Views on androgen insensitivity and women’s sport participation

[Lexibletheflexible]

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DOugAoGDbo6/?hl=en

It's about androgen insensitivity.

Okay, so I come across this person on my reels during the night. Probably due to discussions here and the algorithm and Big Brother.

I also tried to do a search here but nothing come up about previous discussions. Might be the imperfect search functions.

Now unusually for me, I will give my actual position on what I'm about to say and ask.

I don't think trans women should compete with women in the majority of single sex sports events past a childhood grassroots level. Where it really doesn't matter, we should probably have those sports be mixed at a professional level to increase participation but that's another subject entirely.

When it comes to DSDs and the like, I think things like normal or average hormonal levels need to play a part in determining their participation. The athletes most discussed in here, I agree (somewhat reluctantly) they shouldn't compete with women. Reluctantly just because I think they are good athletes/people and haven't acted maliciously.

The person in the clip I have shown above, however, I don't think they are quite the same. I wouldn't begrudge them a space on a women's sports team, though from the sounds of it, they might not be very good, anyway.

I'm actually not sure if this is the clip of them I've watched as I watched them on Facebook. They talk about several of their aunts having the same disorder so they had some idea they would vs most people who have it not knowing until they get older.

So I guess I'm asking for people's opinions on this person and disorder when it comes to single sex spaces and sports.

No it wouldn't, because from ither aspects of their outward body, people would assume they have a vagina and treat them as such. That girl would experience life as a female from birth (because she is and everyone can see she is). She proves what I am saying.

Sure, but if that's to be the only criterion let's just be transparent, ditch "men's" and "women's" sports and have Androgenised and Non-Androgenised categories instead.

I'm so sick of all the little ways various groups are trying to chip away at the concept of "woman" and "female".

Whatever the putative reason given, it all eventually boils down to the belief that these words are more valuable as some sort of hint or metaphor about something else than the value they have as simple labels for the half of humanity that is female. Something else always matters more than boring old women and girls.

Trans people have changed their bodies in order to have the same external body parts as I do

I may have a bridge to sell you...

Incidentally, my understanding of the current definition means it's transphobic of you to assume transwomen have medically transitioned.

I think it needs to be proven beyond reasonable doubt that people with CAIS have absolutely no advantage by virtue of XY before they can be considered safe and fair competitors in women's competitive or professional sport.

Being born with a condition can suck, be it CAIS or a cleft palate. But that's life. It doesn't mean we stop worrying about fairness for women.

In this thread, we are talking about people with CAIS who do have the same natal external body parts as I do. Someone keeps insisting on including trans people in the discussion. Trans women do not have the same natal body parts as I do. That is the point. That is why there is no comparison.

I think people born with a typical looking vulva, complete androgen insensitivity and experiencing many of the aspects of a typical female puberty (breasts, other effects of oestrogen on the body) are women.

Someone keeps insisting on including trans people in the discussion

As I understand it, your argument about CAIS is that the category of XX for women's sport is too narrow and should be broadened. Isn't it inevitable that other justifications to dismantle the XX category to include XY will be part of that conversation?

XX is a nice clear line in the sand. It's fair and applies equally to everyone.

Life is not nice, not clear and absolutely not fair. We aren't children, we all know and accept this.

Having read the whole thread, and some of the additional research, I now agree with you regarding XX as a clear line. The consensus on CAIS is too unclear. I’m back to Female (with a clear accepted definition) and Open as categories.

And yes, it’s naive (faux or otherwise) not to recognise why this debate is linked to the discussion surrounding transgender people in sport.

No, because the androgen insensitivity is key, as is their natal external body.

There arw definitive laboratory tests that show where there is no response to androgen by cells. I don't know why people keep insisting there aren't tests. There are a range of tests they use, one of which determines the cells cannot respond to androgen.

Women are not men with insensitivity to testosterone

Women are not men who suppress their testosterone levels

Women are not men without a penis

Women are not men who
like dresses

Women are not men with developmental conditions

Women are not men who look superficially feminine

Women are not men with long hair

Women are not men who like pretending they are submissive

Women are not men who have had their testes removed

Women are not men the patriarchy thinks don’t conform to certain standards of masculinity

Women are not men who fantasise about being women

Women are not non-men

Seems like these tests may be something you have just found about, perhaps as a result of further research as tooics come up on this thread.

Can you provide references showing these tests are actually being used in sports rather than the judgement call others have referred to?

CAIS interrupts and misdirects male sexual development. Not female.

How other people view and treat you isn't the whole story of why someone is female though.

Robert Winston may feel that a male with CAIS is basically female, but I think that's pretty misogynistic - relegating anyone who isn't 100% what a man should be to the 'must be a woman' box. Women aren't women because of how they look. A bloke without a penis isn't a woman, any more than a woman without a uterus is a man.

A person with CAIS wouldn't have periods, concern about pregnancy, or pregnancy itself - things which absolutely shaped my life.

XX is the only fair way to determine participation in female sports.

You make no allowances at all for women who don't look feminine, do you?

Your version of female is entirely tied up with a female stereotype.

Hi OP, I don’t think that people with CAIS operate fully as female, even though they might look that way.

obviously in females, the oestrogen input comes at the level of the ovaries and is circulated as part of a cyclical process (which is even observed in many HRT or contraceptive processes), whereas in CAIS you have a continual, constant, conversion of testosterone to oestrogen at a cellular level. CAIS is not well understood, in terms of the need to remove gonads or to manage bone density - there are a range of strategies and treatments. I think that, whilst harsh, we don’t know enough to mitigate any benefits right now.

When you look at the impact of contraceptives that prevent periods in young women, even the science behind female hormones is not totally there in terms of bone density/heart health/athletic performance - obviously, contraceptives are studied in terms of them being actively harmful as against specific risk metrics, but that’s not the same as optimising female performance.

right now, I agree with other PP’s that the reality of the science of “complete” androgen insensitivity does likely contain an element of judgement. It’s not as clear cut as you might think.

i think that, if you’d be happy with someone racing with a prosthetic leg that no one really knew if it performed better than a human leg, then this is similar. You’ve chosen inclusion where others want proven fairness.

You’ve chosen inclusion where others want proven fairness.

It is not inclusion when men are allowed to take spaces from women in their own sports.

I've done a bit more digging on the tests and I can't find any totally definitive test. The level of corruption of the androgen sensitivity gene is a pretty reliable indicator but Google AI still returned this answer to one of my questions.

"a person can carry an AR gene mutation that is widely documented to cause complete androgen insensitivity syndrome (CAIS), yet they themselves only present with partial androgen insensitivity syndrome (PAIS)"

So the whole thing is a judgment call on whether any one individual has complete or partial insensitivity and such judgements are inappropriate for fair sport for women, imo.

@Multibarpacki think that it’s a version of inclusion - it’s motivated by a desire to include people who don’t fit that comfortably into sex based categories. I personally don’t agree with it for fairness reasons though - I think fairness wins in sport every time. Though obviously up to puberty individuals with CAIS won’t know they have it and will compete with females probably - I think this is unlikely to be unsafe prior to puberty and will be picked up for fairness purposes later, so it doesn’t worry me overly.

In vitro tests for androgen receptor expression, binding, and activation are old hat. These days, CAIS is diagnosed by looking for the mutations known to cause total lack of androgen signalling. The mutations causing PAIS are different.

Sporting regulators won't publicise what tests they do, because of competitor privacy. Semenya's results were published because of the litigation. Many CAIS competitors will have been previously diagnosed, and regulators may simply accept documentary evidence of that.

It is exclusion - it excludes women from teams, from podiums, from heats, from games.

These threads are useful because they clarify matters that otherwise confuse. As for other posters, this one has brought me down firmly on the side of women’s sport for XX only.

I think they are biologically male people with androgen insensitivity, not female people. This is unfortunate for them, but does not mean that the female category should be compromised on account of it. Even if they 'look' female or 'identify as' female.

@Multibarpacki think we have the same principles. I prefer to argue substance over semantics, because it all depends on what you think inclusion is. All I was saying is that there is clearly a tension between wanting to be sympathetic to a group of people (ie to include them) and fairness and I prefer fairness.

Fairness is vital in sport but the use of the excuse of ‘inclusion’ is deceptive - if you include men then that means women, for whom the sport exists, are excluded. It isn’t inclusion - it is replacement of women with men. I think it is important to challenge the idea that including men in women’s sport is doing anything other than forcing women out.

OK, I've been digging into whether only hormones are responsible for male/female differences of whether the presence and absence of a Y gene itself has an effect independent of hormones.

Forgive me the AI quote but I don't see the necessity to paraphrase it.

The answer makes it perfectly clear to me that there is

a) absolutely no way that CAIS people are women

b) that it is categorically unfair for CAIS people to complete as women as they definitely do have physical advantages and, provided this AI response is all correct and mouse models transfer into humans, I cannot understand how this has been allowed.

Even if Lin Yu-ting is completely androgen insensitive there is a natural propensity to lower body fat which a woman would have to train much harder to achieve.

@Lexibletheflexible please note all this has become known since Professor Winston's comments in 2004 which you set such store by.

Quote.

Hormones are not the only factor; genetics and chromosomes also play a fundamental, direct role in male and female development.

....

Direct Genetic Effects: Beyond just triggering hormone production, genes located on the X and Y chromosomes have independent, direct effects on cell function and tissue differentiation throughout the body before hormones even begin acting.

....

Direct genetic effects (also called cell-autonomous sex effects) refer to biological differences between males and females that are caused directly by the expression of X and Y chromosome genes inside individual cells, completely independent of hormones.

For decades, scientists believed that sex chromosomes only built the gonads (testes or ovaries), and hormones did all the work after that. Modern genomics proves that cells "know" their biological sex and act differently because of it, long before any hormones enter the picture.

1. The "Dosage" Difference (X-Inactivation Escapees)

Females have two X chromosomes (XX) and males have one (XY). To keep things balanced, female cells shut down one of their X chromosomes in a process called X-inactivation.

However, this shutdown isn't perfect. Around 15% to 23% of genes on the "inactive" X chromosome escape inactivation. Because these genes stay active, female cells naturally produce a higher "dose" of certain regulatory proteins than male cells. This baseline genetic imbalance directly impacts cell metabolism, immune function, and resilience.

1. Y-Chromosome Genes in Non-Reproductive Organs

The Y chromosome doesn't just hold the SRY gene for making testes; it contains a handful of vital regulatory genes that are expressed in tissues all over the body, including the brain, heart, and lungs.

The Brain: Genes uniquely found on the Y chromosome (like Kdm5d and Uty [my edit , these are tumour suppressing and have a role in reducing inflammation]) are active in male brain cells long before prenatal testosterone is ever produced.

Cell Lifespan: Some of these Y-linked genes are responsible for fundamental cell upkeep. Because men only have one X chromosome, these Y genes serve as a necessary baseline backup to keep male cells healthy.

1. Direct Effects on the Immune System

The X chromosome houses a massive number of genes related to the immune system. Because females have a higher genetic dosage from X-inactivation escapees, female immune cells are inherently more reactive than male immune cells. This direct genetic difference explains why females generally mount stronger antibody responses to infections, but are also far more susceptible to autoimmune diseases, independent of circulating hormone levels.

[My comment - a more active immune system requires significantly more energy.]

1. Metabolic Differences at a Cellular Level

Scientists have used unique mouse models (like the "Four Core Genotypes" model) to separate hormones from chromosomes. They bred mice so that an XY mouse could develop ovaries, and an XX mouse could develop testes.

They discovered that even when they removed all hormones, XX cells inherently metabolize fat and store energy differently than XY cells. XX animals naturally accumulate more fat tissue and handle glucose differently purely because of their chromosome count, not their hormones.

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