Metric Miler wrote:
[. I'd love to see one of you lot do that to her face.
Seems like you're saying that Caster is more manly than the guys on here.
Metric Miler wrote:
[. I'd love to see one of you lot do that to her face.
Seems like you're saying that Caster is more manly than the guys on here.
KudzuRunner wrote:
. Running is being. Running is a way to be who YOU are. We all get that. So we should get that when the person doing the running is Caster.
This doesn't mean that we shouldn't have compassion for the women that Caster is beating like a drum. We should. It does mean that Caster isn't trying to be evil, just trying to make the best of a bad situation.
Yeah .. if "making the best of a bad situation" means winning because you have an unfair advantage over your competitors. Potentially winning Olympic medals because of an unfair advantage over your competitors.
I think that few people think Caster is "trying to be evil." She's simply enjoying the unjust benefit of being able to compete as a "woman" (however that is currently scientifically defined -- and yes, it HAS TO be defined as a matter of fairness.)
No one says Caster shouldn't run. Run, Caster, run.
Run against men and run the times of a very good, but not internationally exceptional high school boy. Run against state meet winners.
But when she runs against competitors where her "right" to run deprives them of justice and an even playing field, I would uphold their rights above your described need for her to express her "being" by running against competitors who have a disadvantage.
What about human right?
Not all areas of Africa are in a power grid. When a baby is born at night, it's sex can be but a guess. The outcome can be confusing as the path unfolds. Now the confusion is manifest on the World Stage.
Women will cry themselves to sleep in RIo, for what might have been.
In professional Competitive Eating, the women just compete with the men, regardless of intersex conditions or chromosomes. And Molly Schuyler, Miki Sudo, Sonya Thomas, they can beat them all on a good day. The Japanese women are good too! Why aren't more sports like this?
8sepulchre8 wrote:
KudzuRunner wrote:. Running is being. Running is a way to be who YOU are. We all get that. So we should get that when the person doing the running is Caster.
This doesn't mean that we shouldn't have compassion for the women that Caster is beating like a drum. We should. It does mean that Caster isn't trying to be evil, just trying to make the best of a bad situation.
Yeah .. if "making the best of a bad situation" means winning because you have an unfair advantage over your competitors. Potentially winning Olympic medals because of an unfair advantage over your competitors.
I think that few people think Caster is "trying to be evil." She's simply enjoying the unjust benefit of being able to compete as a "woman" (however that is currently scientifically defined -- and yes, it HAS TO be defined as a matter of fairness.)
No one says Caster shouldn't run. Run, Caster, run.
Run against men and run the times of a very good, but not internationally exceptional high school boy. Run against state meet winners.
But when she runs against competitors where her "right" to run deprives them of justice and an even playing field, I would uphold their rights above your described need for her to express her "being" by running against competitors who have a disadvantage.
She doesn't "enjoy an unjust benefit". She didn't dope or anything; she just happens to have the right "medical condition"
(she has been a tomboy since childhood) , which could be said to be a genetic gift.
"In professional Competitive Eating, the women just compete with the men,"
Dude (if you self-identify as that), I think you want the Let'sEat forum.
"Why aren't more sports like this?"
I don't dispute the competitive eating organizers self-identify it as a "sport", but I wouldn't use the term.
RossTucker wrote:
In the interests of trying to offer discussion and debate on this issue, an interview I did with Joanna Harper recently:
http://sportsscientists.com/2016/05/hyperandrogenism-women-vs-women-vs-men-sport-qa-joanna-harper/I think the fundamental issue is this:
We have a separate category for women because without it, no women would even make the Olympic Games (with the exception of equestrian). Most of the women's world records, even doped, lie outside the top 5000 times run by men. Radcliffe's marathon WR, for instance, is beaten by between 250 and 300 men per year. Without a women's category, elite sport would be exclusively male.
That premise hopefully agreed, we then see that the presence of the Y-chromosome is THE single greatest genetic "advantage" a person can have. That doesn't mean that all men outperform all women, but it means that for elite sport discussion, that Y-chromosome, and specifically the SRY gene on it, which directs the formation of testes and the production of Testosterone, is a key criteria on which to separate people into categories.
Now, for various biological reasons, and I'll follow the post above up with another on the specific science of this issue, sometimes that testosterone doesn't quite "do its job", and that is when we find ourselves dealing with an athlete like Semenya.
She is NOT a man. And it is enormously disrespectful to call her "it", or "he". Nor should any of your wrath or frustration be directed towards her. She's running per the rules that were changed by CAS, and it is they who should shoulder the responsibility for the mess that is the women's 800m.
So going back to the premise that women's sport is the PROTECTED category, and that this protection must exist because of the insurmountable and powerful effects of testosterone, my opinion on this is that it is fair and correct to set an upper limit for that testosterone, which is what the sport had before CAS did away with it.
The advantage enjoyed by a Semenya is not the same as the one enjoyed by say, Usain Bolt, or LeBron James, or Michael Phelps, because we don't compete in categories of fast-twitch fiber, or height, or foot size (pick your over simplification for performance here). So Semenya has a genetic advantage, by virtue of A) having a Y-chromosome and testes, and B) being unable to use that T and/or one of its derivatives enough to have developed fully male.
In that regard, if you approached it from the other direction, you could, relatively accurately, say that Semenya has a disadvantage compared to other males with XY and testosterone, because unlike them she cannot fully use T (and/or a derivative - depends on the exact condition).
however, as it stands, her "advantage" is seen and responded to, rather than the "disadvantage" and she competes as a woman. It means that she identifies as a woman, is female, but my contention and the thing that sport might have to address is whether someone who identifies as one gender is necessarily able to compete as that gender.
That's where the hyperandrogenic guidelines tried to find a compromise - they set what was a very generous upper limit of 10, which is much higher than most females, but alas, CAS in their wisdom decided to do away with it.
Semenya, and a few others, are now providing how ludicrous CAS' decision was.
One final point - there is a position here, made by a good few people who I really respect, which holds that Semenya and others did not choose this, they have not cheated, and it would be inhumane/unethical and violation of human rights to force upon someone a medical intervention that is not for health reasons, and to prevent them from participating in sport if they don't.
That's an argument I don't agree with, but I can see that people may hold, and are entitled to. It's not wrong, and it is possible to have two disagreeing positions without being wrong on either. What is wrong is to compare Semenya's advantage to Bolt's, or Phelps', because their genetic "luck" doesn't put them into a different category, and also, Semenya's "advantage" is actually a "disadvantage" to competing, as I said.
Final point, Semenya will run the 400 and 800 in Rio, and she will win both. It will cause a Sh!Tstorom of note, and I'm South African, so that will be a lot of fun (said nobody ever) and arguments. So this is a long post, sorry, and the article where I interview Harper is long, but really, this is going to be a big issue, and it pays to know a little before leaping into it! Besides, I thin kit's a really interesting subject.
Ross
In no more than 4 sentences, I said exactly this in my OP that was deleted this afternoon. Please cite me next tyme.
I don't dispute the competitive eating organizers self-identify it as a "sport", but I wouldn't use the term.
Why not? Isn't is enormously disrespectful not to call it a sport, when that's how it calls itself? Maybe we should rename Track and Field (running) as "exercise" instead of "sport". Are you happy then?
Hi, Ross. Big fan of your work, enough to stick with this thread and spot a typo:
RossTucker wrote:
In other instances, a person has what is a complex genetic condition called mosaicism where some of the cells in their body are XY and others are XY.
Of course, you meant to type "...and others are XX."
(Ah, visions of Tyler Hamilton's vanishing twin...)
Thanks for stopping by.
Gender should have nothing to do with the classification. Can the test simply be if you have a Y chromosome you can only compete in the men's division? I assume this is not a hard test to administer and it seems like a bright line test with a Yes or No answer. Or are there XX athletes who do not have all the XX anatomical attributes who will then dominate all women's events?
Because they were jogging, duh!
daygo wrote:
Why did Semenya ONLY run 1:55?
We went through all this tedious and boring shit after the 2009 WCs. She should still be banned. No payday for Caster. Boo hoo, but that is how it is.
Next Question!
Women's athletic events wrote:
What I see is that this is very simple. Women's events are for women who are XX and 100 percent female only. Anyone who is not XX and 100 percent female is not allowed to compete in women's events. This is a very important and vital issue regarding women's athletics.
Outside of athletes and in personal life, then people can live as they choose and call themselves anything that they wish, provided such choices are not used to deceive or take advantage of others. However that is not the same as publicly competing in athletics. To be fair to all women in athletics events, only 100 percent XX females who meet ALL the criteria for being a biological female can be allowed to compete in the women's events.
OK, that is a fine solution. I was responding to the posters insisting she's a dude. She's neither male nor female as we traditionally define them.
Sounds like the IAAF needs vagina inspectors to get to the bottom of this.
Stunned, but not totally wrote:
I watched this race and I suppose I have seen Castor race in quite a while. I was immediately stunned by the remarkable male characteristics she displays. Even Maria Mutola wasn't that masculine looking. How she passed muster on testosterone levels surprises me.
They let him push up against the chemical limits likely. A real DNA test would likely reveal different sex chromosomes.
They really want South Africa to win a few golds this Olympics seems important to the heads of the sport for some reason.
See Me (3) Three wrote:
why can't the IAAF just change the rules, and allow HA females to compete as males, thus satisfying the Panel's insistence that every athlete must be afforded the opportunity to compete?
If it were merely a legal issue, maybe they could. But the whole CAS writing (much of the 150+ pages of it) seems to me to be a type of window-dressing. My guess, albeit certainly as an outsider, is that 1, or maybe even 2, of the 3 panel members made up in their minds what they thought the verdict "should" be, and then spun the logic however to fit that. Perhaps this was done maliciously, but more likely it was just as is typical "directional thinking" from judges --- you tend to like one side's argument more than the other's, and then it's downhill sledding from there.
I know the CAS doesn't like to vary its rules procedure, which call for 3 arbitrators as standard, but in a case like this, especially with the debate concerning whether CAS jurisdiction existed only by acquiescence rather than explicit prior agreement (see the long section in the verdict on this), I think they should have expanded it to 5, or maybe 7. Then a "lone wolf" would have less chance to influence the whole, both in arguing/discussion and in voting.
Solution:
Semenya runs in the women's race (as per her gender identification) but she and any other intersex athletes are ranked separately than the biologically female athletes.
This seems like a fair way to allow all to race and allows for appropriate competition without unfair sex-based advantages.
Women's athletic events wrote:
What I see is that this is very simple. Women's events are for women who are XX and 100 percent female only. Anyone who is not XX and 100 percent female is not allowed to compete in women's events. This is a very important and vital issue regarding women's athletics.
Outside of athletes and in personal life, then people can live as they choose and call themselves anything that they wish, provided such choices are not used to deceive or take advantage of others. However that is not the same as publicly competing in athletics. To be fair to all women in athletics events, only 100 percent XX females who meet ALL the criteria for being a biological female can be allowed to compete in the women's events.
Wiki looker wrote:
OK, that is a fine solution. I was responding to the posters insisting she's a dude. She's neither male nor female as we traditionally define them.
Thank you very much. I'm glad we can help this issue to advance.
Women's athletic events wrote:
Women's athletic events wrote:What I see is that this is very simple. Women's events are for women who are XX and 100 percent female only. Anyone who is not XX and 100 percent female is not allowed to compete in women's events. This is a very important and vital issue regarding women's athletics.
Outside of athletes and in personal life, then people can live as they choose and call themselves anything that they wish, provided such choices are not used to deceive or take advantage of others. However that is not the same as publicly competing in athletics. To be fair to all women in athletics events, only 100 percent XX females who meet ALL the criteria for being a biological female can be allowed to compete in the women's events.
Wiki looker wrote:
OK, that is a fine solution. I was responding to the posters insisting she's a dude. She's neither male nor female as we traditionally define them.
Thank you very much. I'm glad we can help this issue to advance.
According to Ross Tucker's summary of this thread you two hold EXTREME points of view:
http://sportsscientists.com/2016/07/caster-semenya-debate/