Brave reporter undergoes inhumane sex test for sports. Brace yourselves.

[singthing]

Here's a blow-by-blow first-person account of what it is like to have the new sports sex test that is being decried as invasive and dehumanising and (in a rather extravagant bending of the facts) a genital inspection etc.

After such a big build-up, prepare to be.... underwhelmed. But please do stop scrolling now if you don't want to read the distressing details:

"I open my mouth and feel the swab brushing the inside of my cheeks for about 20 seconds. The practitioner carefully places the sample in a small plastic bag and then pops it into a sealed envelope. I sign the back of it."

https://archive.ph/kITV9

Although we all knew this, it's good to have it out there.

There will be some people, somewhere, who genuinely believe all the bollocks about genital inspections. invasive this and inhumane that.

Plus, you only ever have to do it once. Once only for the whole of your career.

This is presumably someone who has never had a colonoscopy or had to scoop their own poo up with a little stick for the bowel cancer screening.

I believe you've answered your own question.

It’s you being super weird imagining people getting off on this for no reason.

if you genuinely just cared about fairness in women’s sports, you wouldn’t need to be this horrible / creepy.

One of the worries is scientists think it may disproportionately penalise athletes with a difference of sex development (DSD).

Only the male ones who shouldn't be competing in female categories

Do you understand what a difference of sex development is? chromosomal, gonadal, or anatomical sex does not fit typical male OR female patterns. I know it would be easier for your argument if sex really was completely binary in ALL cases for every single human being, but we know it isn’t I’m afraid.

Do you realise that people with DSDs are either male or female

Do you understand that DSDs are sex specific? Everyone human is either male or female.

There are a lot of different types of DSD of course, but broadly it means they have a mix of male and female biological traits, meaning their chromosomes, hormones, or sex organs do not all match up as purely male or purely female…. it just isn’t as straightforward as someone is either male or female. I know you’d like to believe it’s super straightforward, but (sorry if this sounds rude) that’s your failure of understanding / curiosity / openness.

The tests are very simple. Presence of the Y chromosome prevents you from competing in female events.

I understand how the test treats the Y chromosome, but there are academic groups and medical professionals arguing that using a single gene test is an unscientific way to define biological sex and ignores complex hormonal variations. You can think the test is fine and fair (I disagree) but pretending it’s completely straightforward and all that all scientists and experts agree just isn’t correct.

I go by Prof Robert Winstons definition of sex.

SRY gene plus functional testosterone receptors means you are male and everyone else is female.

That determines sex in people even if they have a DSD ( except perhaps very rare ones). It certainly covers 5Ard which is the male DSD that Caster Semanya has. Or do you still think Semanya is a woman with naturally high testosterone ?

They are testing for the SRY gene rather than the Y chromosome

For the vast vast majority of DSDs it’s fairly straightforward. For an infinitesimally small number it’s a bit more complicated, but that it takes a bit more investigation to determine does not invalidate the sex binary.

Welcome to Mumsnet @Deadlifter. It's a change to hear a sorry before another newbie accuses women on here of a "failure of understanding / curiosity / openness".

I tend to stay out of the discussions about DSDs as that's not my speciality but I'm sure one of the range of medics, scientists, sports scientists etc who contribute on here will be along to further your education 😊

Edited to add I see some have already posted👏

Caster Semenya is exactly an example of complexity, and that it’s not as easy to put people in one of two boxes as we’d like to think. I think she’s an intersex woman, and I think it’s sad a world class athlete can’t compete.

The fuck he is. He has 5ARD. That is a MALE dsd. He has been through male puberty. He is no sort of woman.

He's a man with testicles although he has publicly said that he doesn't think his testicles make him less of a woman

Court records prove he has 5ARD which is undisputed as a male DSD.

Caster Semenya allegedly has undescended testicles, and the sex tests results they took were kept secret. Semenya only spends 800m of their life as a woman.

Caster Semenya has been proven in court to be a male athlete and to have the advantages of going through a male androgenised puberty.

5ARD only impacts male people to produce the same pubertal advantages that male athletes who do not have a DSD condition have.

Do you know what is sad. The 800m female race in the Rio Olympics had 3 males winning medals

Caster Semenya is a male with a male DSD.

The sad thing is manipulating young kids complex health conditions to win sporting accolades for their country.

I think it’s really clear that it’s not that straight forward - CS was assigned female at birth, has female genatalia, and was previously cleared to compete in women’s competitions following testing (so whatever YOU think, pretending it’s always been completely obvious and clear cut to the medical community is just a bit silly).

So your argument re Semenya is:
"I think she's an intersex woman".

Not quite the level of academic engagement we might hope for.