Poor Semenya

[RumNotRun]

https://news.sky.com/story/if-women-must-stop-competing-so-be-it-semenyas-rallying-cry-over-olympics-transgender-athlete-ban-13525463

He's fighting for women's dignity apparently. The article says nothing about the children he's fathered, whilst being a woman of course.

Lipstick Alley have a thread on this.
www.lipstickalley.com/threads/its-official-transgender-women-athletes-banned-from-olympics-by-ioc.6099857/

Please report all
incidents of racism as they will be removed

The more people who hear his interview on Sky news the better.
Looks like a man, talks like a man, uses male body language and oozes male entitlement.
He has admitted he has testicles.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12729835/Being-born-internal-testicles-doesnt-make-woman-Olympic-champion-Caster-Semenya-says-wont-ashamed-different-battle-athletic-authorities-continues.html

Nobody wants you to be 'ashamed', Caster. Be proud of what you are and who you are, campaign for better understanding of DSDs, represent people with DSDs and the problems you face, stand up for children with DSDs getting the medical and psychological support they need, make sure that you get all the human rights you are entitled to - no problem with that.

You're the one saying embarrassing things like 'my testicles don't make me any less of a woman'!

We live in such a topsy turvey world. The poster who is now accusing this thread of racism had their racist comment removed earlier.

Then we have another poster arguing that Caster Semenya is a woman and in an attempt to back their argument is claiming that it is common for African women to go around with bare breasts. I’m putting that one down to ignorance rather than blatant racism.

Is this accusation being used to try to shut the conversation down on MN?

It is defintely interesting to read the lipstick alley thread on this topic.

I’ve never seen a picture of bare breasted African women or older girls looking anything like the very obvious boy in the picture up above.

Yes, he had such a great opportunity to educate people. He could have talked about the practical and ethical issues around DSDs.

He could talk about his childhood and flesh out his claims that he was brought up as a girl as obviously all the evidence says otherwise. He could help educate people in areas with poor healthcare standards that not having a full size penis and visible testicles doesn’t mean that a baby is female.

As a double Olympic medal winner, he will have been given a substantial cash reward by the South African government and enjoys a comfortable coaching and mentoring job.

I think most women doing what he’s doing would have an almighty case of imposter syndrome by now.

semenya doest have differnt biology - how bloody racist can you get ?

I think there’s plenty of room for disagreement about what constitutes a racist post, just as there is with claims of sexist, transphobic and ableist posts.

Some people adopt an unfalsifiable framework within which their definition of racism, sexism, transphobia and ableism is self-validating - any challenge or disagreement is reinterpreted as further evidence of the bias being alleged.

Commentary about masculine features of those with the SRY gene - within the context of discussion about the impact of male puberty on sporting performance appearance is inevitable. Claims of this being racially motivated with black athletes are undermined by the same arguments being applied across all races.

It’s great that SRY screening means people wanting fair competition will no longer need to speculate based on appearance.

I presume that those who are genuinely racist will continue to diminish and undermine the performance and success of black athletes. However, positive engagement with posts questioning the sex based appearance of athletes will fall off a cliff once SRY screening kicks in.

This is incorrect. Intersex is fleetingly rare and means that both male and female tissues are present. Estimates are there have been about 700 instances since the 1800s. DSDs are more common 1 in about 2000 births. They are either male or female depending on which DSD they have. CS is a biological male with no female tissue present.

There are many reliable sources. Here’s one:

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/67367157

I’ve copied and pasted the most important bit:

“ She (i.e. Semenya) appealed against World Athletics' proposal at the Switzerland-based Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas), but eventually lost in what amounted to a landmark case in 2019.
It was in the Cas ruling that Semenya's specific DSD was confirmed as 46 XY 5-ARD (5-alpha-reductase deficiency). People with this particular DSD have the male XY chromosomes. Some are assigned female or male at birth depending on their external genitalia.
Semenya told BBC Sport that she was "born without a uterus" and born "with internal testicles" and said: "I am a woman and have a vagina".
Cas said, external athletes like Semenya with 5-ARD have "circulating testosterone at the level of the male 46 XY population and not at the level of the female 46 XX population", which gives them "a significant sporting advantage over 46 XX female athletes".

IT HAS BEEN CONFIRMED THAT SEMENYA HAS XY CHROMOSOMES I.E SEMENYA IS BIOLOGICALLY MALE NO MATTER WHAT LIES SEMENYA TELLS ABOUT THIS.

Well, ugly dumpling you are persistent, I'll give you that.
'Intersex' was the word that was grabbed by the TRA movement to attempt to persuade people that " ooh look there's an in between sex"
Very offensive to people with DSDs, who I recall, do not use the term 'intersex'?

It is quite amusing to see you arguing despite all the information posted. Can't decide whether it's arrogance or naivety! Or on a wind-up!
(Posting style seems familiar too)

@Uglydumpling you've been given lots of info- what is it that you don't understand?
Do you have any links/sources to support your assertions?
You seem determined to keep going, so come on, present your 'facts'

It's frustrating and amusing in equal measure
At least saying that is stopping me reaching for the gin 😉

SC has a DSD, which is a-typical. I presume this is what you mean by ‘different biology’.

Using your terminology, SC does have different biology, but not because of race, it’s a result of having a DSD.

It might be helpful for you to take a step back and open up to the idea that you are viewing posts through a skewed lens.

People are talking about CS’s difference, but all of those I have read are focusing on CS being male and the impact that has on fair competition in the female category. CS happens to be black. I am confident that the vast majority of this thread would read the same if CS was white. A key differences would be no race related whataboutery.

It is obviously with the individual national athletics federations that Semenya and the other athletes with 5Ard need to take issue. For many years these bodies were quite clearly scouting for such individuals to represent their countries and boost their national medal tallly....by completely disregarding the integrity and value of female sports and sporting categories.

The same with people ( including children) who have been encourgaed to believe they are the opposite sex by those with 'progressive' credentials to burnish - when, and inevitably, at some stage their imagined/purported 'rights' to access female categories, services and spaces are challenged and revoked.

These accusations of 'racism' are themselves rooted in crude racist stereotypes.

He is.

The medical and sporting establishment are not "grappling" with anything. For years the national sporting federations have scouted for individuals with certain DSDs - in order to enter them into the female category, purely to boost their national medal tally and sponsorship funding.

It is with these organisations that the individuals concerned now need to take up their case. Their personal conditions were exploited, even though they have also, and obviously, enjoyed personal gain and validation in the process.

There will always be causualties due to this sort manipulation when the truth is outed.

Even Semenya's own father said that "he's looked and sounded like a male" from an early age....and photos of Semenya aged 16, show them in 'topless' and in shorts in a way that no 16 year old girl would ever have been photographed.

No girl gets to 16 without breast growth and periods without further investigation, and certainly not when the obvious signs of male puberty have been revealing themselves, instead, for years.

Athletics had already (eventually) got its house in order, there's at least some evidenced that amateur boxing may have done the same, and the career of the most high profile likely DSD basketball player has now wound down to a point where the 2028 Olympics were likely a games too far anyway.

So really I think it's women's football/soccer where there'll be the biggest direct impact. Different to men's football, the women's Olympics are a big deal, roughly on par with the world cup. I might guess that one or two African federations might now decide that the expense & hassle of a long stay in the US for a large squad & entourage just isn't worth it.

Sometimes it difficult to tell who are the ill informed and who are the hard nosed activists and perhaps I’m creating a false binary.

It’s a shame there isn’t a FAQ that could be cut and pasted into threads about DSDs, to address the myths. Having said that, I expect it would be rejected by those who come here to scold or disrupt.

My thinking is that it isn’t worth engaging - beyond laying out the facts for lurkers…..

For the first 5-6 weeks embryos follow an ‘undifferentiated’ pathway. They have 2 sets of ducts Müllerian ducts (which can develop into female reproductive organs) and Wolffian ducts (which can develop into male reproductive organs). If the embryo has a SRY gene (only found on the Y chromosome) the SRY gene activates the Wolffian ducts and suppresses the Müllerian ducts. If there is no Y chromosome/ SRY the Müllerian ducts will be activated the Wolffian ducts won’t be. People suggesting ‘we all start off as female’ are likely confused by the fact that if there is no Y chromosome/ SRY gene, the default is to develop into a female.

When it comes to the sporting female category, what matters is (1) if someone is SRY positive and (2) if they are androgen sensitive or androgen insensitive. If they are androgen sensitive, they will go through male puberty. If they are androgen insensitive they won’t.

There are different DSDs. When it comes to fairness in sport, anyone who has an SRY gene and androgen sensitivity does not belong in the female category.

Yes the fucked up things you all generally say about Africa, Black people and Black countries. They are ignorant and prejudiced and extremely offensive. Stop.

Discusss your DSDs or your intersexes or your transes or whatever. Leave Black people alone. We see you.

The comment saying that the vast majority of mumsent users and users of this very forum are white? Thats factual. Mumsnet knows it's a very white site. It's just uncomfortable to have there in in a thread making up lies about a Black person.

What lies are being made up?

Nobody is making up lies about CS, and, apart from the weird post about bare breasts, which I didnt really understand, nobody is talking about Africa or CS's race. I couldn't give a shit that CS is black. This is about male athletes with DSDs cheating in women's sports. The fact that most, not all, of the DSD athletes known to be in this position are Black or Aisan, is related to poverty, not race.

In fairness, should you be genuine, I don't think it's that surprising that people are still under this impression.

Semenya and his team went to extraordinary lengths to propagate the notion that not only is he female, but it was an absolute scandal that people were questioning it.

It was called racist, on the basis that people think black women look masculine. He was called a woman with naturally high testosterone. He was almost a victim of sexual assault, because he kept having to have his genitals examined, etc.

When it was first discussed on this site, the majority of posters genuinely thought he was a woman and were as scandalised as everybody else about the speculation. It looked like a feminist issue.

But gradually, the evidence piled up. Past photographs, past interviews with coaches, etc, his own interviews, the fact that no woman has as high testosterone as a man, and the fact that he looked and behaved exactly like a man. Not a masculine woman, a man - who thought women were 'soft'.

Then someone mentioned that this particular DSD resulted in a micro penis which could easily be mistaken for a clitoris, and an F on a birth cert. And that scouts routinely searched out boys with it and it was known colloquially as penis at 12. Which indicated it was a very well-known phenomenon indeed.

Then, it was confirmed, that he had a DSD which is male specific, and very well understood.

And then of course, the absolute bat shit statement that his testicles don't make him less of a woman, sort of put the lid on it.

But I certainly remember, his PR machine being very successful indeed in the beginning.

So I'm not surprised that some people still don't get it.

Hopefully, @Uglydumpling you do now.