What's at stake in Semenya vs. IAAF -- Amby Burfoot breaks down the monumental looming CAS decision

It's as if people like you refuse to actually learn about this issue after what... 10 years? You can have a Y chr and be completely irresponsive to testosterone, you'd never ever ever suspect this person was DSD, intersex, trans, or whatever. Genetic testing does not solve the problem; furthermore you cannot genetically test all women in sport for ethical and logistical reasons.

dunes runner wrote:

RunAnnArbor wrote:

Nick Symmonds:

If you are genetically XX, you compete against other XX athletes.

If you are genetically XY, you compete against other XY athletes.

Many people have been saying the same thing since the very beginning of this issue.

It is the only solution that makes any sense.

Unless and until anyone not XX is barred from all XX events, there will continue to be problems.

Personally I think we should continue to call XX events women's events, regardless of the XX requirement,

and just because a person can call themselves a woman does not absolve them of meeting the XX requirement.

This was the study they based the conclusions on.https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/51/17/1309.info Allegedly there are more data being used in the CAS case, but these data aren't public yet. Bermon and Garnier could only show statistically significant correlation with higher T in a few events, that is where the limited scope of the IAAF rule initially came from.

David S wrote:

Allegedly. I'd like it if they showed us how they came to that conclusion. Maybe the science is stronger because Caster and Niyonsaba are the only examples they have at the pro level. That would be targeting. If they didn't do a study of shorter events or longer events then how could they know? I hope she goes after them.

Vancomycin wrote:

It's as if people like you refuse to actually learn about this issue after what... 10 years?

I continue to have rational thought and haven't learned how to be stupid in 10 years, so yes, that is correct.

You can have a Y chr and be completely irresponsive to testosterone, you'd never ever ever suspect this person was DSD, intersex, trans, or whatever. Genetic testing does not solve the problem; furthermore you cannot genetically test all women in sport for ethical and logistical reasons.

What you said has nothing to do with the issue. More than 95 percent of men are not able to run a 2:15 marathon, but that doesn't give them the right to compete against XX women people, the reason being because they don't meet the XX criteria. Period.

dunes runner wrote:

What you said has nothing to do with the issue. More than 95 percent of men are not able to run a 2:15 marathon, but that doesn't give them the right to compete against XX women people, the reason being because they don't meet the XX criteria. Period.

Why are you latching on XX karyotype as criteria now. That has never been the defining feature for phenotypic females. Women were women long before we knew what chromosomes even were. Karyotype is less predictive than T for what you surely define as phenotypically female. You want to frame this as "it's simple and the other side is being willfully obfuscatory," where in reality you are refusing to see the complexities.

The point of competitive sport is to find outliers - so you are, by definition, going to encounter tricky edge-cases. There has been excellent academic writing from both sides of this argument that I urge you to actually read.

FWIW I support T limits as the current best solution to promoting women's competition - I do not think it is a robust, permanent solution though.

dunes runner wrote:

Vancomycin wrote:

It's as if people like you refuse to actually learn about this issue after what... 10 years?

I continue to have rational thought and haven't learned how to be stupid in 10 years, so yes, that is correct.

You can have a Y chr and be completely irresponsive to testosterone, you'd never ever ever suspect this person was DSD, intersex, trans, or whatever. Genetic testing does not solve the problem; furthermore you cannot genetically test all women in sport for ethical and logistical reasons.

What you said has nothing to do with the issue. More than 95 percent of men are not able to run a 2:15 marathon, but that doesn't give them the right to compete against XX women people, the reason being because they don't meet the XX criteria. Period.

It's tough to argue against these liberal, academic types that think they know everything. Their perspectives on everything are based on a grievance scale of some sort. The group with a larger perceived grievance/less power always wins. Just off the top of my head, part of that scale would go something like this:

Man vs Woman: Always side with woman

Straight vs Gay: Always side with gay

White vs Any other Ethnicity: Always side with non-White

Intersex Woman vs Woman: Always side with Intersex Woman

If you've got a differing viewpoint feel free to submit an article or post it here. Instead you post this:

There you go. An ageist, racist attack instead of arguing over the substance of the article.

Forcing her to use drugs is a compromise to compete in women's division. The other alternative is her competing in the male division.

I think the transgender issue is closely related. Do we let people choose their sex in a binary world of sports or do we have more arbitrary determinations?

The question is which division does she get to run in. She identifies as female but she likely is XY. Many would argue she should run in male division. But if its easier to compare those of the opposing viewpoint to Dr. Mengele go ahead.

fitz wrote:

It's tough to argue against these liberal, academic types that think they know everything. Their perspectives on everything are based on a grievance scale of some sort. The group with a larger perceived grievance/less power always wins. Just off the top of my head, part of that scale would go something like this:

Man vs Woman: Always side with woman

Straight vs Gay: Always side with gay

White vs Any other Ethnicity: Always side with non-White

Intersex Woman vs Woman: Always side with Intersex Woman

Are people like you just scared of a world that is more complex than you originally thought?

I want women's sports to continue. It is crucial we get this issue correct. Your naive understanding of the sciencetific and culture issues does nothing. If it were as simple as genetic testing, or having some old man look a athlete and say 'yep shes's a woman' we would be doing that. Quit embarrassing yourself and learn.

Vancomycin wrote:

This was the study they based the conclusions on.

Oh wow this is really cool.

Here's the summary of results in case people don't have access:

[quote]

Results The type of athletic event did not influence fT concentration among elite women, whereas male sprinters showed higher values for fT than male athletes in other events. Men involved in all throwing events showed significantly (p

OMG I had a big post and it deleted it because of the less-than-sign bug!

Here's the abstract:

ABSTRACT

Objective To describe and characterise serum androgen levels and to study their possible influence on athletic performance in male and female elite athletes. Methods 2127 observations of competition best performances and mass spectrometry-measured serum androgen concentrations, obtained during the 2011 and 2013 International Association of Athletics Federations World Championships, were analysed in male and female elite track and field athletes. To test the influence of serum androgen levels on performance, male and female athletes were classified in tertiles according to their free testosterone (fT) concentration and the best competition results achieved in the highest and lowest fT tertiles were then compared.

Results The type of athletic event did not influence

fT concentration among elite women, whereas male sprinters showed higher values for fT than male athletes in other events. Men involved in all throwing events showed significantly (p less than 0.05) lower testosterone and sex hormone binding globulin than men in other events. When compared with the lowest female fT tertile, women with the highest fT tertile performed significantly (p less than 0.05) better in 400 m, 400 m hurdles, 800 m, hammer throw, and pole vault with margins of 2.73%, 2.78%, 1.78%, 4.53%, and 2.94%, respectively. Such a pattern was not found in any of the male athletic events. Conclusion Female athletes with high fT levels have a significant competitive advantage over those with low fT in 400 m, 400 m hurdles, 800 m, hammer throw, and pole vault.

Of particular interest, they studied 1332 elite female athletes, and:

"Twenty-four female athletes showed a T concentration [morethan] 3.08nmol/L which has been calculated to represent the 99th percentile in a previous normative study in elite female athletes. 13 Among these 24 individuals, nine were diagnosed with a condition of hyperandrogenic disorder of sex development (DSD), nine were later found to have been doping, and six athletes were impossible to classify."

Methods:

"In order to test the influence of serum androgen levels on athletic performance, in each of the 21 female athletic events and 22 male athletic events, athletes were classified in tertiles according to their fT concentration. Then, the athletic performances and Hb concentrations of the highest and lowest fT tertiles were compared by using non-paired Student's t-test. These different athletic events were considered as distinct independent analyses and adjustment for multiple comparisons was not required."

There are several problems here:

1. The last line is completely wrong. They deliberately didn't account for multiple testing corrections. They're wrong for doing this. You ALWAYS have to account for multiple testing correction. They tested 43 events. If there is NO effect, you expect 2 of them (on average -- it could be 0 or 4) to test significant at the p less than 0.05 level. This is the definition of the p-value. They only found 5 positives. None of their p values were below 0.01. If they perform multiple testing corrections they wouldn't have any significant results. What if they tested 100 events and found 5 significant, would they still be significant? Come on. My officemate is laughing at me as I tell him this.

2. The data isn't normally distributed (times aren't normally distributed), but this is a minor point. It can skew the results a little.

3. The sprint results are funny. For the 100m, 100mH, 200m, the athletes with HIGHER testosterone levels ran SLOWER times! For the 100m, the effect is even bigger than the 800m, and there are more subjects in the 100m! I guess they didn't report it as "significant" because they were looking for things in the opposite direction (probably to get smaller p-values). Those masking agents!

4. They included DSD athletes in the study. Keeping in Semenya and Niyonsaba skews the results towards higher testosterone and lower times. With 64 athletes in the 800m, there are 21 in the upper tertile, so the results of 2 athletes could have a big effect on the results.

I gotta go. Shame my longer post was deleted.

Thanks David S, it's good to have a discussion where people know the reasoning behind the decisions.

This is worth a read too.

Three prominent sports scientists claim a lot of statistics and data collation in the previous study are shoddy at best, deliberate falsification at worst...

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs40318-019-00143-w

fitz wrote:

It's tough to argue against these liberal, academic types that think they know everything. Their perspectives on everything are based on a grievance scale of some sort. The group with a larger perceived grievance/less power always wins. Just off the top of my head, part of that scale would go something like this:

Man vs Woman: Always side with woman

Straight vs Gay: Always side with gay

White vs Any other Ethnicity: Always side with non-White

Intersex Woman vs Woman: Always side with Intersex Woman

So in other words "these liberal, academic types that think they know everything" have a scale that is exactly the opposite of our current society. Please show me any reasonable statistics that demonstrate in our society (especially from an economic perspective) where women win out vs men, gay people benefit over straight, whites more often lose out to non-whites, or inter-sex women have an advantage over women. The dominant group may not always win but it sure is the way to bet.

Vancomycin wrote:

This was the study they based the conclusions on.

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/51/17/1309.info

Allegedly there are more data being used in the CAS case, but these data aren't public yet.

Bermon and Garnier could only show statistically significant correlation with higher T in a few events, that is where the limited scope of the IAAF rule initially came from.

David S wrote:

Allegedly. I'd like it if they showed us how they came to that conclusion. Maybe the science is stronger because Caster and Niyonsaba are the only examples they have at the pro level. That would be targeting. If they didn't do a study of shorter events or longer events then how could they know? I hope she goes after them.

There were tons of problems with the study cited above. As another posted noted Ross Tucker (who supports testosterone limits and is a top sports scientists) and others called for a retraction of it was so poorly done.

Here's a couple of old articles from Tucker on subject:

https://sportsscientists.com/2016/07/caster-semenya-debate/?doing_wp_cron=1556059647.9234158992767333984375

https://sportsscientists.com/2017/07/testosterone-performance-intersex-athletes-will-iaaf-evidence-enough/

I think Tucker now while in theory supporting testosterone regulations may be testifying against IAAF data it was so shady.

But that is just going off of this:

https://twitter.com/MichKatami/status/1097910741414436864

Perhaps the question shouldn't be "what advantage" does one have competing in the slower category of running, but instead "what disadvantage" does one have to prevent them from competing in the faster category of running.

wejo wrote:

There were tons of problems with the study cited above. As another posted noted Ross Tucker (who supports testosterone limits and is a top sports scientists) and others called for a retraction of it was so poorly done.

LOL they don't even touch on the multiple-test correction issue there. Crazy that they did a bad job with the data though, that's kind of sad :/

I also think the XY should be the defining factor in determining who cannot compete as a woman.

If an XY person doesn’t respond testosterone too bad.

I agree it’s the same as being less talented.

Testosterone levels seem an odd standard because they can be changed with drugs.

Correct me if I’m wrong, you can’t change your chromosomes with any drugs or surgery.

It’s crazy to instruct someone to have hormone therapy to compete.

The default should always be that an athlete must compete against men if their sex is not clear. That does not preclude them from the opportunity to compete.

But an athletes who takes testosterone should not be allowed to compete if they can’t pass PED tests.

So the question would be under what situation would you demand proof of chromosomes.

Maybe it’s like a challenge flag in football. Throw the red flag if a she you think is a he wins.

That’s similar to current drug testing for PEDs. Most people do not go through drug testing but still race.

You don’t allow diverse opinions. Stop pretending. You have an agenda here.

You encourage the worst kind of racism and sexism on this site then have the nerve to accuse me of agism. Im just saying what I saw from Burfoot at the MAnchester Race. He didn’t look well, looked out of it. Im sorry if those facts hurt you. Im 95% sure his article was ghostwritten

Ive caught you saying false things in articles multiple times.

It’s funny you ignore burfoots racist, sexist tropes. (And your Trumper brother).

This site is an embarrassment.

This statement in the article is misleading:

"For now, you only need to know that there are no healthy women — born with XX chromosomes, ovaries, and producing estrogen at puberty — who have a testosterone level above 5.0 nmol/L. None."

This statement incorrectly suggests that Semenya was not born with XX chromosomes. Whether she has ovaries or produced estrogen at puberty is irrelevant and a distraction to cast her as "less feminine." The truth is, there are healthy women — born with XX chromosomes — who have a testosterone level above 5.0 nmol/L. Having ovaries and producing estrogen at puberty are also not determinative of whether one is a female.

If you believe that XX should race against XX

and

XY should race against XY

then

You are in fact making an argument that Semenya should race against other females, because contrary to the incorrect information that continues to be spread, she was born 46, XX DSD.

If the only test is that of chromosomes, then she wins that argument.

BTW, even the IAAF does not claim that Semenya is a male or has XY chromosomes. The IAAF has been clear on it's stance that Semenya is a woman. Pierre Weiss, the general secretary of the IAAF, world track and field’s governing body, is on record as saying, “She is a woman, but maybe not 100 percent.” (Which, btw, was an ignorant comment) When it was alleged in the media that the IAAF claimed Semenya was to be classified as a "biological male" they made it very clear where they stand by saying this:

"The IAAF is not classifying any DSD athlete as male. To the contrary, we accept their legal sex without question, and permit them to compete in the female category,"

"However if a DSD athlete has testes and male levels of testosterone, they get the same increases in bone and muscle size and strength and increases in haemoglobin that a male gets when they go through puberty, which is what gives men such a performance advantage over women.

"Therefore, to preserve fair competition in the female category, it is necessary to require DSD athletes to reduce their testosterone down to female levels before they compete at international level."

To all the people who have stated that they believe XX should race with XX and XY should race with XY, thank you for your support of Caster and her fight for justice and dignity.

I'm looking at you Nick Symmonds.

References:

https://www.foxsportsasia.com/athletics/1041520/iaaf-denies-reports-it-wants-to-class-semenya-as-biological-male/

https://afropunk.com/2019/02/caster-semenya-the-archaic-gender-ideals-of-sports/