RIP Norm Macdonald: How Macdonald's Simple-Truth Logic Could Help Solve the Transgender/Intersex Crisis In Women's Sports

A trans woman is a trans woman. She's not a biological woman.

Robert, you're transphobic. A trans woman is by definition a woman. No ifs, ands, or buts - by definition there is no such thing as a "biological woman". Not only does this have no meaning, this is incredibly offensive to trans individuals who constantly have their gender questioned or qualified.

The nuance you are missing regarding biological sex is a different discussion, but don't drag people's womanhood, or manhood, etc. into it.

rojo wrote:

Functioning testes to me means producing testosterone in the male range (I'd also add and have the ability to use that testosterone to cover PCOS syndrome).

You have already stated, correctly, that the normal male range for T used by World Athletics is 7.7-29.4 nmol/L.

Women with PCOS do not produce T in this range. Any girl or woman who produces T anywhere close to the male range needs urgent evaluation for a cancerous tumor. This is true for those with PCOS as for the rest of us.

Testosterone values may be normal in PCOS.

Most testosterone values in PCOS will be ≤150 ng/dL (≤5.2 nmol/L).

Testosterone values of ≥200 ng/dL (≥6.9 nmol/L) warrant consideration of an ovarian or adrenal tumor.

Serum testosterone levels in patients with PCOS seldom exceed 4.8 nmol/l. If testosterone levels are greater than 4.8 nmol/l then further endocrinological investigation to exclude other causes of androgen hypersecretion (e.g. Cushing's syndrome, adrenal gland or ovarian tumours).

Total testosterone levels greater than 200 ng/dL [5 nmol/L] are suggestive of a virilizing tumor and should prompt pelvic ultrasonography.

NHS Scotland (Lothian) guidelines published in August 2021 say:

It is unusual for PCOS to present with a testosterone of >4 nmol/L: in such patients the test should be repeated as soon as possible. If confirmed on repeat sampling, the patient should be referred for an endocrine opinion.

WA has said in its explanation of the current DSD rules that no XX female athlete with ovaries would have T as high as 5 nmol/L unless she has a tumor. Again, 5 nmol/L is still well below the normal male range of 7.7-29.4 nmol/L. The normal female range for T is 0.06-1.68 nmol/L.

Everyone at and on LRC: please stop suggesting that women with PCOS produce T in the normal male range. Women and girls with PCOS have a hard enough time coping with this serious female-only health problem as it is. Likening their T levels to the T levels that males produce from their testes only adds insult to injury. Some would say it's a proverbial "dick move."

RunRagged wrote:

Everyone at and on LRC: please stop suggesting that women with PCOS produce T in the normal male range.

No one suggested women with PCOS produce T in the 'normal male range.'

There is a lot of evidence that women who have PCOS can produce body hair, deeper voices, but most importantly greater muscle strength.

The parallel drawn between blade runners competing with "bipeds" as MacDonald puts it and non-female physiologies and bodies competing in the female category is apt. Blade runners are obviously not in the same category, not even doing the same event as the other runners. Most of us have increased resentment the more obviously the non-female physiology competitor is non-female. If there had never been a Semenya, Mboma/Niyonsaba may have just been outstanding performers and DSD could still be an unknown term to track fans . Niyonsaba would be the dominant 800 runner. Mboma would already have the WR in the 400 and may have yet to run a 200.

I don’t know if Rojo knows this, but norm was a comedian.

Precious Roy wrote:

This is a very complicated issue that does not for an instant lend itself to simple bright lines. I know an OBGYN who told me that people would be shocked if they knew how many times doctors deliver babies and cannot assign sex at birth.

Roy, cut the crap. The DSD rate is 1.5 out of 100,000 live births. You apparently know some pretty crappy doctors. 10 live births per day, and 30 years with no time off and you see about 2 maybe.

Enough talk, get 'em TF outta here!

Dwightarm wrote:

RunRagged wrote:

Everyone at and on LRC: please stop suggesting that women with PCOS produce T in the normal male range.

No one suggested women with PCOS produce T in the 'normal male range.'

There is a lot of evidence that women who have PCOS can produce body hair, deeper voices, but most importantly greater muscle strength.

Rojo said: Functioning testes to me means producing testosterone in the male range (I'd also add and have the ability to use that testosterone to cover PCOS syndrome). That's clearly suggesting that women with PCOS produce T in the male range.

Perhaps not on this thread, but on other threads certain LRC posters claim that XX female people with PCOS - and other conditions the posters never name - produce T both in the male range and at or above 5 nmol/L all the time.

I disagree. "resentment" is a terrible way to measure who should be allowed to compete.

There are plenty of racists who "resent" being being beaten by races they don't like .

llort_vbo wrote:

Precious Roy wrote:

This is a very complicated issue that does not for an instant lend itself to simple bright lines. I know an OBGYN who told me that people would be shocked if they knew how many times doctors deliver babies and cannot assign sex at birth.

Roy, cut the crap. The DSD rate is 1.5 out of 100,000 live births. You apparently know some pretty crappy doctors. 10 live births per day, and 30 years with no time off and you see about 2 maybe.

Wrong. 1.5 out of 100k births is just the rate for DSD XY gonadal dysgenesis. And that is just one of several DSDs. Genital ambiguity has an estimated rate of 1:2000-1:4500. For a very long time, these issues were just swept under the rug as doctors would make a guess as to sex and advise parents to perform surgery based on a guess. Now, in sports, trying to draw bright lines ignores the difficult issues that arise from the many different ways DSDs present in people. As long as people like rojo think that it is just as simple as women with testicles and high testosterone, we are never going to get to a fair resolution to this issue and will just systematically exclude anyone who is not 100% female sex at birth.

llort_vbo wrote:

Precious Roy wrote:

This is a very complicated issue that does not for an instant lend itself to simple bright lines. I know an OBGYN who told me that people would be shocked if they knew how many times doctors deliver babies and cannot assign sex at birth.

Roy, cut the crap. The DSD rate is 1.5 out of 100,000 live births. You apparently know some pretty crappy doctors. 10 live births per day, and 30 years with no time off and you see about 2 maybe.

The sole reason there are male and female divisions in competitive sports is to account for differences in biology. So long as dsd and trans female athletes possess a similar biological advantage (elevated testosterone due to tested) they should be restricted to the open/male division. It’s not that complicated.

Precious Roy wrote:

we are never going to get to a fair resolution to this issue and will just systematically exclude anyone who is not 100% female sex

And what is the problem with this exactly? It's a free world - a motivated DSD person can make a new athletics federation with different rules if they want.

Most DSD's will have co-medical conditions that would make it impossible to be an elite athlete regardless. The exceptions who can function without comorbidities very clearly have an unfair advantage (male level testeosterone literally from having testicles) and should be excluded from women's competition in all distances/events. This is the direction it is going, as soon as IAAF has the "data" needed to broaden the scope of the current restrictions.

Rojo, this is really disgraceful stuff. You’re using Norm Macdonald’s memory to prove your point about intersex athletes? Sick

industry car wrote:

Rojo, this is really disgraceful stuff. You’re using Norm Macdonald’s memory to prove your point about intersex athletes? Sick

+1

Magical burrito wrote:

Isn´t the issue that a if you want to compete in a competition specifically for women you shoud have to be a woman?

Competing at elite level you would expect that the burden of proof would be on the athlete since it is a class for people that have the potential ability of giving birth. In a human context this coincide with having ovaries and XX chromosomes and having a slight but clear disadvantage in athletics compared to men.

I think it is absurd that it is even a topic of discussion if XY individuals with testes are women in a definition relevant to sports.

You can really care about these individuals because they born in a way that make it hard to fit in.

But that does not mean they should be allowed to compete as women.

I agree that women's athletic competition should be for biologically female people. Meaning those of us born with XX sex chromosomes and ovaries, and without the male-determining SRY gene that's normally located on the Y chromosome.

A lot of guys seem to see women's sports as the category for adult humans they regard as "non men." They believe that women's sports should be for everyone born without a clearly-discernible penis and testes, even including XY persons with differences of male sex development who are otherwise robustly healthy and have obtained all the physical benefits that come from going through male puberty like Caster Semenya and Francine Niyonsaba. Because people with this view distinguish the two sexes by the superficial standards held by many kids and some adults. They think being male always means having a penis and testicles between the legs, and thus they assume anyone born without a dick and balls must be a girl/woman.

By contrast, others think women's sports should be the category for persons who were born with female gonads, female anatomy and female physiology who went through female development and thus who actually are women. Because we define women by standards appropriate to persons with female bodies - and we have some knowledge of the myriad physical differences between the two sexes beyond the obvious ones on the surface level.

Those who believe that women's sports should be "inclusive" of XY DSD athletes and other normally-developed XY athletes so long as both groups claim to have a "female gender identity," and/or they reduce the male levels of T that their testes produce for six months or a year, are redefining women according to sexist male standards. They're reducing female people to a set of ideas and stereotypes in men's heads; measuring us by the predominant male sex hormone, testosterone, which they mistakenly assume plays a similar and equally significant role in females as it does in males; and equating the physical state of being a woman either to being a man with reduced T - or to being a male with internal testes born with an oddly-developed, hard-to-detect or absent penis.

Worse, some of those who believe that women's sports must be inclusive of males are now attempting to erase female people entirely, claiming that we do not exist in material reality at all. Like the poster upthread who insisted, "by definition there is no such thing as a 'biological woman.' "

Since I'm a "biological woman" - scare quotes and all - who some today say there is no such thing as, I realize my view won't be appreciated by all here. But I'll state it anyways.

IMO, neither XY persons with differences of male sex development like Caster Semenya and Francine Niyonsaba, nor normally developed males who now claim to have an opposite-sex gender identity (whether longterm or just for the time being as the policies of WA, the IOC and other sports governing bodies allow), have any place in girls' and women's sports. Starting just days after conception, XX persons who developed to have the potential capacity to fulfill the female role in human reproduction obtained our own very distinctive anatomy and physiology that make us physically different to males in many thousands of ways. We are not just males minus some T.

There was ZERO need to drag Norm’s name into this. You don’t know what his opinion on this would’ve been. Furthermore, the relationship between his words and yours is abstract at best and has nothing to do with logic. Shameful click bait, RoJo.

Disko Eric wrote:

I don’t know if Rojo knows this, but norm was a comedian.

So are Kimmel, Trevor Noah, and Colbert, although not nearly as funny as Norm. They present news through their leftist lens as truth all the time.

Rojo makes a very valid point, and people try to come up with every little exception. There is an open category and any DSD athlete can compete in it.

It is a tough situation for DSD athletes, because they have a distinct advantage over biological females, but they will never compete with the elite males. There are not enough at a high level to have their own division. Maybe eventually their can be a trans woman and DSD division. That would actually be pretty exciting to watch.

whaaaaaat wrote:

There was ZERO need to drag Norm’s name into this. You don’t know what his opinion on this would’ve been. Furthermore, the relationship between his words and yours is abstract at best and has nothing to do with logic. Shameful click bait, RoJo.

+1

Star wrote:

Norm MacDonald was one of my favorite comedians.

That means he said funny things. And the entire point of anything he said would be to make people laugh.

I don't know why people keep referencing comedians to make a point about politics or anything serious.

Bill Maher said this. Joe Rogan said that.

Let's not have any discussions about what any comedian said and try to apply it to anything in real life.

Unless it's Carrot Top.

Norm was famous for making OJ Simpson is a murderer jokes. Yes, they are jokes...but CLEARLY Norm was making a point about all the crazy people who believed OJ was innocent.