World Athletics Sex Testing

This is a good argument for why they would do follow-up testing when they get positive tests.

Unisex toilets are not the norm in Europe. I have seen a couple unisex signs on doors of bathrooms with both urinals and stalls, but no women at all go into one of them and no men into the other. However, the vast majority are sex-segregated.

The new reality is that women’s elite track and field is for people with XX chromosomes. There’s the men’s category or recreational running for others.

If someone is unwilling to submit to a one time cheek swap, how are they going to cope with providing a urine sample in front of a doping control agent up to 20 times a year?

As you have been told multiple times, but keep on ignoring, is that if anyone has a legitimate medical reason why these new rules shouldn't apply to them, they can file a protest and get an allowance to compete.

So stop already with your crazy posts.

If you don’t agree with WA rules for the elite women’s category, you shouldn’t follow or compete in the sport. Choose a different sport or participate at the recreational level. The rule is that in order to qualify for the women’s category for elite level athletics, a cheek swab is required for a DNA testing to confirm if an athlete has XX chromosomes in order to qualify for the women’s category. The women category in athletics is a competitive sport for women only, not a self help group for men with gender dysphoria or people with genetic disorders.

What is not yet clear is how well the privacy of athletes will be protected.

If you fail the swab test, will the public know about it? If you also fail the follow-up test, will it be known?

On the one hand, we still don't know the identity of eight athletes who failed the swab test at Atlanta Olympics. On the other hand, many athletes with DSD have have been outed against their will since then. My suspicion is that those who fail the follow-up tests will be known to the public, although I don't think WA will never announce their names.

You are making the assumption that athletes with DSD know about their medical conditions and whether they are eligible under the new policy. Therefore, they can withdraw from competition if they know they will be ineligible.

That's not a realistic assumption. Suppose you are a 16 yr old who just qualified for your country's team for World U-18. You have never had a period, but you have not seen a doctor about this, and you don't know if there is anything unusual about your body. Then you are told you failed the swab test. Not knowing what DSD you have, you don't even know what follow-up test you should request to restore your eligibility.

Is it reasonable to expect that an uninformed teenager handle all this?

Shouldn't womens' sports be for ~~women~~, well, people (*) who lack the testosterone advantages that males have, regardless of their chomosome compositions?

Surely it is the same thing for most people, but it is the differentiating cases that we are debating, right?

Well, I guess the problem is maybe elite sports are different form participation sports, which is another problem.

For participation sports, maybe it makes sense to let womens' sports be for "women"--everyone who looks like a "woman" or acts like one, or whatever--we don't expect to do any testing, so this is all honor system--so this really results in the same thing as "everyone who wants to be counted as a woman" in the end.

But for elite sports, it is physical fairness we care about, in which case we don't care what you look like or act like or feel like nearly so much as we care about the hormonal levels and competitive fairness, right?

Exceptions do not make the rule.

The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

You need to grasp these concepts.

Rules cannot be be made for the many based on the needs of few with genetic disorders.

Track is not for you if this does not fit within your values system.

To the first question you've asked that I've bolded, my answer is yes. Definitely yes. That's my starting premise.

But that just for starters. I'd go even further than you have and and contend that women's (and girls') sports should be exclusively - or at least primarily* - for athletes who actually are female. Meaning athletes who have female genetics, anatomy, physiology, body mechanics and bodily processes - and who've been through, are still going through, and/or will henceforth go through distinctly female development.

The different chromosome patterns I've mentioned - XX, X0, XXX - are all distinctly female ones found only in humans who actually are members of the female sex.

*I added the caveat "or at least primarily" there so as to allow for the possibility that athletes who have one of the few XY DSDs that don't confer glaringly obvious, overwhelming male advantage (such as CAIS and Swyer syndrome) can particpate in women's and girls' sports.

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As for the other point of yours that I've bolded, I strongly disagree. I don't think it makes sense for women's and girls's sports outside the most elite competitive levels to be "for everyone who looks like a "woman" or acts like one, or whatever." In fact, I think that's a terrible idea.

Opening up non-elite women's and girls' sports to males as well as females so long as they meet certain appearance and behavior standards would make those sports mixed-sex. I think there should be a category specifically for females that's solely for females (with perhaps exceptions made to allow in XY individuals with CAIS and Swyer syndrome).

Moreover, making non-elite women's and girls' sports mixed-sex and basing entry/eligibility on whether potential participants conform to sexist stereotypes about "who looks like a woman or acts like one" would be regressive, unfair and unlawful. And it sure wouldn't be "inclusive" either. In fact, this would cause a lot of girls and women to be deemed ineligble and excluded from girls' and women's sports right off the bat for not looking and acting "feminine," "girly" or "womanly" enough in other people's eyes.

Turning women's and girls' non-elite sports into mixed-sex sports that anyone male or female can participate in - but only if and so long as their appearance and behavior fits with superficial, sexist and arbitrary stereotypes that some peope hold about what women and girls look and act like, or what we're supposed to look and act like - would cause a lot of girls and women not to bother going out for sports in the first place.

None of the girls and young women I grew up with many moons ago would have gone out for, taken up, or put in the hard work to start and build girls and women's sports if our participation had been contingent on having our looks and behaviors reviewed and assessed to make sure we met some other people's sexist standards and expectations about "who looks like a woman or acts like one."

Also, I don't see any reason to make girls' and women's sports open to both sexes when there are already plenty of opportunites to do mixed-sex sports - or engage in sports in mixed-sex settings - both formally and informally.

Yeah, let's not introduce this "who looks like a woman or acts like a woman."

Recreational sports should be solely based on self-identity, regardless of how they look and act. People should stop asking "how has this person transitioned if this person looks and acts in a certain way?" That's reinforcing the regressive sexual stereotype.

But if participation in girls' and women's recreational sports is based on self-identity like you want, then female participants inevitably lose out and get edged out.

Just look at what's happened in recreational cycling races, roller derby, soccer/football, recreational running and Parkrun.

sports.yahoo.com

Women’s team with five transgender players ‘broke opponent’s leg’ and had parents fearing for girls’ safety

@YahooSports

A women’s football competition has been branded misogynist after it was won by a team featuring five transgender players, amid accusations one had broken an opponent’s leg in two places.

Open link

standard.co.uk

Parkrun stops showing fastest finishers after row over trans athletes

John Dunne

Event organisers say the changes were part of long-term strategy to improve inclusivity and were not to do with the row

Open link

4w.pub

How Trans Activism Erased Women from a Feminist Sport

The story of roller derby.

Open link

Guess the reason 49% of girls drop out of sports during adolescence. It's not because of trans athletes. You are missing the forest for the trees.

Give me a break. That "uninformed teenager" has parents, a coach, and a doctor. I'm sure that all of them together can figure it out.

The tests probably won't be made public. However, any DSD athlete will probably be found out because either a) they complain about being kicked out, or b) they were doing really good and then they all of a sudden quit for no apparently reason.

Remember the Ethiopian runner a few years ago named Werkuha Getachew? They did great in the 800, set a national record, and ran the fastest time in the world. They were named to the 2021 Tokyo Olympic team but dropped out right before the race was to start with no explanation.

Then they all of a sudden switched to the steeplechase and refused to answer why they didn't run the 800 anymore.

And then shortly after that their times got significantly slower.

It's not hard to figure out that Getachew was effected by the DSD rules.

You don't know the reality of DSD health care. See my post about Kimberly Zieselman above. She got her testes removed at age 16, and didn't know about the real reason for surgery for another 25 years. And this was in the United States! There are many, many countries in the world where DSD health care is still far more secretive.

Christine Mboma was abandoned by her father as an infant, and lost her mother at age 13. When she was not having any period like her friends did, who could she have asked for advice? Did she know anything about her DSD before she started competing?