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

Now you are falling on compassion. Ok yes, I feel sorry he was lied to or if by some stange quirk genuinely believed he could compete and wasn't just engaged in a falsehood. Then yes, sorry. But not to the point I'd ask girls to budge over and allow him to compete with his male advantage. My sympathy goes out to the women in the 2016 800m final who had their dreams stolen. I feel sorry for YOU if you can see this.

@Deadlifter are you suggesting/do you believe that CS doesn’t have 5ARD or are you suggesting/do you believe that 5ARD isn’t a male DSD?

He does not have female genitalia. He has an unvirilised penis. There are also photos of him age 15 topless on a school trip, looking entirely male. He knew for a long time that he is male. No female would go topless on a school trip to the beach.

And… what would be my motivation for that? I actually compete at international level in a strength sport (and hold a world record, and some national records) so I am interested in fairness in women’s sports. I don’t agree with you that this is the answer that will create fairness for ANYONE, and it will make participating in sport harder for some women.

Your posts feel consistently… sort of wink wink sleazy? I’m not fully sure what you’re trying to insinuate but it’s really weird.

Well I gave you one very specific example and it's the only one I can think of. In all other (more common) cases it is a slam dunk I'm afraid.

So fairness would be to let males compete in women's sport?

What women are going to find it harder to compete?

You could believe that it’s the right decision for her not to compete, but still refer to her using she / her pronouns if you genuinely wanted to be compassionate to a person who was told they were a girl from birth, has female genitalia etc. OR you could just cruelly keep typing HES A MAN for no reason. __You’re not showing compassion at all.

It’s actually very clear cut with Semenya. He is male. He has testes that give him male advantage. He should never have been in female sport.

Not even he thinks he’s a woman. He is totally at it.

@deadlifter - what did you think of Andrea Thompson’s Strongwoman win - was the DQ for JB justified?

I think we’re not done figuring out what will be the best solution, but we won’t get ever there if we can’t start by acknowledging complexity and that not everyone fits neatly in a biological male / biological female box.

Strange how it was never "oh so very complicated" and "we must be compassionate" when men wanted in to women's stuff

but the moment we say no it's suddenly not at all complicated and women have no right to compassion

Indeed.

Semenya could've been compassionate to the other athletes and let them win, perhaps Semenya could be compassionate and decide not to compete?

oh no will my “woman” badge get taken off me?

And that's great, and no one has to.

But those people have to accept that the massive majority of the human race do, and that destroying women's sports isn't an option, and it's a lousy thing to do. Particularly while pulling the 'equality' card.

Have additional categories. The men's events in many cases are being made open. It's all great. Just don't wreck women's sports for the overwhelming majority of wholly unambiguous women.

I have no compassion for him after he said the women who complained should shut up and train harder.

You think Semenya is an intersex woman.
Also, you don't think I really have the will to understand.

Your second assertion is based on zero evidence. Therefore it's reasonable to assume that holds for all your assertions.

It's odd how 'we haven't figured out the best solution yet' usually carries the under current of 'how much can we take off women to give more to men?'

What? It's not our side obsessing about genital inspections. That's what's super weird. Bringing it up over and over when we've said a cheek swab will do.

I have watched Semenya live and it didn't take a whole load of genetic tests to question their sex. It was pretty obvious to anyone watching.

Yet apparently we go through this whole facade of someone being so passable that only a very detailed genetic test can give the answer.

I think a positive thong about these tests is that female athletes wont be pulled apart on Social Media with wild speculation abput their sex. If they have been passed for female competiton scientifically, their appearance is irrelevant.

Oh, @Deadlifter I do feel sorry for you. You see, we've seen all the arguments and tactics for years, we've seen them all. I can see that you're trying, but your lame arguments are so five years ago!

You started with "Sex is complicated, it's not always straightforward."

Then we showed you that sex is actually straightforward and binary.

Then "But what about DSDs?"

Then we showed you that DSDS are sex-specific, a disruption of sexual development, which occurs in either males or females. It doesn't cause some kind of mix or non-binary sex. It's just different development in boys or different development in girls.

So, then you said "Oh, but what about Caster Semenya?"

And we told you all about him, including his past and the court case.

So when you run out of "what abouts" you try to play the "compassion" card: "Why can't you be compassionate?" (Beee Kiiiind)

That's it. That's all you have. An attempt at emotional blackmail that we have heard a million times and have dismissed just as many times. We cannot be emotionally blackmailed.

The answer is NO. There are two sexes, female and male, and that's the end of the story. You really need to do more reading or watch the news or something. There's a wide open world out there and you are stuck in the past.

JB is a trans woman rather than a woman with DSD, which is what we’ve mainly been discussing here. She was never eligible to compete by the existing rules (so whether you think trans woman should compete alongside women or not, by the existing rules I think yes, the disqualification had to happen).

I felt a lot of sympathy for Andrea feeling her win was overshadowed (definitely different being awarded a title retroactively rather than on the podium); but I think it was also painful for JB.

…. Also it’s an untested comp - many of the female competitiors would have been taking testosterone and other performance enhancing drugs, which I think complicates things a bit too. It does make it a bit different from eg the olympics when we talk about fairness I think?

I think the community was fairly split on it.

The medical community have been very aware of 5ARD since before Caster Semenya was allowed to compete in the female sport categories at the Olympics.

The decision was made knowing that these athletes with 5ARD were male because activists successfully campaigned to stop sex testing because they viewed it as being inhumane. Prior to that, 5ARD was recognised as being a male DSD and those athletes had been excluded. Testosterone was also very well recognised by the medical community as being a performance enhancer whether it was given as a supplement to female athletes or naturally produced by male athletes.

The decision was not made on 'medical grounds' but on a group's human rights campaign that ignored female athlete's voices who were clear that they did not want this change to happen to instead centre male athletes.