Biological male 5th at Maine XC festival of champions in the seeded girls' category

Any shiny new term starting with “post-“ is almost always nonsequitorial hifalution. Society has always operated in this fashion where objective truth has been heavily dressed up or downright distorted by those in power. If anything, more people get to openly express their voice today than ever have in the past.

It may seem like social media has exacerbated the fluidity of truth, but that’s truly not obvious. The nature of fluidity, as in the underlying process of gossip and polarized allegiance, is more transparent but overall not obviously worse in distortive outcome.

Is it true? Is Agasara a male? If so, why is it bad to claim this?

Whose truth? Agasara's? Barman's? RunRagged's? Your's? Mine?

Because the race is over. Barman got 4th.

Whether or not Agasara has elevated T, or has testicles or whatever, doesn’t matter. She’s a woman who finished 3rd, so she gets bronze.

^ Lenny's truth.

FFS, mate, stop putting words into my mouth. Nowhere did I say that this is my "idea of a positive development in sport" or that is "my plan." I simply shared information about a directly relevant situation involving Indian athletes competing in elite international women's track & field that has been widely reported in the news in Asia, and I linked to sources from legitimate news orgs.

If you have something informative to add or something of value to say on the topic, by all means chime in. But in the meantime quit making wholly baseless allegations against me accusing me of taking positions I've never taken - and of cooking up and carrying out some kind of nefarious "plan."

Also, please take a minute to appreciate the glaringly obvious irony and hypocrisy of your own behavior here.

Because your boxers/briefs are all bollixed up over the fact that I dared to share news reports of a very relevant story unfolding in Asia about an elite Indian athlete who's recently made the accusation that a teammate who beat her at the Asian Games is in violation of the current "DSD policy," you've gone ahead and harrumphingly made a wholly baseless accusation against me. Sheesh.

Honey, you do the same all the time. All. The. Time.

Im a Dem and I do care..a lot.

You'd care too if your actual biological daughter finished 6th in this race because some dude decided he was tired of being mediocre.

More convinced every day there should be a fully trans category in track, for just this kind of nonsense.

I have no idea whether the claims made about Asagara are true or not. I just shared news of what's going on, news I only know about from way afar because I am in the USA at present.

But I did find it curious that when Dutee Chand stepped in, supposedly to come to Asagara's defense and aid, what Chand told told the Times of India actually seemed to confirm that Asagara has one of the particular DSDs covered by WA's current "DSD policy." Which in the view of many people would mean Asagara is indeed male.

Look, the way I operate is, when I see a report of something, I apply evaluative judgement to it as to whether I think this is a positive or negative happening/outcome whatever.

I had assumed that, based on your usual stance on this issue, you had done the same thing and were in favor of this type of behavior. Is it fair to ask if you are? Do you think athletes should report their competitors to WA because they have a hunch that they have balls? If you say yes, then I suppose I can just copy and paste my response to you again. If no, then why did you post it in the first place?

"Unless truth be recognized as public--as that of which any person
would come to be convinced if he carried his inquiry, his sincere
search for immovable belief far enough--then there will be nothing to
prevent each one of us from adopting an utterly futile belief of his own
which all the rest will disbelieve. Each one will set himself up as a little
prophet; that is, a little “crank,” a half-witted victim of his own
narrowness.”

Charles Sanders Peirce

Weird, the then doesn’t parse (but maybe it did back then).

RunRagged, thanks for the reply, but I was just listing your name since you posted about that situation.

Regarding this topic (and others), I think a lot of us are talking right past each other with the assumption that we have the same idea of truth and what that "truth" means, but I don't think that we do.

GD, that is an applicable quote. Thanks. I have been unaware of who Peirce was, so that's cool. Do you think we are anywhere close to being able to recognize "truth" as public? I don't. I suppose the NKorea style and Dear Leader is the closest, assuming that what we've heard about NKorea is true.

But it has always been that way at least since modern societies were created. Some social constructs have connection to material reality, others (like traffic signals) don't.

Take "adulthood" as an example of the former. It certainly has connection to the chronological age, which is material reality. (The length of a "year" does not depend on any social contract.) However, the definition of "adult" has been different across societies and over time. Even in the same jurisdiction, the minimum age for driving, voting and drinking alcohol can be different. In some premodern societies, it was not based on calendar age, but on one's physical changes or abilities to do certain tasks. And to your point, the legal age has been determined by people with power.

However, when the World Athletics hosts World U-20 championships, they need a unified definition of "under 20." They base it on the age at the end of the year, instead of the age at the time of the competition. This gives advantage to some athletes over others. But that's how they have decided and all member countries have to follow that rule. No one could claim to be eligible just because he is a minor according to the law of his country. At the same time, the U-20 eligibility rule does not prevent the same person from having the legal status of a minor in his own country.

So in short, this is nothing new.

Either Agasara is a male or not.

You think people's beliefs can change that?

Do you ever make any sense?

Whether someone is a male or a female is decided by biology at birth.

When adulthood begins is decided by whatever society you are in and even then is a gray area.

The two are in no way the same thing

I follow with your logic and your very good examples. I am not sure I would agree that there is nothing new, however.

Take your U-20 example. If everyone were to agree that there is an absolute truth in regards to age, then there is a system that people agree is fair. If someone claims to have a birthdate in 2004, then they will be U-20 through the rest of this year. If someone's birth certificate shows that their birthdate is in 1998, they wouldn't be allowed to compere U-20. But, if this person said that they are 19 years old and not 25, then the powers that be will say, "sorry, you can not compete in this division". BUT, if the societal conditions were to be evolving so that it became accepted that age was a function of one's internal clock and when the individual believed their birthday to be (say 2005) and not necessarily tied to a birth certificate date, and if the powers that be came to accept this, then the truth would be that this person is whatever age they claimed to be.

This degree of subjective truth based on individual preference is new, imo. I am not saying that I disagree with it (though my truth would be different), just that I observe this to exist.

Absolutely! Have you not been observing society or reading these threads?