Boxer Lin Yu-ting cleared to return after gender eligibility ruling

[Wonderknicks]

Boxer Lin Yu-ting cleared to box
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/mar/21/olympic-champion-boxer-lin-yu-ting-cleared-to-return-to-ring-after-gender-ruling?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
Interesting last paragraph
Along with its appeal process, World Boxing said it offers additional analysis and evaluation for athletes with Y chromosome genetic material who wish to compete in the women’s categories, including genetic screening, hormonal profiles, anatomical examination and further evaluation of endocrine profiles by medical specialists.
Apologies if there is another thread, I couldn't see one.

CAIS athletes were over represented at the Olympics in female categories compared to in the general population.

Who were the CAIS athletes? I was only aware of the 5-ARD athletes.

I do have sympathy for people who are encountering the many challenges of CAIS, and who feel very strongly about being included in the female category. I also get that it may feel pretty grim to feel talked about, especially when views are ill informed. However, I think the onus for people who find it upsetting is to step away, rather than seeking to shut down discussion. I think they’ll be others making their case.

See see we just end up arguing the toss about “marginal cases”

there are no margins, either you are male or female, short or tall, fat or slim. Muscular or not so.

We just end up in the world of the TRA’s if we have no hard line.

There is only two biological groups. Male and female. And they can be determined

End of

After much faffing about with Grok I found out that using the term "advantage" in relation to CAIS creates confusion because in sports policy it refers specifically to androgen-driven performance differences in women's sport.

It was finally satisfied with this form of words to explain the over-representation of CAIS athletes in elite female sport:

"Whilst CAIS athletes do not have an androgen-driven advantage over XX athletes, they have a genetic predisposition to outperform XX athletes on average, related to taller stature and/or higher lean body mass from Y-linked genes."

Other info I got from Grok:

CAIS over-representation in elite female sports (incidence ~1/400–1/1000 vs general ~1/20,000–1/99,000), likely due to Y-linked traits like taller stature/lean body mass, not androgens.

Ref:
"Natural selection for genetic variants in sport: the role of Y chromosome genes in elite female athletes with 46,XY DSD"
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25160863/

Named CAIS athletes at Olympic level (confirmed or reported):

• María José Martínez-Patiño (Spanish hurdler): Competed post-1985 chromosome test challenge; cleared for women's events (e.g., 1992 Barcelona Olympics eligible).

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mar%C3%ADa_Jos%C3%A9_Mart%C3%ADnez-Pati%C3%B1o www.buzzfeednews.com/article/azeenghorayshi/sex-testing-olympians

• Unnamed athletes (1996 Atlanta Olympics): 7–8 female athletes failed SRY/chromosome tests but had CAIS/androgen insensitivity; all cleared and allowed to compete.

www.latimes.com/science/la-xpm-2012-jul-30-la-sci-olympics-gender-20120730-story.html time.com/archive/6933757/is-a-female-track-star-a-man-no-simple-answer

No publicly named CAIS athletes beyond Martínez-Patiño have specific Olympic participation records disclosed; others remain anonymous due to privacy in historical testing.

Overrepresentation noted (1 in ~400–423 elite females vs. 1 in 20,000 general), but identities protected.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_verification_and_intersex_athletes_at_the_Olympic_Games

www.aaas.org/taxonomy/term/9/does-science-support-ban-female-athletes-high-testosterone-levels

I cannot find the reference. I read it a long time ago. At the moment, of course, there is no move to exclude CAIS athletes.

However, back to my point about the boundary of CAIS and PAIS, it could have also been a reference I read that had included PAIS as CAIS, too, and how in the past there was confusion. I have seen suggestions that this might have caused an ‘over representation.’

That is my point. If there is a test, can it reliably assess CAIS athletes versus PAIS.

and it may require future studies to accurately start assessing if there is or isn’t a physical advantage? There could also need to be studies to assess whether these athletes have an advantage due to not having any menstrual cycle. There may not be any advantage overall at all, it would be good to know this for certain.

Cross-post :-) I found them - see my post just before yours.

CAIS athletes do out-perform XX athletes and are over-represented but it is not referred to as an "advantage" because, apparently, that term is defined in terms of androgen-driven out-performance.

María José Martínez-Patiño was on the 2003 IOC committee that agreed that male people who identified as women and who had had genital surgery could compete as women - what you might call the Renée Richards case. It seems very likely that her own experience of being constantly questioned, failing testing and sometimes barred from competing will heavily have influenced her take on the issue, but I don’t know what view she took at the time.

@Hedgehogforshort i personally believe that the trouble is not that there can’t be a hard line, it’s working out where the hard line should be. ‘End of’ doesn’t really cut it for me. I don’t myself see why competitors with CAIS and some forms of Swyer syndrome shouldn’t compete in the female category, while XY 5-ARD shouldn’t. You can see though that the usual GC statement that sex is recognised at birth therefore forms part of the legal argument for both CAIS and XY 5ARD to be categorised purely as female. What we will see of course is the disappearance of PAIS diagnoses in sport. But as I understand it it should be perfectly possible to define what CAIS actually is and to differentiate it from PAIS. Discussing who ‘looks more like a man’ is however exactly what I would like to get away from.

I agree.

I think it must be grim as you say, to be talked about even theoretically. But as knowledge builds, it would be better to have evidence either way.

I also think that part of discussions I have seen in the past pointed out that as training etc reaches that point where gains in performance are minuscule, any source of advantage is going to end up being discussed. Hence I have felt it is inevitable that there will end up being reviews and discussion.

You can see though that the usual GC statement that sex is recognised at birth therefore forms part of the legal argument for both CAIS and XY 5ARD to be categorised purely as female.

That only applies when sex can be recognised at birth.

The "Assigned at Birth" wording was specifically formulated to apply to, and only to, cases where sex at birth was ambiguous and could not be recognised. It has no place elsewhere but was deliberately popularised and appropriated by transactivists.

I went searching too and found discussion about the height being estrogen deficiency.

If that is the case, there also maybe difference depending on when the person is diagnosed and if/when they receive estrogen.

“Discussing who ‘looks more like a man’ is however exactly what I would like to get away from.”

Agree in theory. It may not be possible though if cases such as Yu-Ting start coming up.

They only have oestrogen deficiency if they have their gonads removed. Recommended post-puberty in adolescence or early adult-hood rather than earlier.

Why?

Lots of people ‘look masculine’ and of course that’s a highly subjective term and both historically and currently used as a negative against many women who do gender non-conforming things like take part in competitive sport, by people who think women = feminine. I dont think anyone who describes themselves as gender critical should talk about the appearance of an individual as a disqualifying factor in someone being a woman, unless they are in fact a sex conservative who thinks sex and behaviour should match in their own culturally preferred ways (which, to be clear, I am not).

I am not taking about gender conformity at all. I don’t believe I have in the past either, have I ?

I am referring to male body cues and signs of masculinisation. Just as people have observed in Khelif. Q angles, musculature etc.

The discussion on this thread has been about anatomy and physiology in relation to athletic performance, not how someone dresses or whether they prefer stereotypically "masculine vs feminine" pursuits.

As far as I can see no one has said Lin Yu-ting "looks like a man" or "looks masculine". However, in the context of the current discussion it would not be an unreasonable comment if there is suspicion that a boxer has PAIS rather than CAIS and might therefore have male attributes like a thicker skull, prominent brow ridge, etc.

ShortShrift seems unaware that all boxers, even female ones, wear pelvic guards when in the ring.

I seem to recall numerous threads at the time about the issue, so what were these efforts to shut FWR down?

At the time when people were questioning Caster Semenya's sex, various reports/publications said that Caster had naturally elevated testosterone levels, totally ignoring the fact, that Caster had been through a male puberty, thus possessing all the physiological advantages that brought - lean muscle mass, Q angle, more oxygen carrying red blood cells, higher bone density, larger heart and lungs.
If we fast forward to the 2016 Rio Olympics, women's 800m final, the gold, silver and bronze medal winners - Caster Semenya, Francine Niyonsaba and Margaret Wambui, all had the same 46 XY 5-ard DSD.
In my opinion, no athlete with 46 XY 5-ard DSD, should be competing in the women's category.,
Currently, Francine Niyonsaba of Burundi, holds every women's national record from 400m to 10,000m, something which I regard as beyond credible.

Lin Yu-Ting & Imane Khelif

The comment 'looks masculine' has been used in a more nuanced way in discussions here.

In the case of Imane Khelif, it wasn't just that he didn't look 'feminine', it was that he had physical characteristics consistent with having been through male puberty.

I know I'm in a minority in my attitude to IK, but, looking at images of his in his early career, he looked lighter, and I think his appearance in general - judging from photos and video - was ambiguous.

But between the Tokyo and the Paris Olympics, he moved up not one but two weight categories, and 'bulked up' in a way that was typical of a body that had been through male puberty: he put on 10kg, and it went on in muscle, and probably bone density, resulting in the big-jawed big-muscled individual we saw delivering damaging blows to women boxers in the same weight category.

Later revelations about the kind of DSD he has [not the same as Lin's] showed that 'He looks like a man' wasn't an expression of conservative views on femininity, it was an observation about physical characteristics that were later vindicated when his test results were made known.

Let's keep it simple:
If your test shows "Y" - you're a guy.

There's a photo that was shared the shorts banana 🍌 was kinda hard to miss, even in baggy shorts . The photographer did a good job of catching it🙈.

I hate talking about people's personal appearances, it goes against the grain, but um....er... how shall I put this? if someone has the same DSD as Khelif, they won't have much to show in their shorts, that's kinda the point....

Lin's DSD, I don't know so much about.

I think in Europe we're probably less good at immediately calling the sex of an androgynous looking person of East Asian heritage.

Fwiw, I've heard bits of an interview with LYT, the voice hasn't obviously broken, quite often with DSD males they either make no effort to hide the voice, flaunt it even in the case of a Caster Semenya, or else try to hide it with a kind of whispered delivery, LYT didn't obviously fall into either category for me, CAIS might be a possibility.