You are supporting my pointwihtout realilzig. The reality is 16 of her teammates were against the policy but they were afraid to sign their names to it. Why? Cause they correctly realized- as this whole thread shows - that the Internet mob and keyboard warriors will come after you. Think about it. People say I'm overacting when I'm talking about China. I'm not. You have Ivy League administrators telling them not to talk.
IF you put your name out there, people falsely lie about what you said or call you transphobic.
See someone lies about what I wrote. I make a post pointing out that men and women are different biologically and a woman isn't just a weaker version of a man, and someone falsely claims I'm basically saying women aren't women if they don't have a child. Far from it.
That's why I thought it was important to to mention the word penis in the article. That's another way of pointing out the obvious that men and women are different. Instead of you admiring the fact I'm trying to celebrate the miracle that a women's body can develop and give birth to a baby, people like yourself act like I'm trying to put women back in the kitchen.
You want to be admired for celebrating that women can have a baby? So what. In a nutshell you just put women in their place - biological females popping out babies who can be athletic but certainly only in a way that the biological male deems appropriate. You don't need to defend women's sports so clumsily when you BIOLOGICALLY don't have the goods that you are so adamant about protecting. Hell, I think those "penis" females do a better job of protecting women than you ever will.
HOW ABOUT YOU JUST LET WOMEN SPEAK UP FOR THEMSELVES.
I'm a woman, and I have no problem with what rojo calling attention to the fact that the reason human females are physically different to human males in numerous ways that have a huge impact on sports performance is because of the dramatically different roles that we play in reproduction.
To acknowledge that biology has determined that females do the lion's share of the work in human reproduction and perpetuation of our species - and that female bodies develop very differently to male bodies because evolution has placed this outsized burden on us - is not the same as saying that the only thing women can do, and all we are good for, is having babies.
Pointing out the remarkable and disproportionate role that women play in human reproduction is not "putting us in our place" or putting us down. It's recognizing that the reason we are not as good as males are in most sports is because most sports were designed to showcase and highlight what human male bodies are good at - and human female bodies have evolved to be good at very different things to males. Our brains can do the same things as males, but the rest of our bodies have certain superpowers that male bodies don't.
Female human bodies have evolved to enable us to conceive, gestate and give birth to live young - live young who are pretty well-developed with very big brains and heads too - and to breastfeed as well. Not every woman wants to make use of this ability, of course. Some women would rather do anything but, in fact. But nevertheless, nature designed all human females to have the potential for childbearing - and this has profound impacts on all of us throughout our lives.
Even women who have no desire for children still ovulate, menstruate, have a monthly cycle, develop female breasts and hips, have to worry about and protect against pregnancy, have to deal with the risk of being impregnated against our will, experience gynecological diseases and problems, go through menopause and so on. Even women who have no desire for children and never will have children still have bodies whose development, anatomy and physiology are all centered around the ability to have children - which is why we there is such a disparity between our anatomy, physiology and sports performance and the anatomy, physiology and sports performance of males.
Gender ideologues want to redefine women so that being a woman no longer has anything to do with having a female body with its distinctive and extraordinary female characteristics and capabilities. Gender identity theory redefines women so that we are reduced to nothing but a bunch of superficial sex stereotypes, fashion choices, hairstyles, affectations - so that being a woman is no longer anchored in the physical reality of being an adult human female, it's simply an "identity" or an "essence" that any bloke can claim as his own that consists mainly of the sexist ideas, feelings, narcissistic assumptions, sex fantasies and porn images many men have about women in their heads.
Gender ideologues say any man or boy who says he "feels like" or "identifies as" a woman or girl is just as much a woman/girl as actual women and girls are - and that men who say they "identify as" girls and women often know more about being female than most female people do. To this, many actual women say: get out of here with this sexist bollocks, gents. Reducing women to sexist stereotypes and the sexist ideas some men have in their heads and claiming any bloke can become a woman just by his say so is misogyny, female erasure, cultural appropriation and male supremacy on steroids.
Speaking of misogyny: your reference to "biological females popping out babies" is inaccurate, insensitive and misogynistic. Growing a human being for 40 weeks, going through labor and giving birth are arduous processes that require a lot from women. Pregnancy, labor and birth involve inconvenience, health issues, discomfort, pain that especially during labor and birth is usually excruciating (and worse than a lot of men would be able to handle) - and these processes can cost us our very lives. Moreover, having babies often has longterm health impacts that affect us the rest of our lives, even into old age. So screw off with your dehumanizing slur about "biological females popping out babies" that guys use to put women down. Mothers are not the human equivalent of gum ball dispensers and vending machines.
Please try to muster up some human decency and show an ounce of respect for women and our biological reality. Every person on earth came from a female body. Including you.
It looks like you worked really hard on this, but I'm sorry to inform you that if you're born with a penis you're either male or intersex, you can't be a female.
China Joe It took as much time as running a lap, no big deal. Your opinion (or mine) on whether someone is or isn’t female is not that significant. Biologists [1] and philosophers of science [2] who know a thing or two about what they are talking don’t have such clear-cut convictions as you seem to. If you need more education, start with the references below, and then ask yourself what you will call an XY person born looking like a female and with even an impregnable womb and underdeveloped ovaries and also undescended testicles and an underdeveloped penis beyond birth. Maybe then the Supreme Court nominee’s answer won’t seem disingenuous.
I would call that person intersex. You either have male or female sex characteristics and whichever ones you have differentiates whether you're a male or female. If you have a combination of both then you're intersex. Not that controversial. None of this is relevant since the conversation is about transgenders.
You want to be admired for celebrating that women can have a baby? So what. In a nutshell you just put women in their place - biological females popping out babies who can be athletic but certainly only in a way that the biological male deems appropriate. You don't need to defend women's sports so clumsily when you BIOLOGICALLY don't have the goods that you are so adamant about protecting. Hell, I think those "penis" females do a better job of protecting women than you ever will.
HOW ABOUT YOU JUST LET WOMEN SPEAK UP FOR THEMSELVES.
I'm a woman, and I have no problem with what rojo calling attention to the fact that the reason human females are physically different to human males in numerous ways that have a huge impact on sports performance is because of the dramatically different roles that we play in reproduction.
To acknowledge that biology has determined that females do the lion's share of the work in human reproduction and perpetuation of our species - and that female bodies develop very differently to male bodies because evolution has placed this outsized burden on us - is not the same as saying that the only thing women can do, and all we are good for, is having babies.
Pointing out the remarkable and disproportionate role that women play in human reproduction is not "putting us in our place" or putting us down. It's recognizing that the reason we are not as good as males are in most sports is because most sports were designed to showcase and highlight what human male bodies are good at - and human female bodies have evolved to be good at very different things to males. Our brains can do the same things as males, but the rest of our bodies have certain superpowers that male bodies don't.
Female human bodies have evolved to enable us to conceive, gestate and give birth to live young - live young who are pretty well-developed with very big brains and heads too - and to breastfeed as well. Not every woman wants to make use of this ability, of course. Some women would rather do anything but, in fact. But nevertheless, nature designed all human females to have the potential for childbearing - and this has profound impacts on all of us throughout our lives.
Even women who have no desire for children still ovulate, menstruate, have a monthly cycle, develop female breasts and hips, have to worry about and protect against pregnancy, have to deal with the risk of being impregnated against our will, experience gynecological diseases and problems, go through menopause and so on. Even women who have no desire for children and never will have children still have bodies whose development, anatomy and physiology are all centered around the ability to have children - which is why we there is such a disparity between our anatomy, physiology and sports performance and the anatomy, physiology and sports performance of males.
Gender ideologues want to redefine women so that being a woman no longer has anything to do with having a female body with its distinctive and extraordinary female characteristics and capabilities. Gender identity theory redefines women so that we are reduced to nothing but a bunch of superficial sex stereotypes, fashion choices, hairstyles, affectations - so that being a woman is no longer anchored in the physical reality of being an adult human female, it's simply an "identity" or an "essence" that any bloke can claim as his own that consists mainly of the sexist ideas, feelings, narcissistic assumptions, sex fantasies and porn images many men have about women in their heads.
Gender ideologues say any man or boy who says he "feels like" or "identifies as" a woman or girl is just as much a woman/girl as actual women and girls are - and that men who say they "identify as" girls and women often know more about being female than most female people do. To this, many actual women say: get out of here with this sexist bollocks, gents. Reducing women to sexist stereotypes and the sexist ideas some men have in their heads and claiming any bloke can become a woman just by his say so is misogyny, female erasure, cultural appropriation and male supremacy on steroids.
Speaking of misogyny: your reference to "biological females popping out babies" is inaccurate, insensitive and misogynistic. Growing a human being for 40 weeks, going through labor and giving birth are arduous processes that require a lot from women. Pregnancy, labor and birth involve inconvenience, health issues, discomfort, pain that especially during labor and birth is usually excruciating (and worse than a lot of men would be able to handle) - and these processes can cost us our very lives. Moreover, having babies often has longterm health impacts that affect us the rest of our lives, even into old age. So screw off with your dehumanizing slur about "biological females popping out babies" that guys use to put women down. Mothers are not the human equivalent of gum ball dispensers and vending machines.
Please try to muster up some human decency and show an ounce of respect for women and our biological reality. Every person on earth came from a female body. Including you.
I've honestly never thought about how misogynistic these Gender Theorist viewpoints can be. They basically say that all the superpowers that come with being a woman, like the ability to conceive and support human life, are meaningless and what truly makes a woman a woman is wearing dresses and makeup and having long hair. That sounds a little dehumanizing to have your womanhood reduced to superficial, sexist gender stereotypes. It's funny how this woke bullsh!t always comes full circle.
You want to be admired for celebrating that women can have a baby? So what. In a nutshell you just put women in their place - biological females popping out babies who can be athletic but certainly only in a way that the biological male deems appropriate. You don't need to defend women's sports so clumsily when you BIOLOGICALLY don't have the goods that you are so adamant about protecting. Hell, I think those "penis" females do a better job of protecting women than you ever will.
HOW ABOUT YOU JUST LET WOMEN SPEAK UP FOR THEMSELVES.
I'm a woman, and I have no problem with what rojo calling attention to the fact that the reason human females are physically different to human males in numerous ways that have a huge impact on sports performance is because of the dramatically different roles that we play in reproduction.
To acknowledge that biology has determined that females do the lion's share of the work in human reproduction and perpetuation of our species - and that female bodies develop very differently to male bodies because evolution has placed this outsized burden on us - is not the same as saying that the only thing women can do, and all we are good for, is having babies.
Pointing out the remarkable and disproportionate role that women play in human reproduction is not "putting us in our place" or putting us down. It's recognizing that the reason we are not as good as males are in most sports is because most sports were designed to showcase and highlight what human male bodies are good at - and human female bodies have evolved to be good at very different things to males. Our brains can do the same things as males, but the rest of our bodies have certain superpowers that male bodies don't.
This is naive. You think the people saying women are *defined* by vaginas and wombs don't think sex and motherhood is the defining purpose of women? That the people highlighting differences between the sexes don't think those differences extend to the brain?
You are siding with reactionaries that will roll back women's rights as soon as they have used them as an excuse to restrict trans ones.
I'm a woman, and I have no problem with what rojo calling attention to the fact that the reason human females are physically different to human males in numerous ways that have a huge impact on sports performance is because of the dramatically different roles that we play in reproduction.
To acknowledge that biology has determined that females do the lion's share of the work in human reproduction and perpetuation of our species - and that female bodies develop very differently to male bodies because evolution has placed this outsized burden on us - is not the same as saying that the only thing women can do, and all we are good for, is having babies.
Pointing out the remarkable and disproportionate role that women play in human reproduction is not "putting us in our place" or putting us down. It's recognizing that the reason we are not as good as males are in most sports is because most sports were designed to showcase and highlight what human male bodies are good at - and human female bodies have evolved to be good at very different things to males. Our brains can do the same things as males, but the rest of our bodies have certain superpowers that male bodies don't.
This is naive. You think the people saying women are *defined* by vaginas and wombs don't think sex and motherhood is the defining purpose of women? That the people highlighting differences between the sexes don't think those differences extend to the brain?
You are siding with reactionaries that will roll back women's rights as soon as they have used them as an excuse to restrict trans ones.
Thanks, mate. It's always a kick when you show up to sneer at women, wag your finger and scoldingly tell me that I have no idea what I am talking about.
Women and girls (the female kind) today are under threat from both sides. But the misogyny and male supremacy inherent to the ideology and campaign of instrusivity and gaslighting that you and other fauxgressive gender identity ideologues are waging in your war against women, children and material reality is the worst and most diabolical sort of misogyny I've ever seen. The male chauvinists of yesteryear have nothing on you.
If Rojo had a "daughter" with a penis, he would have a son, not a daughter. If his son felt that he was a girl in his mind, that's fine. Put on a dress and live as a woman, but you should not be allowed to participate in woman's sports. Why do you think that men and women's sports are separate? Sports are based on biology!
I'll defend it. I very much wanted to make one thing clear in the article.
A trans woman is not a biological female and I think elite sports should be for biological females. That's it.
I thought the most obvious way to do that was to point out that trans women are born with penises, will never have a period and will never give birth. That last sentence is a fact. If it makes you uncomfortable or if it upsets you, then that's on you as all I'm doing is pointing out a scientific fact. A trans woman isn't a biological female and female isn't just a 10-12% weaker version of a man. THE END.
Saying a trans woman has a penis is the equivalent of saying the n word today. What a world we live in. We are all f******
What is it that they have then? It's a friggin penis, or are we cancelling penis too now. If they were born with one, they have one unless it has been surgically removed.
To put this up against the N word shows how little you understand about racism and discrimination
Gee wizz, you woke guys should start giving us the rest of your political and economic views, because you certainly aint liberal, and giving liberals a bad name
Caster Semenya isn't trans. She is intersex. She wouldn't have known and her family didn't know either. She was born just like every other girl but had internal testes. Internal i.e. you cannot see them. So she grew up knowing nothing different, as a girl. I know butch women who look similar to Caster. They exist. They're more often involved with women's rugby and football (soccer) than athletics in my experience.
It was only after she won the world champs that they requested sex testing and discovered the intersex issue. The thing is having those levels of testosterone make a dramatic difference. If I was competing then I found out that and read about it, I wouldn't carry on competing against women because of the massive difference.
Actually, what you say about Semenya isn't accurate. South African sports authorities knew full well that Semenya was XY with a disorder/difference of male sex development before Semenya won Semenya's first World Championship in Berlin in September 2009.
In early August 2009, Athletics South Africa sent Semenya to a gynecologist in Pretoria for a full medical workup. Any gynecologist with basic training would be able to tell that someone with Semenya's history, anatomy and physiology was/is not female pretty early on during the interview and physical exam. Semenya's particular DSD condition, XY 5-ARD, has been well-documented in medical and popular literature since the early 1970s, and it's been relatively easy to diagnose medically since at least the early 1980s, so it would not have been difficult for a competent medical professional to find out what processes to follow to definitely identify Semenya's sex and DSD in 2009.
After Semenya's medical workup in August 2009, various bigwigs in the SA medical world told ASA that they could not enter Semenya into women's competition in Berlin because Semenya is not female. But the head of ASA told them to get stuffed, he was going to do it anyways. Which he did. He later admitted publicly that he lied about Semenya's sex and sex testing, and in 2011 he was fired from his job for corruption.
Also, prior to Semenya's full medical workup in August 2009, Semenya's coaches and everyone close to Semenya would have known something was not quite right if only because of the fact that Semenya had never menstruated. For a female person to reach age 18 without ever having a period is virtually unheard of - and on the rare occasions that this does occur, it's always a sign that something is medically wrong. In medicine, lack of menarche by 15 or 16 is a red flag that a person might be XY with a DSD.
Yeah, there are lots of butch women out there. But like all other female persons, butch women have periods, and most of them started having periods at the customary age, which for the large majority of girls is 9-13. Many butch women have had babies too. Also, butch women have urethras that are formed and located in the customary, which from what Semenya has said in the past - and the way that XY 5-ARD usually presents - Semenya most likely does not.
IMHO, the idea that Semenya, Semenya's mother, aunts, sisters and friends went for years without ever noticing, thinking it odd or remarking about the fact that teenage Caster was the only girl in the family - or the village - who never had a "monthly visitor" is not credible.
As for the claim that Semenya "was born just like every other girl but had internal testes. Internal i.e. you cannot see them. So she grew up knowing nothing different, as a girl" - we really don't know if this is the case. Many people with Semenya's XY 5-ARD are born with testes that are only partially undescended - they are often in the inguinal canal, or in the folds of the groin where they are palpable. Moreover, when babies are born with undescended testicles, they often descend further after birth - particularly during the 4-7 month long male mini puberty of infancy that occurs in the first year of life, starting about 4 weeks after birth.
But we'll never know what really happened in Semenya's early childhood because Semenya was not born in a medical facility, or with medical monitoring, and Semenya's mother did not get the kind of prenatal care and scanning that would have been customary in other countries or if she were white in SA. Nor AFAICT did Semenya receive any medical care as a child, not even well child checkups. So there are no health records to check.
In addition, like nearly all black people in South Africa under apartheid, Semenya's parents did not register Caster's birth with the government authority that tallies and keeps track of births in SA or apply for a birth certificate for the child.
Semenya's first birth certificate was issued in April 2007 when Semenya was 16. By that time, Semenya already had been scouted by SA sports officials who apparently saw Semenya has a prime candidate to enter into female competition under the loose and ever shifting eligibility standards that came into place after the IAAF and IOC stopped the sex chromosome and SRY gene testing that once had been mandatory for all athletes 18 and up seeking eligibility for elite international women's competition. Not coincidentally, the government that issued 16-year-old Semenya a BC saying "Female" in 2007 was full of officials who were counting on Semenya to bring South Africa international sports gold and glory once they put the "golden girl" runner on the world stage.
The belief that Semenya grew up "as a girl" and nobody knew anything different doesn't hold up to scrutiny when you look deeper into Semenya's story. Press reports from 2009, including a long piece in the New Yorker, said that Semenya's first running coach referred to Semenya with male pronouns, that Semenya's father expressed uncertainty and ignorance about Semenya's sex, and that the head of Semenya's school did not realize anyone thought Semenya was a girl until Semenya was in grade 11 and started competing in girls' running events. Prior to then, Semenya had played football (soccer) on the boys' team - and throughout Semenya's schooling, Semenya always wore a boys' uniform to school (there are several of photos online that show this).
Given the rigid sex segregation in SA school uniforms and youth sports then as now, and the second-tier status and strict and narrow social expectations of girls in rural SA when Semenya was a kid, it would have been highly unusual for Semenya to be allowed to do wear a boys' school uniform and play boys' teenage sports if Semenya really had been viewed as a girl growing up. Even today, SA - particularly rural SA - is a very hostile place for girls who are sporty and come across as in any way butch. Rather than be accepted and allowed to compete in boys' sports, girls deemed to be butch and suspected of being lesbians in rural black SA are customarily ostracized, shamed and subjected to violence, including the all too common crime of "corrective" rape and gang rape. With all that in mind, I find it hard to believe that all the teenage boys on Semenya's teams and on all the other teams they played against, and all the coaches and families involved, would have been cool with Semenya playing teenage boys' soccer if everyone really thought Semenya was a girl.
The glaring contradictions in the stories about Semenya's childhood and youth told by and on behalf of Semenya over the years were apparent in a fawning profile in the NY Times published in June 2021. As most press coverage of Semenya does, the story started out claiming that
She identifies as female, was raised female, is legally female and has boldly proclaimed, “I am a woman, and I am fast.”
But a few paragraphs later, the NY Times said:
Books for children and young adults have portrayed Semenya as a race and gender activist, a hero, an athlete who overcame bullying to find her identity and confidence on the track. She was the fourth child in a family of five daughters and a son...
Her parents, Semenya said, understood that her life would be uncommon and prepared her for it. They let her wear boys’ clothing, take on a household role traditionally reserved for sons and join a teenage boys' soccer team.
She spoke affectionately of her younger days of playing on a dusty field in a rural village, and being celebrated, not isolated, for standing out, for being singular and distinctive. “As a kid, you’re walking home to the sports ground, you’re playing with boys and your childhood becomes marvelous because everyone loves you because you’re different,” Semenya said with a grin.
Sounds to me like Semenya grew up being regarded as a very special male child, not as a girl like every other girl. Moreover, the NYT's statement that Semenya spent childhood "being celebrated, not isolated, for standing out, for being singular and distinctive" sure undermines the claims we've heard for many years now that Semenya grew up being bullied and ostracized.
It doesn't really make any difference. My point was that Caster isn't trans, and she didn't know about the intersex issue at all from birth/as a girl (child) like I said... it doesn't matter if it was discovered in August 2009 or September 2009... lol. The interview I read that quoted her grandmother who had a big role in bringing her up said that she was no different from any other girls as a little girl. I think you're coming at it from a particularly Western pov if you think every nation would discuss periods openly tbh. But even so, if someone didn't have a period I'm not sure they'd jump to the conclusion she was intersex. There are tonnes of quotes from her family who all view her as a women and who get particularly angry when other people foist their viewpoint on it, e.g.
Personally I think her family's viewpoint is more important than people at school/bullies who may have teased her about appearance and so on.
My point was that she was born as a girl, grew up as a child thinking she was female (she did not think she was male), and then discovered at a later date that she had internal testes that produced testosterone. If I was in that situation I wouldn't carry on competing against women as I believe it gives an unfair advantage.
I've honestly never thought about how misogynistic these Gender Theorist viewpoints can be. They basically say that all the superpowers that come with being a woman, like the ability to conceive and support human life, are meaningless and what truly makes a woman a woman is wearing dresses and makeup and having long hair. That sounds a little dehumanizing to have your womanhood reduced to superficial, sexist gender stereotypes. It's funny how this woke bullsh!t always comes full circle.
Yes, fake liberals who just parrot the twitter verse as if they are actually caring about the social issues they rant about. Never lifted a finger to help any cause, but hey, they have keyboards
I would call that person intersex. You either have male or female sex characteristics and whichever ones you have differentiates whether you're a male or female. If you have a combination of both then you're intersex. Not that controversial. None of this is relevant since the conversation is about transgenders.
It’s not irrelevant because intersex and trans can overlap and, more importantly, both can and often do choose comparable hormonal and/or surgical treatment. What is the principle by which an intersex who gets male characteristics removed gets one’s sympathy to participate in female sports but a trans woman is mocked (if that is your stance)?
