Semenya switching to the 200

ShilohDoesntCare wrote:

We don't know how Semenya trained for the 1500. We do know that she defeated Dom Scott at SA champs at altitude in the 5000. Publicly I don't believe Scott had been injured or sick in that lead up and she has run under 15 and is ranked just outside of top 20 in the world. The new line of Adidas clothing she helped design is also a clear dig at Semenya and DSD female athletes using the tinman logo as a call out to real XX competitors. The fact is that Semenya has no ethics whatsoever and should not be competing. If Semenya had an ethical bone in her body she would give up athletics and transition just like Olympic champion Erik Schinegger. Three athletes have stolen the podium from women. Melissa Bishop should be the Olympic champ and unfortunately Lynsey Sharp should also be an Olympic medalist.

It's easy for you to judge her and say what she should have done. She came from extreme poverty, but I guess if you were her, you would been too noble to want to be wealthy and to help your family. She also seems to really believe she is a woman.

She's no longer in poverty and without question has an unfair advantage and knows it. I can't blame her for what she has done early in her career, it's not her fault but at this point it's time to step away from competing in athletics.

ShilohDoesntCare wrote:

She's no longer in poverty and without question has an unfair advantage and knows it. I can't blame her for what she has done early in her career, it's not her fault but at this point it's time to step away from competing in athletics.

OK. Fair enough. With the CSA decision, her money days are over, anyway.

The IAAF/WA took great care with its wording to call its current DSDs regs "Eligibility Regulations for the Female Classification (Athletes with Differences of Sex Development)."

This is very different from calling them "Eligibility Regulations for Female Athletes with Differences of Sex Development." Which is the option they purposely avoided.

Further, the IAAF/WA has made it very clear that its regulations for athletes competing in "the female classification" with DSDs "only apply to individuals who" have official identity documents that say "they are legally female (or intersex)" AND "who have one of a certain (limited) number of specified DSDs" that cause them to have four distinct physical characteristics typical of males and males only.

The IAAF/WA describes these four necessary physical characteristics as follows (taken verbatim from the WA website, though I've added the numbers):

1. male chromosomes (XY) not female chromosomes (XX);

2. testes not ovaries;

3. circulating testosterone in the male range (7.7 to 29.4 nmol/L), not the (much lower) female range (0.06 to 1.68 nmol/L);

4. the ability to make use of that testosterone circulating within their bodies (i.e., they are ‘androgen-sensitive’).

So far as I'm aware, there is no DSD condition found amongst biological females that is known to cause all four of these distinctly male physical characteristics. If you can name one, please do.

The DSD regs issued by the IAAF/WA don't apply across the board to all athletes with DSDs seeking to compete in the female classification. Female athletes with DSDs such as MRKH, CAH, CAIS and Turner's are not subject to them.

Also, your suggestion that females with DSDs all have high T and all males with DSDs have low T isn't true. Abnormal testosterone levels are not characteristic of all DSDs for either sex, especially not when these conditions are viewed over the course of the affected parties' entire lifetimes.

Similarly, the most common condition that causes unusually high T in females - or hyperandrogenism - is not a DSD, it's polycystic ovary syndrome or PCOS. Though the press still often calls athletes like the three medalists in the 2016 Olympic women's 800m "females with hyperandrogenism," this is inaccurate because hyperandrogenism is a condition that by definition requires working ovaries, not testes.

The main point is: the current IAAF/WA DSD regs apply only to a handful of DSDs that occur solely in XY people with fully functioning testes, no female gonads, male levels of T, and male-typical sensitivity to T. Athletes like Semenya, Wambui, Niyonsaba and Seyni have ID documents that say they are legally female or intersex, but by all biological measures they are males.

And biology is what matters most here. Not legal status, claims to having an opposite-sex "gender identity," or mistaken beliefs about one's self regardless of how/when/why said beliefs were initially acquired.

If Semenya is male competing as and identifying as a woman she would be categorized as transgender and not intersex. The IAAF rules don't redefine the claimed gender of people like her but focus on that specific characteristic of DSD individuals which is greatly elevated testosterone levels. In female competition, that is the crucial point. Your apparent attempt to say she is a man is not what the IAAF or the rules do and is effectively redundant to the argument that requires a limit on testosterone levels in female competition.

Armstronglivs wrote:

If Semenya is male competing as and identifying as a woman she would be categorized as transgender and not intersex. The IAAF rules don't redefine the claimed gender of people like her but focus on that specific characteristic of DSD individuals which is greatly elevated testosterone levels. In female competition, that is the crucial point. Your apparent attempt to say she is a man is not what the IAAF or the rules do and is effectively redundant to the argument that requires a limit on testosterone levels in female competition.

She is XY, not xx

Biologically she is a man. She has testes, and no female organs.

For all you know she could have been gender reassigned at birth. Its not uncommon.

This has nothing to do with DSD. She comes about her testosterone honestly With a set of internal clangers. Bigger than yours most likely. He r testosterone numbers are bigger than most males.

If it has nothing to do with DSD, as you think, then the IAAF rules don't apply to her. But they do.

Still a man. Semenya, hattak chia.

Armstronglivs wrote:

If Semenya is male competing as and identifying as a woman she would be categorized as transgender and not intersex. The IAAF rules don't redefine the claimed gender of people like her but focus on that specific characteristic of DSD individuals which is greatly elevated testosterone levels. In female competition, that is the crucial point. Your apparent attempt to say she is a man is not what the IAAF or the rules do and is effectively redundant to the argument that requires a limit on testosterone levels in female competition.

Citations and links please.

Have you read the IAAF/WA regs and clarifying statements along with the full decision released by the CAS early last summer?

Have you ever spoken to a medical professional with expertise in DSD conditions? Or to any of the many brilliant persons with DSDs now doing advocacy on behalf of people with these conditions?

You just keep making unsubstantiated assertions using a lot of sloppy language, and you're constantly switching terms and moving goalposts. I think it's reasonable to conclude you have no idea what you're talking about, and absolutely no clue about what differentiates biological males from biological females.

To you and many other males, the incursion of males with genital deformities and cross-sex trans identities into female sports seems to be a matter of curiosity but no real consequence. But to me and millions of other biological females - especially those of us who grew up before the USA's Title IX gave females a sporting chance and who've worked hard over succeeding decades to make female sports a legit thing - this is a matter of vital importance.

I'm not gonna respond to your posts from now on. You don't appear to have any respect for female people, or any grasp of what makes us female in the first place, even though you like every other human being who has ever lived came from one. Go well.

I am well aware of what the significance DSD athletes like Semenya pose to women's sport. I agree with the IAAF position, and likewise on transgender participation in women's sport. I agree with the view that male biological characteristics and especially male levels of testosterone confer an unfair advantage.. However, I don't find it necessary to become drawn into casuistical arguments about gender - and Semenya's in particular- in order to arrive at those views - and neither did the IAAF. In a nutshell, DSD athletes should be required to reduce their levels of testosterone if they wish to compete in women sport; I also believe that the rule should include all events and not simply those approved by CAS. If you don't think that is supporting women's sport then you have set a very high bar.

Jo72 wrote:

Would Amos run 13:10-20 if he shifted Focus?

Semenya ran the 1500 pretty seriously and 3:59 is much weaker than 1:54. She should have been able to run 3:54 if she was a 800/1500-runner, not a 400/800 person. Could she run 15:10? Probably. sub 15 not so easily, so she would struggle to make a final and be of no relevance in a ~14:30 final.

I don't disagree that the 5000m is a stretch but the 200m is a true sprint. The people who make the Olympic finals are always elite at the 100m as well. Men needed 20.3 to make the Olympic finals in London. Women needed 22.6. I just don't think this is possible for an elite 400/800 runner like Amos, Semenya or even Rudisha.

There is no chance of getting sub 22

SDSU Aztec wrote:

ShilohDoesntCare wrote:

She's no longer in poverty and without question has an unfair advantage and knows it. I can't blame her for what she has done early in her career, it's not her fault but at this point it's time to step away from competing in athletics.

OK. Fair enough. With the CSA decision, her money days are over, anyway.

Nope

In fact Semenya might be making money since the CAS decision. Just signed a new sponsorship with Bridgestone. Had also renewed the Nike . And due to popularity in South Africa, companies there are lining up to sponsor. Semenya is seen as a victim and thus a heroine.

Jerry Dial wrote:

SDSU Aztec wrote:

OK. Fair enough. With the CSA decision, her money days are over, anyway.

Nope

In fact Semenya might be making money since the CAS decision. Just signed a new sponsorship with Bridgestone. Had also renewed the Nike . And due to popularity in South Africa, companies there are lining up to sponsor. Semenya is seen as a victim and thus a heroine.

Part of that is probably living in a smaller country with fewer famous athletes. If she was American, she would probably drop off the radar.