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

Fair enough, they're searching for a gene that is only present on a Y chromosome.

TBF these aren't actually "sex tests" they're deliberately avoiding these battles over legal definition of sex and instead looking for a biological and genetic reality.

It’s an answer that sits with complexity. My whole argument is I can’t clearly say male or female (and nor can you, or the medical and scientific teams who have worked on this). I’m not going to deny the existence of intersex people to prove something to you (because I don’t think you really have the will to understand it, which is your loss, really)

That's why these tests are clear cut. Does gene exist? yes or no? Yes, you can't compete in female events.

Semenya would fail the test.

Would did they never publish the results of Semenya's sex tests? Surely they would've been happy to publish the results to end all the speculation?

@Deadlifter

Do you really believe that semanya thought he was a girl at 15? Do most 15 year old girls go topless on school trips

No one is denying the existence of anyone! These are tired TRA arguments, "sex isn't binary", "sex is complex", "don't deny their existence".

Anyone (whether intersex or not) who is found to have the gene cannot compete in the female category.

You have a very clear scientific test, with a binary answer, that has been created by a load of experts and scientists, yet some randomer on MN knows best!

Correct. In rare cases the SRY gene can be translocated to an X chromosome. The presence of an inactive SRY gene doesn’t rule out an athlete but prompts further testing.

In my sport (cycling), which has had the SRY testing since last year, there hasn’t been a single positive test AFAIK. So much for the dire predictions that hundreds of elite female athletes would suddenly find out they actually had undiagnosed male-type DSDs.

She might fail THIS test; the point is she would pass others and, as I said up-thread, 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.

We can land on a different option about individuals etc, but there’s no point pretending it’s completely straightforward in every single case, or that there’s full scientific consensus.

They make you drink water and hang around until you go.

Im not saying I personally know best. Im saying plenty of academics and medical professionals think the test is unscientific. It might sound tired to you to say binary biological sex is complicated by a range of variations, but it’s a fact. I know DSD is rare (affecting something like one in 5000 babies) but it’s not non existent.

and randoms on mumsnet are allowed an opinion even if they disagree with you!

Your second paragraph is incorrect. If an SRY gene is detected further tests are ordered. It’s not an insta-ban from the female category.

This is because, in some very rare cases, an inactive SRY gene can be translocated
onto an X chromosome.

There are scientists who will tell you that the Earth is flat, therefore we should say that there isn't scientific consensus that the Earth is flat?

Well that not what’s happening here though is it - it’s a false equivalency. We’re talking here about scientists employed by univeristies and medical institutions, whose work is peer reviewed. People who disagree with you aren’t all the equivalent of flat earthers.

Semenya is male with a DSD only present in males.

Bollocks.

Literally. Proven in court and admitted by himself in interviews. The fact that they're internal bollocks doesn't make him less of a man. The (likely) presence of a bit of a pouch between his legs at birth is not 'a mix of male and.female.features'. It may have been initially misidentified as a vaginaa but it isn't one, any more than a blurry picture of a domestic cat is proof of tigers roaming wild in Britain - even if some people who look at it mistake it for one.

He's been through male puberty. He has male sporting advantage. He's not 'part female', he's a man with an enzyme deficiency that caused some variance in fetal development. He's just as much of a man as one with a genetic disorder that caused the wrong number of fingers to develop.

He was allowed to compete under previous rules not because he was female or part female, but because the rules allowed males to compete in female categories - subject to certain restrictions.

Have you read Semenya's autobiography? If so, did you note the picture of a school trip to the beach? A topless teenager in swimming trunks is unremarkable if that teenager is male and is known by all to be male. Do you think it would have been permitted, or published, if the school had believed him to be a teenage girl?

You'll say anything old thing to get men into women's sports won't you?
We see you.

You're basically trying to say that sex is so complicated that no one can define a male and a female.

Assigned female at birth is meaningless in determining eligibility for the female category. Males with 5ARD do NOT have female genitalia unless you are claiming an undescended penis is female genitalia. 5ARD is sometimes referred to as Penis at 12 (when it often descends). Seminya is 100% male. He and his coaches would have known this when puberty hit but chose to brush in under the carpet to cheat. So this simple test fixes cases like this
The more complex issue which i think you ellude are CAIS and PAIS where you could have a male in the female category depending in the level of angrogen insensitivity (supposedly complete androgen insensitivity would mean no advantage from puberty). I think the Taiwanese boxer falls into this category but there is some discussion that he is partially insensitive. Early days, the tests will need refining.

The results were made a matter of public record when the case was heard by the Court of Arbitration in Sport.

If you’re not able to have compassion for someone who was told they were a girl from birth (and had female genitalia), and fell in love with a sport before knowing any different, and now they can no longer compete in that sport (whether that’s right or wrong), then I feel sorry for you.

There were some scientists working at universities and they tested this. They put through work that they knew was clearly nonsense and false. The work was peer reviewed and published. They were basically exposing the academic industry and how it's been polluted with it's quest for money.

Thank you for being the rare person to agree the tests need refining / can’t answer everything with 100% certainty. We don’t know everything yet.

Minor correction. It's the testes that are usually undescended in 5ARD. And they generally remain so. The penis is in the correct place but underdeveloped. It grows when puberty arrives, but may or may not attain average size.

now they can no longer compete in that sport

Nobody's stopping him competing. He just has to do it in the correct category.

we can have compassion for him but also for the women who were discriminated against by him competing unfairly against them. He knew for years though he had an unfair advantage and pushed it and pushed it. He can still compete, just with the other males.

Semenya categorically does not have 'female' genitalia.

A small penis and undescended testicles are not female genitalia.

Semenya was mistaken for having a vulva at birth, but he would have known since at least puberty, when his voice broke, that he was male. The fact he wore boy's school uniform and says in interviews that he didn't play with girls because 'they are soft' confirms this.

Erik Schinegger is another gold medal winning athlete with 46 XY 5ARD. He had an operation to descend his testicles and naturally fathered children.

Semenya also has children with his wife and there's no reason to assume they are not biologically his own.