Commonwealth Games website (re Caster Semanya)

[impossibletoday]

Noticed on the commonwealth games website. All the athletics events I looked at showed both the world record and the games record......

except the women's 800m.

Guess who holds that record from 2016.

Heaven knows where you got that interpretation from. I doubt that there is one woman on FWR who holds strict “bioessentialist” views, even among those who, like me, think that some aspects of behaviour are biologically driven, especially at particular life stages.

His name.

Don’t be silly.

I've known loads of people who grew up in large families in rural homes with no electricity or running water. That was common in many parts of Ireland until the 1950s. They weren't daft, and they knew men from women.

As Caster knew from puberty on. I'm sorry he was exploited so cynically when he was young, but also disgusted that he has continued to tell the profitable lie.

I boggle at those who are determined to pretend to believe the lie.

What absolutely emotionally manipulative twaddle!

his own autobiography highlights how he very much did not present as female

he's not a different type of woman, he's a man. A man who has made a very good living out of cheating women

It is chromosomes that determine sex. The chromosomal blueprint is 'configured' to respond to sex hormones. Putting testosterone in large doses into a female does not make them male, plus the female body is not geared up to receive such large doses of testosterone, and this can cause ill health and other dysfunctions.

Would you like to explain how telling the female Olympians that he beat to ‘just try harder’ is him responding with grace?

This male athlete is also a qualified sports scientist and therefore should absolutely have at his finger tips the evidence available to explain why he lost the CAS hearing he took the OIC to.

Can you then explain why this male athlete who has had definitive proof he was male since 2009 should be given a special treatment over the other female athletes who may have had very similar hardship stories but then lost any opportunity to gain recognition and sponsorship for her exception skill because Semenya, a male athlete, displaced her?

All you have done is put forth an emotionally manipulative plea for a male person to receive extraordinary treatment compared to every other athlete who has endured hardship and recieved the news that they are excluded through no fault of theirs from a protected sports category they are not eligible to compete in.

Actually trans activists tend to be more bio-essentialist, because bio-essentialism is the belief that certain personality characteristics and even social roles are directly conditioned by one's sex. That, for example, all women must do, or enjoy doing, the family cooking, or that there is no point in educating girls after puberty when their function in life is to have babies; or that men must never show softer emotions because this is emasculating and 'sissy'; or that males must always be the head of a family and whose word is law etc etc

In his autobiography he posts a full length picture of himself on a beach. Aged 15. Wearing only a pair of shorts. Which of course is what every 15 year old girl brought up in a conservative SA family wears on the beach.

And by 15 most parents in any part of the world would have worried about why their tall athletic daughter with no breast development had also not started her period. Apparently not Semanya’s family who were happy to allow Semanya to dress as a boy, play football with other boys and generally not behave like a rural SA teenage girl.

The saddest part of the whole story is that three young women were denied 400m medals at the Rio Olympics because three young African men, chosen specifically for their DSD status, stole the medals from them. Semanya’s only comment was “they should have trained harder”.

Newsflash, women can’t out train genetic men, elite women athletes times in track events are regularly beaten by good high school or college based male runners, it’s all in the pelvis, height, leg length, muscle development, heart and lung size.

Yes, Semanya was dealt a rough hand in his genetic heritage but his family , his national coaches, the governing body of SA Athletics, not to mention Semanya himself, knew exactly what the score was and chose to lie about it for years for financial gain and national medal tables. It was only when he had the brass neck to query an IOC ruling without realising that the challenge gave the IOC the right to publish his previously kept private medical history, which included the evidence that shows his DSD condition thus proving he is a man. And a cheat.

If nothing else, the voice breaking at an entirely typical age for male puberty must have been quite the giveaway.

The real tragedy is that Semenya has cheated around £5 million in prize money and sponsorship from women who have probably had a much, much harder life than he did.

Of course he's prepared to lie and pretend he identifies as a woman for that much money.

Sad to see the Cambridge dictionary beclowning itself with a TRA definition.

The online Cambridge Dictionary isn't a good source to quote when correcting other posters' use of words, because after giving 'the dictionary definition' of a word, it then goes on to record current usage in popular speech.

So if you look up the word 'sick', you'll get the definition
physically or mentally ill; not well or healthy

but if you read on you'll find
Sick: very good, excellent
as in
'snowboarders doing sick tricks'.

There are 'dictionary definitions' of words like male, female, sex, gender, toxic, essentialism, biology, literal, annihilation, hate, etc etc, and then there is contemporary usage, which is not the same thing at all.

For example, the use of the words 'literal' and 'annihilation'
in a phrase like 'literal annihilation of transpeople in the UK' -
makes no sense at all according to the dictionary definition of 'literal' and 'annihilation'.

So the Cambridge online dictionary's second/third/fourth/fifth level isn't a good basis for telling people that they don't understand a word, like bio-essentialism, in this case.

It is not bio-essentialist to recognise that females have a different biology and body to males, and that this fundamental differnce in physique has consequences, especially for females in certain types of situation.

Males tend to be bigger and more muscular for a start, and there is a myriad of other structural and mechanicall differences which mean that males can physically over-power females, and that they will tend, once past puberty, to be faster and stronger.

The male sex drive is also differently configured, which is why males tend to be far more motivated by opportunistic sexual pursuit; and why certain paraphilias and fetishes tend to be almost exclusively male ' territory'. It is also evidenced in the fact that is males that commit rape and the ovewhelming majority of sexual abuse.

The above is why why civilised and equitable societies have created certain protections for the female sex in certain types of public situation - in which females may be undressed or pre-occupied with their bodily or biological function. This recognises the dignity and integrity of the female sex and permits them to engage freely in public life in safety and with some security. Let's not forget that it is also females that become pregnant and who give birth - and that this represents a certain set of needs, as well as vulnerabilities.

Separate male and female sporting categories also permit for female excellence and achievment to be recognised and rewarded - as well as providing a safe and level playing field. If you pitched elite female athletes against elite male athletes in the same categories or events the females would never win, and never be celebrated.

I grew up without running water and had a drop toilet even in the 80s until I left home!

Other parts of my family also had no connected electricity.

I find comments about that being a need to allow a male person to compete and gain sponsorship that should have been given to female people fucking offensive. I knew state representational athletes in the 80s who grew up in those conditions.

To be fair, when I see a user with a female name and numbers post Cambridge dictionary definitions to support their supposed insults, I am not surprised. It does seem to be a pattern.

Not to mention the opportunities denied to promising young female athletes from South Africa and other countries, whose Athletic governing bodies decided it was more cost effective to seek out young men with DSD and train them to race against women, than to put in funding at grassroots and national level to develop the careers of young female athletes.

And sadly, there will always be suspicion, spoken or unspoken, in the back of peoples minds about young black African female athletes. They will be scrutinised even when their female gender identity is absolutely clear and documented. Semanya and other cheats have tainted athletic careers in the same way that East German drug cheats, and cycling drug cheats did in their sports.

I agree, Helleofabore.

My post was to point out that 'I'm right you're wrong because look what the Cambridge Dictionary says!'
is not the 'gotcha' some posters think it is, because the Cambridge online lists not just definitions, but also how a word is currently used - which is sometimes the exact opposite of the actual definition of a word.

'Sick' is such a good example!

It only defines 'gotcha' as
'said to mean "I have got you" in order to surprise or frighten someone you have caught, or to show that you have an advantage over them'.

'gotcha' has acquired a specific meaning in public debate = an allegedly unanswerable question, hasn't it?
I wonder will the Cambridge online get around to listing that usage?

This.

@flowersinmyheart why do you have no empathy or understanding for actual women who've had just a hard life as Semenya? Don't their lives count? Don't their experiences and talent matter?

Sporting success is a way out of poverty for many people and he has knowingly denied this to the women he cheated.

You've read this autobiography? You've seen the pictures? You've read the rest of the thread? And you STILL think he's a woman? FFS.

I think this poster may have read the Guardian review of the autobiography, rather than the autobiography itself - apologies if I am wrong.

Actually that photo is so misleading and Judged by western standards . Taken on a school trip in
Durban . Durban is an ( South African ) city. People of all level swim in the sea there . A lot of people don’t have swim suits of any sort and swim like this so please don’t be so judgmental.

There are at least two more African athletes with the same DSD, Namibian runners, Beatrice Masilingi and Christine Mboma. They also share the same coach, Henk Botha, which makes me think that these athletes are being deliberately sourced.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatrice_Masilingi

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christine_Mboma

It is not normal for 15 year old girls to swim topless in South Africa.

https://www.citizen.co.za/lifestyle/topless-swimming-no-no-in-sa/

If I didn't laugh at this, I'd cry.

And no comment from this poster on the female athletes who grew up poor and were cheated out of their rightful places.