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

I certainly did NOT say ‘oh what about CS’. Someone else bought her up - I would have much preferred to maintain a more general discussion that did not further violate an intersex woman by digging back into her medical history. I shared my opinion on her only when asked directly.

From developmental biologist, Emma Hilton:

Sex screening already happens in female sport, but the main approach is ethically indefensible. In practice, scrutiny is typically triggered when an athlete appears masculinised and concerns are raised by fellow competitors, coaching staff, or even the general public. This exposes individual athletes directly to suspicion, and sometimes to media attention, with serious consequences: humiliation, harassment, and psychological harm. This approach violates basic principles of dignity and privacy, and conflicts with a governing body’s duty of care to its athletes.
A more ethical alternative is a pre-competition, cohort-wide screen, applied to every athlete entering the female category, with no individual singled out on the basis of suspicion, and conducted discreetly before any public competition. This approach offers meaningfully greater protection of dignity and privacy.
Full medical testing of entire cohorts is not practical, however. Assessing sexual development can be lengthy, potentially invasive and expensive. A solution is genetic screening for genes involved in male-specific sexual development. This can be applied efficiently to large cohorts and serves as a robust initial sieve, identifying the near-100% of female athletes whose development is unremarkable, while flagging those for whom further investigation may be warranted.

https://fondofbeetles.substack.com/p/the-case-for-sex-screening-in-sport

So everybody wins with the new procedure.

Note how explicit the anti-female argument is here - proponents aren't always this explicit.

Athletes like Semenya 'don't fit in male or female boxes' yet they must be placed in the female category despite not fitting.

"Semenya only spends 800m of their life as a woman"

Describes his situation perfectly!

Why are males with DSD suddenly considered women?

I think in the very misogynist societies in Algeria (where DSD is common in certain regions, which I believe is linked to centuries of inbreeding), a boy born without a penis is not considered man enough and should therefore live as a girl.

I agree that there are some benefits to testing everyone -
as you say, so it doesn’t just become about who ‘looks masculine’ (which as we know, tends to become racist quite quickly).

I just don’t believe this test is the holy grail and answer to all variances etc. I don’t really think that’s as controversial as some people are pretending on this thread.

I just don’t believe this test is the holy grail and answer to all variances etc.
What, exactly, is wrong with it and how would you improve it?

as I said to someone else, if you’re just concerned about fairness in women’s sport, you could be pleased she can no longer compete but still respectfully refer to her as she / her. But you’re making the choice to keep calling her a man. I hope you’re not a competitor in sports, if you can’t be gracious in victory let alone defeat! She’s not competing; leave her alone.

😄My mistake. Fair play!
But you did double-down on insisting that he is a woman. And you've ignored everything else I said, which is quite a "teenagery" thing to do. I'll assume, therefore, that everything else I said was on the mark? Good. I can go do something else now. Thanks for that!

Many athletes at all levels experience the situation where they discover that due to a health condition or a change in regulation that they are no longer eligible to compete in a sport that they love.

Why should this group of male athletes should be treated differently? Why do they have gotten special treatment?

And the female sex category is defined by the category boundaries of having a body that is formed around the production of large gametes regardless of whether a person ever produces those large gametes. Genitalia is not the focus of that category definition.

Well she WAS legally recognised as female by the International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF). She was ordered by the Court of Arbitration for Sport to take testosterone-suppressing drugs or undergo surgery simply to continue competing, but she was legally recognised as female.

Any male person that has been excluded from the Olympic competition as per the new regulations is a male person.

You may choose to use whatever language you want in discussions about those people, however not one other person needs to use the same inaccurate language that you have chosen to use.

Yes, it's always the category of woman that has to cede ground to everyone else.

As an intersex woman who is actually born female and still female (46XX ovotesticular DSD), I enjoy melting the brains of people who try to use intersex as a trump card.

Sure. And pre 1999, a male athlete discovered during sex testing would have been excluded from the Olympic competitions.

Why is it ok for the regulations to have changed to allow in a male athlete but not ok to have that harmful regulation changed to protect the female athletes it was supposed to be protecting in the first place?

I hope you’re not a competitor in sports, if you can’t be gracious in victory let alone defeat

Semenya was not remotely gracious in stolen victories. We owe him no respect.

but you don’t think the fact that policy does need to keep changing points to complexity?

Semenya knew that he was male at least a decade ago. And chose to continue to compete because he felt entitled to. He even took the case all the way to the highest court for sport to fight to keep his entitlement.

Knowing all along that he was male, with male levels of testosterone and male development and was winning against female people.

I don’t think you’ve melted the brains of anyone who believes sex is not completely straightforward, have you. Why would that melt their brains? Your existence doesn’t preclude the existence of other variances.

Not really, no. It points to identity politics.

The situation did not change in complexity.

The condition was well known at the time the change happened. It was fucking ridiculous that female people had to fight for over 2 decades to prove yet again something that was already known - that testosterone delivers a physical advantage that no female people who has not had testosterone supplements or a testosterone driven puberty can use for competitive advantage. Meaning it was always unfair.

Why DO you all want to talk exclusively about Semenya? If you really think either people with DSD or trans people are a significant threat to fairness in women’s sport, you must have LOADS of other people you want to talk about.

We can talk about it in general.

What does it change?

Male people who are able to produce and/or process male levels of testosterone should not be competing in female sports. The advantages male people experience over female people have been noted from the age of 6 years old.

What does talking about any other athlete change about the reality of the situation?

Mate, there are literally hundreds of threads here about the issue of men competing in female sports.

Why do you want to name names?
Why not focus on explaining what you think is wrong with doing an SRY test, followed by further investigation if necessary?

And despite the huge nebulous multidimensional mass that 'intersex' cases are supposed to be, the vast majority in sports have been exactly the same condition as Semenya: 5-ARD (eg Khelif recently). It's common enough to actively scout for, if sex testing is absent. Easier than scouting for talented girls.