get used to it.. wrote:
Awww, another imposter. You don't think people notice the extra period after my name you loser. It is clear when people do this they are defeated. How does it taste?
get used to it... wrote:See, I made this up too haha.
The fact is they know he's a male but ignored his biology.
Who in the he11 puts two periods at the end of their username??
I donn't understand all of the who are arguing that she doesn't have an advantage because it's unproven that she can actually utilize that extra testosterone. Have they thrown reasoning out the window? It seems like they're nitpicking fringe articles rife with bias and funny "science" rather than seeing the obvious explanation. Shouldn't this be debunked simply by using Occam's Razor? Caster Semenya is biologically different than the other women and has something that the other women do not (internal testicles that produce testosterone). Caster Semenya is also currently dominating the women's 800 without challenge. Doesn't it stand to reason that the most obvious explanation for her dominance is this difference and production of testosterone? Isn't that the simplest explanation? Or are they arguing that Caster Semenya actually happens to be the most talented woman over 800m ever born, but just happens to have internal testicles on the side?
Do we *know* that Semenya is XY? Maybe my powers of googling have deserted me, but I can't find any confirmation of this.
BuffBuffBuff wrote:
Wrong! Semenya is not a man and does not want anybody to use "he" when referring to Semenya. Semenya is not a woman but does want everybody to use "she" when referring to Semenya.
1) Semenya was born a man, is a man, and will always be a man.
2) He is not a woman and I'm not going to call him a woman, regardless what he wants.
3) My choice is to be honest, and I'm going to continue to be honest.
4) He is not a she. Calling him a she is a lie. That lie is the only reason he's in women's events, which is a total travesty, a rape of women on the international stage.
Language does not make a man nor a woman. It has no effect on the sex organs.
You're contradicting yourself.
The ignorance on this issue is completely mind numbing.
Indeed, and you're an example of this.
sub3over40 wrote:
I am a native Texan. This lady is a total bigot against our state. We have no problems down here with the LBGT community. All of our problems are the minds of bigots from the east or west coast who have never spent a day in Texas and have no idea about anything in our state. America will miss us when we leave!
Your biased opinion is irrelevant. Good riddance. There are plenty of hate crimes against LGBT people in Texas. She chose a good state to make her point.
rojo wrote:
Here is the latest. I got an email back from her asking for a more formal statement since her initial email was so short and I complained about it.
Reporter wrote:My essay in *****(Major online publication****) is responding to the posted “Quote of the Dayâ€, and your prevailing attitude towards Semenya and Chand, that I previously communicated to you about. In my essay I say that given the peer-reviewed data establishing naturally occurring testosterone as not conclusively tied to performance benefits; your reliance on "expert insight" rather than peer-reviewed science; the violence perpetuated against trans and gender nonconforming women that stems from fearmongering rhetoric including yours; and the humiliation inflicted through policing and enforcement of the biological cutoff point you advocate, that your arguments are continuing a narrative that is out of date and unproductive to the larger conversation on gender in sports. Would you like to provide a comment for the essay?.
In terms of scientific proof, I think the slowing of Semenya once she got treatment and her rapid improvement (as well of that of Niyonsaba and Wambui ) over the last year is all the proof you need.
Look at the improvement of Semenya, Niyonsaba and Wambui since the CAS decision. Below you'll see their seasonal best before the decision last year and their seasonal best this year.
Semenya - 2:04.19 / 1:55.13sb
Niyonsaba - 2:05.45/1:56.24
Wambui - 2:01.32/1:57.52
If they want further proof, they should look at the athletes who had their internal testicles surgically removed and see how fast they ran after surgery as compared to pre-surgery.
And speaking of proof, is the author going to change her conclusion once the peer reviewed articles do come out?
You are arguing with an outrage writer that needs a cause to be outraged about. Currently that is you. She won't care about your numbers or logic or the sanctity of the olympics for the other athletes. Peer reviewed science is inadequate to explain many things, and scientists far better than whoever wrote that article can be wrong or present major findings that aren't complete. Isaac Newton's laws don't apply under certain conditions. Pauling and Einstein both were famously wrong about major topics.
Mr. Obvious wrote:
Honestly it is impossible to have any sort of informed intelligent conversation about this issue because we do not have access to the sort of detailed medical information (nor should we have) that would be needed to make any sort of rational analysis. So what we are faced with is speculation based on leaked information that may or may not be accurate. Plus a whole lot of bigoted comments as well.
I accept your opinion, but you are a bigot since you are rejecting differing opinions.
Not so innocent wrote:
I'd be interested in knowing how much money Caster makes from running. I know she comes from some small village. The only reason I ask is that there is this presumption that Caster is some innocent victim in all of this who simply wants to be able to run and has been told to run as a female. However, there seems to be a massive monetary advantage to her running as a female instead of a male i.e., she wins and wins money, gets endorsements, etc. In that case, Caster has a real intensive to continue on running as a woman and winning as a woman rather than running in men's events where Caster would lose and still be living in some tiny village. If she has indeed come from some tiny village to relative massive wealth, then having testicles has been a real cash cow. It's hard to think of someone as being a voice for women's rights/transgender rights etc. when there is a massive profit incentive in demanding those "rights".
I could be wrong. Perhaps she makes no money from her running at all and Caster is just an innocent victim of the "rules" and simply runs for the joy of running.
Caster has won Diamond League events. S(he) has won the world title and won minor medals.
Similar to Kenyans any amount of hard currency that Caster has won goes much further in rural South Africa. Jobs that pay 30K pay literally 1/10th that in South Africa because of the low value of the Rand.
Caster has too much financial incentive to compete as a female. Also even if Caster could break the female record in the 800 that is still a marginal club level runner on the men's side who may be able to win a trophy and a marginal financial incentive like equipment or free supplements.
Make up your mind wrote:
BuffBuffBuff wrote:Wrong! Semenya is not a man and does not want anybody to use "he" when referring to Semenya. Semenya is not a woman but does want everybody to use "she" when referring to Semenya.
1) Semenya was born a man, is a man, and will always be a man.
2) He is not a woman and I'm not going to call him a woman, regardless what he wants.
3) My choice is to be honest, and I'm going to continue to be honest.
4) He is not a she. Calling him a she is a lie. That lie is the only reason he's in women's events, which is a total travesty, a rape of women on the international stage.
1) Semenya was not born a man. She was born intersex. Edify yourself.
2) You're a bigot, rejecting differing opinions.
3) You're ignorant. Edify yourself.
4) Semenya is not a he.
Make up your mind wrote:
BuffBuffBuff wrote:[quote]Language does not make a man nor a woman. It has no effect on the sex organs.
You're contradicting yourself.
The ignorance on this issue is completely mind numbing.
Indeed, and you're an example of this.
Dialetheism. Edify yourself.
Link wrote:
Do we *know* that Semenya is XY? Maybe my powers of googling have deserted me, but I can't find any confirmation of this.
I think that is the one thing that has never been disclosed. Numerous sources from back in 2009 said that she had no ovaries or womb but rather descended testis and both male and female characteristics.
I think the real issue here is actually a male issue and not a female issue at all. Society has dictated that being "male" is unfairly linked to external genitalia - you're a man if you have a penis and testicles (outside of your body). So when intersex babies are born and you have a look and there is something in between the easy choice is to pick female (look at the story of Jim Bruce). If you think about a boys locker room vs. a girls locker room, boys are basically required to shower naked in front of each other. The absence of noticeable external genitalia would be difficult to deal with. Obviously Caster's parents chose to raise her as a girl, but, reports say she grew up as a tom boy etc., and financially now it makes much more sense for her to stay female, but who knows what would have happened if no choice was made and eventually she made her own.
Ideally, eventually with education and knowledge, there will be more acceptance and understanding and that 1 in 200 people fall between the rigid definition of male and female. The way the world is, being the 1 in 200 is just not an easy thing.
The problem is that in sport we have rigidly defined two categories of male and female and there is no easy place for the 1 in 200. Issues of fairness are real and should be taken seriously and remain focused on sport itself instead of the broader world issues that intersex people need to deal with. Sports have their own rules, rules that people who don't engage in the sport need ever live by. I do not think, eventually, how sport classifies male and female needs to be the same as how the world at large classifies male and females. Sport is about competition and fairness within that competition and should not be confused with the rest of life. A sport should be able to adopt the rules that seems fair for the sport - not for the rest of the world. The height of a basketball net is arbitrary and creates a serious unfairness to those who are short but may love basketball. We don't change the height of the net. It is what it is.
Claiming something can't be true if it "hasn't been proven by peer-reviewed science" is a crutch for a weak mind.
All it means is that there's no scientific data on the topic--either because there's no funding, or because scientists aren't smart enough to develop a study that shows what is painfully obvious to experts in the field.
When a scientist wants to show that prevailing knowledge is wrong, he'll design a study to show it. It is telling that nobody has designed a study to show that extra T does NOT help intersex athletes.
religionofpiece wrote:
Katrina Karkazis â€@Karkazis
Me too. Most of the neg press comes from boards and their interviews and is amplified by Tucker and Press
@Karkazis @JulesBoykoff Been really disturbed & angry by way track media (e.g. Let's Run) in post-race interviews bait athletes on Semenya.
@Karkazis @JulesBoykoff Post qualifiers, every top runner in Semenya's events were asked about her & PUSHED if they gave a non-phobic reply.
@FromaLeftWing @JulesBoykoff Exactly. I read all tweets mentioning Semenya since Friday. Vast majority of neg ones after Tucker posts.
----
You should read her Twitter timeline. This Katrina bitch is literally sending her mediocre article to 100s of people.
Looks like she's following the thread:
http://archive.is/rNRgwweak minds wrote:
Claiming something can't be true if it "hasn't been proven by peer-reviewed science" is a crutch for a weak mind.
Indeed.
So they want to allow a guy whose balls haven't dropped to compete in women's running? Do tell!
Yeah rojo, you suggested that sex testing was appropriate because a potential husband for a female runner may want to know if she had internal testicles. So yeah, dated and bigoted.
"I've been told that you don't want to "out people" but I don't get that argument. We as a society need to move beyond that. Semenya did nothing wrong. She has internal testicles. So what? If you were about to marry a Jelimo, and you were her husband, wouldn't you want to know if she had internal testicles or not?"
However she claims she isn't the reporter that contacted rojo, which makes sense because there are many that take her stance. So it's someone else.
@adriaanvde: @Karkazis ""We're publishing an essay calling you out for continuing a dated, bigoted conversation about gender in sports. Any comment?""
â€@Karkazis: @adriaanvde Excuse me? Explain?
@adriaanvde: @Karkazis That was a mail you sent to some genuine journalists.
â€@Karkazis: @adriaanvde Check your facts. I did not.
Just read the article. It's author, Katrina Karkazis, is clearly neither a scientist nor an intellectual. Just an overpaid Stanford employee living in San Francisco and not able to think critically.
She was an advisor to Chand's case before the CAS, so she's partly to blame for this travesty.
But don't worry, she's more enlightened than the rest of us. Here's why, in her own words: "My high school was very diverse. My friends were very diverse. My two best friends in high school were black men. There was a way in which I was highly in tune to issues around sexuality, around race, around discrimination."
So just a warning--you won't be able to argue with her unless you have at least two best friends who are black and of the opposite sex.
Rojo-
If this is a major publication I urge you to do a couple of things. This is an important fight and wether you like it or not, your name and stance is going to become part of the record on this now.
1. I would ask to write the companion essay. It can be short, but she is calling you a mouth breathing bigot and you should show readers that you have a stance that isn't bigoted or cruel. In fact, you worry about women's sports.
2. At the very least, I would highlight on the site the stance that you previously quoted from your article last year (for new readers). In your comment to the writer I'd note that you encourage readers to come read more about your thoughts and engage.
3. Emphasize sensitivity repeatedly. You're sensitive to Caster and Chand, their rights and feelings, BUT...
4. You need to reframe the argument that this is a fight for women's sports. A line has to be drawn somewhere. You simply believe that chromosomes or testosterone levels, etc etc etc. A number of commenters have posted that (and I agree with their thoughts) many of these articles fundamentally argue that not allowing her to compete is just unfair to her. It would be sad, but it is also unfair to the other women that have spent their lives training for a chance to compete at an Olympic games.
* People that throw the word bigot around these days annoy me to no end. Bigot is defined as a person who is utterly intolerant of any differing creed, belief, or opinion. It seems like 99% of the time the person throwing around the term bigot is actually the more bigoted one. Case in point: one of the authors posted here has a twitter feed that expresses her intolerance of any differing opinion.
The best way to get quoted on her twitter is to misspell "it's" and "your's". Her followers will eat that up. The elite left thinks that any misspelling or grammatical mistake is a good enough reason to dismiss any argument.
A bunch of geniuses, these folk.
rojo wrote:
Today I received an email from a female journalist whom I had a long conversation with a few weeks ago about the Caster Semenya situation.
Her email was one sentence long and was as follows;
"We're publishing an essay calling you out for continuing a dated, bigoted conversation about gender in sports. Any comment?"
During our talk on the phone, when I told her I very much believed Semenya should not be allowed to compete in the women's category without hormonal treatment, she got very upset. She said she didn't think I understood the ramifications of my bigoted views. She said people would die because of them. I told her I didn't understand how my views on Semenya competing in the Olympics had anything to do with the deaths of transgender/intesex people in a third world country and she replied that my bigoted views would result in transgender people being murdered in Texas.
I was at a loss for words. Even though this made no sense to me, I offered her a chance to present her viewpoints in an article or podcast on our website (she doesn't like me quoting Ross Tucker as he agrees with me and wants other science viewpoints presented- a name that came up was Sari Van Andrews) but she declined as she wrote, "My sense is that you don't really want to understand the issue at stake. I'm afraid I can't be of further assistance."
So that's the backstory. Below, is the reply I sent her to today's email.
[quote]Rojo wrote:
Yes. I care to comment.
1) Who is "We"?
2) Can I see what is being written about me so I can respond more accurately. It's hard to respond generically but I'll do my best in #3.
3) If believing that humans (whether intersex or transgender) that respond to testosterone shouldn't be allowed to compete in Olympic women's track and field with elevated testosterone levels is considered bigoted, then I'm proud to be considered a bigot. Such bigoted views are necessary to protect the future viability of women's sports.
The fact that Caitlyn Jenner was recently on the cover of Sports Illustrated shows that society has come a long way in support of transgender rights. People no longer have to accept the gender of their birth. If gender is now self-defined, as I take it you would argue it is, then it's foolish to say there shouldn't be a testosterone cap of some sort for women's athletics. One can only speculate as to how many women's gold medals an untreated Caitlyn Jenner would have won in 1976.
There is no human right to compete in Olympic track and field. If you want to compete at that level, everyone agrees to give up some rights and agree to certain rules - you have to agree to make your whereabouts known 24/7, you have to agree to blood and urine testing, you have to agree that only three people per country can compete in a certain event, etc. Requiring someone like Caster Semenya, who is XY, to reduce her testosterone so she can compete in the protected women's category isn't an inhumane burden. She can politely decline to do so and compete on an amateur level like most athletes across the globe or she could try to compete professionally in the men's category (which maybe should be redefined as the "open" category). Her human right to be an athlete isn't being denied - just her access to the protected category of professional women's athlete.
-Rojo
PS. Based on our phone conversation, you seem to think everyone has a human right to be in the Olympics. I disagree. 8 of the 9 fastest men in the world right now in the men's steeplechase are Kenyan. Only 3 of them will be in Rio. Are their human rights being violated by a "dated and bigoted" policy? Similarly, the top 7 fastest women in the world in the women's 100 hurdles are all American - yet only three of them will be in Rio.
I don't know how I'm being bigoted on this. I simply have a view point on thist hat she disagrees with. In my mind, I'm tyring to save women's sports.
Knowing that LetsRun.com is an influential voice,. I offered her a chance to present her side of the story. She declined. Can someone explain to me what I'm missing