying she shouldn't compete.

I totally agree that nobody with male advantage should compete against women. It's dangerous and completely unfair. But I'm not sure what Khelif believes regarding her identity. I don't know how the public can? And it's of no account in the matter of exclusion from the sport, but it matters regarding intent and how people threat her on and offline

(I say her because it's dsd and the facts regarding her self identity aren't clear. Not that they matter for sport of course.)

I completely agree that nobody should be abusing Khelif. The blame lies with the IOC for creating the situation and for not addressing it - as they could have done. Where we part company I think @Outofitagain is over what Khelif believes/knows to be true.

Some people with XX have male bodies (rarely).

Virilisation occurs in females too in some medical conditions.

When things start going wrong in the human body, whether that's at a genetic level or later, it does get complicated - because everyone has a different genetic background, so even identical conditions cause different phenotypes or symptoms in different people.

Male advantage needs to be excluded from female sport, but it'll take work to get it right and fair for everyone.