SEMENYA jogs 800m in 1:55

So what about the giant shot put woman, you are not calling them men! They crush you like a chocolate cookie. I am also not telling you you should run in the womans 800 as you haters are just p*ssy's of the lowest rank. Semenya is a freak of nature, born a woman and in the position to crush all us ladies. Same story for Foekje Dillema , Big up to my mother and peace out 😃

No to the Bolt question, because we don't compete in categories of neurotransmitter function or similar which may influence speed. The issue with T is that it's fundamental to the difference between men and women, which neurotransmitters are not - sure they may play a role, but they are not singly responsible for a difference. I'd equate them to height in basketball - there is a bigger spread of height because you have multiple factors. I believe that T is so influential to the male-female difference that it makes a good candidate for identification in these complex cases. It also has, at least as far as I'm aware, the least overlap between men and women of any physiological variable. I can't think of another variable that is so separated. Sure, there's a small amount of overlap, but it's minimal.

So I thought it was a good compromise.

The biological condition wrote:

dingle wrote:

Whose definition of male? Which one are you using? That's the whole point here. You think it is cut and dried and it's not.

The same biological definition as used by me in previous posts, and by many others on Letsrun, including Ross Tucker, who even disagrees with himself.

The definition that differentiates woman from men.

What people are in reality is what they are, not what they call themselves,

which may or might not be the same, though people can call themselves as they wish.

I'm sorry you think I disagree with myself. I can assure you I don't, and that the problem is your comprehension.

A person can be genetically male, but anatomically female. They are then called intersex, and so cannot be described, biologically, as either male or female.

They do, however, have a social right to describe themselves however they choose, and Semenya has lived her entire life as a female.

Thus, you can sum it up as this:

Genetically - male

Anatomically - female or ambiguous

Social - female.

And gender is what a decent society respects, so when we talk about Semenya or any other person in this situation, we respect that, and should talk about her as 'she'.

That is, as I've said, separate from the issue of whether she should compete against females.

Therefore, we could in theory add another level to classification, and it would then be:

Genetically - male

Anatomically - female or ambiguous

Social - female

Athletically - male, or non-female, to be more correct.

But it's still "she", if you're a decent human being who can find some respect for another human.

Ross

Re saying you're disrespectful if you bring up gender, I think you've misread my words completely. I am saying that you are disrespectful to challenge somebody's perception of themselves, which is gender. So in fact, it's disrespectful not to bring up gender, in the sense that it's decent and respectful to respect that.

Semenya has not lived a day of her life as anything other than female. She's not even a Bruce Jenner in that regard. Her mother believes she is female, she attended school as one, she's never even contemplated being male. Now, to me, that gives her the right to be described as female.

Does it give her the right to compete as a female? No, and I've tried to state that very strongly. At one point in this discussion I was described as enforcing a type of apartheid, discriminating against women. Now, in your post, your'e implying that I've been tricked by the political correctness of this kind of situation. I can assure you I am not - I have little time for political correctness, but I do feel that we should be human enough to respect that if someone lives as a female, then you can describe them as "she", and also that this does not mean that they be allowed to compete as female.

Those two concepts are not inclusive - you can say "she", and that she should not be allowed to compete in the current situation.

Ross

rojo wrote:

disrespectful and proud wrote:

Why doesn't Ross advocate that only XX chromosome females are allowed in the female sports category?

You raise an interesting point.

Can someone tell me why this has become so 'complex' of an issue? Why isn't it that simple?

Are there large numbers of people that aren't xx or xy?

What am I missing?

yeah, this is a good question, and to be honest, if I could reset the entire discussion, and start with a blank page, I may also try to direct it this way, and say that the only criteria for being female is XX.

However, the situation we're in is different, so when I didn't advocate that, I was being mindful of some unwritten 'context' that puts us where we are. Some would call this excessive political correctness, and I am inclined to agree, but I'm trying to be realistic in the current context.

So if I can try to explain it briefly, the intersex condition arises either because of hormonal or genetic 'disorders' (official word is Disorder of Sex Development, DSD). Among those are hormonal issues where a person is XY and can't use testosterone, so they develop as a female. In some instances, they are totally insensitive to T, and they are, for all intents and purposes, female, because the T drives the development of primary male sex characteristics. That person would get zero advantage, none at all.

In other instances, a person has what is a complex genetic condition called mosaicism where some of the cells in their body are XY and others are XY.

In this situation, in the past, they used to test the cells from the inside of the cheek (called a buccal smear) and look for the presence of something called a Barr body - a barr body is there if a second x-chromosome is inactivated. So, if you are XX, you have one, if you are XY, you don't. So the premise was that if they tested your cheek cell and did not find a Barr body, then you must be male and you were not allowed to compete.

The most famous case of this was Maria Patino, in the 1980s. She had previously passed the Barr body test (that is, she was diagnosed as having two XX and thus being female), but then went to a competition and forgot her test document behind. So, she had to retake the test, and this time, she failed it. That is, she was now negative for a barr body, and diagnosed as having XY. So here you had a situation of two different test results.

So that adds to the complexity.

Anyway, long story short, those two examples point to some complexity, even in the relatively simple task of checking someone's chromosomes.

I do think this should be explored, but I also think that in the current climate, for better or worse, we have reached a point where a person who is XY and female has rights that can't simply be brushed aside because of chromosomal sex. The attempts to respect the complexity have thus created some ambiguity and complexity around detection and the enforcement of a rule, if that makes sense.

Ideal world - easy test, reliable, foolproof, and never changing, identifies the Y-chromosome and you're male.

Real world - a lot of nuance in the test, and a whole heap of social issues in the policy!

Ross

markboen wrote:

I am not a fan of self-identification. I much more prefer biological identification. And when someone like Caster purposefully chooses to celebritize her identity, she loses a great deal of privacy and instead becomes a magnet for public scrutiny, just like any other celebrity.

In comparison with the average female world-class 800 meter racer, Caster is enjoying ginormous daily doses of testosterone (steroid hormone), which allows her to jog 800 meters in 1:55.

I am now leaning toward advocating that the biologically disadvantaged, e.g., hermaphrodites, transgenders, be allowed to participate in the Special Olympics and other Special Olympic events, and not against biological females. They can enjoy racing in their own specific division.

For the purposes of sport, I agree - we should be using biological identification, and just because someone identifies as female does not allow them to compete as female.

However, for the purposes of discussion and human decency, we are talking about a person who has lived all their life as female, and so the reason I'm bringing the self-identity up is only to try to correct what I think is quite disrespectful to a person in a societal sense.

I see the sport debate as different - I think there can be such a thing as "athletic sex", and it's not gender. I actually agree with many on this forum regarding her participation, but I think we need to do so in a respectful manner, that avoids being societally 'inhumane'. Perhaps that is a difficult line to walk for many, perhaps it's even unnecessary, but I really do feel that we should try to respect a human being in the debate.

Ross

A good question, one that I don't know either. I guess because it's all she knows, and she went through 2009, then was allowed to compete with a medical intervention, now removed, and she's doing what they tell her? I'd love to know an honest and heart-felt insight into what she feels, how she thinks about it all. Maybe that's asking too much of a person to verbalise something that must be hugely complex.

These athletes are the reason I feel intersex individuals should be allowed to compete only with reduced testosterone levels, like you. We get too caught up in the 'rights of the athlete' from one direction only, IMO.

I just thought of this. Is it a coincident that Dafne Schippers comes on the sprint scene after the CAS ruling? When was the last time a Non African female sprinter win a medal/title? She has a pretty serious jaw and build, the boobs you can buy and make up helps especially on fair skin. Thoughts?

Further to this - I think you have to appreciate that when you are involved in a discussion in which you (ostensibly) have a purpose of finding a solution, then your solution must be viable. That is, it must have a realistic opportunity of working. It is not a theoretical construct.

And the way to arrive at a viable solution is to appreciate the context in which you discuss issues. The environment, current and historical, matters.

Now, in this instance, that environment has created what are some "politically correct" barriers, and I, like you, can see those. However, unlike you, I can't simply dismiss them as not mattering, being irrelevant, because to do so would be a barrier to actually progressing the debate. We get nowhere by introducing a theoretical understanding, even if it is actually correct.

It's a messy world, and this is a messy problem, so constructive discussions requires accepting that.

perhaps that is why it's important to respect a person's right to describe themselves as female, in a societal sense.

But please note, and i'm putting this is CAPS because it seems to have been missed:

YOU CAN HOLD THE POSITION THAT SEMENYA SHOULD NOT COMPETE IN WOMEN'S SPORT WITHOUT HAVING TO CALL HER HE.

Those two concepts need not be in opposition to one another.

And if having constructive discussion in the goal, then I'd go so far as to say it's important to occupy both.

On the other hand, if expressing a strong opinion on a forum is all you're after, with no real desire to have consequence, then you can occupy a theoretical position, and on that one, I actually agree with you.

Our difference in expressed opinion here is just because I am trying to approach the issue for what it is, not what perhaps it should be.

Ross

markboen wrote:

I am now leaning toward advocating that the biologically disadvantaged, e.g., hermaphrodites, transgenders, be allowed to participate in the Special Olympics and other Special Olympic events, and not against biological females. They can enjoy racing in their own specific division.

That's what the Special Olympics is for.

dukeboss wrote:

Semenya is a freak of nature

He is not a freak of nature, and he was not born a woman.

He simply identifies as a woman for the purpose of competing, and otherwise identifies as a man.

He was born a man, is a man, and always will be a man.

RossTucker wrote:

A person can be genetically male, but anatomically female. They are then called intersex, and so cannot be described, biologically, as either male or female.

The point is not what or how you describe it.

The point is that he is NOT a female, thus based on biology and competitive purposes, he's a male.

RossTucker wrote:

perhaps that is why it's important to respect a person's right to describe themselves as female, in a societal sense.

But please note, and i'm putting this is CAPS because it seems to have been missed:

YOU CAN HOLD THE POSITION THAT SEMENYA SHOULD NOT COMPETE IN WOMEN'S SPORT WITHOUT HAVING TO CALL HER HE.

You're being a hypocrite. If you have anything to do with South African Athletics, then no wonder the entire country is confused, but I am sincerely sad with the Apartheid oppression of women that continues, especially in your country, in part by your personal promotion and obfuscation of this issue.

This has been brought up on this forum several times and it is you who, apparently purposely, keeps missing the point.

1) No one is denying that Semenya or any other guy has the right to call himself a woman, a crow, a rock or anything else that he wants;

2) The rest of us, who don't live in your deluded little world, have the right to see the truth and express it, in particular seeing that Semenya is a man, expressing this fact, and therefore that he doesn't have the right to compete in women's events.

3) Your argument that he's not a "complete" man, whatever that is, and therefore is not a man, is ridiculous. Not everyone is the same, so the case could be made (especially in South Africa apparently) that no one is a man, and therefore don't call anyone a man, because it would "hurt their feelings."

well said, not his/her fault. It's the people that allowed this to happen.

RossTucker wrote:

YOU CAN HOLD THE POSITION THAT SEMENYA SHOULD NOT COMPETE IN WOMEN'S SPORT WITHOUT HAVING TO CALL HER HE.

1) No you can't. You are purposely calling him a her, to perpetuate the issue, to gain notoriety for yourself, and to threaten the base of women's athletics;

2) Contrary to your assertion, calling him a her suggests that he is a woman, and therefore has the right to compete in women's events;

3) Semenya is not female, so it is wrong to insist to call him a her, and to insist to not call him a him. You're constantly contradicting yourself;

4) If your reasoning is that he can call himself what he wants, then there is no disagreement, which makes this especially strange that you keep bringing it up Mr. Red Herring;

5) He is not a female, was born a male, and has many male characteristics including genetics, so it is perfectly fine and logical to call him a male;

6) We have the right to call him what we wish, especially when what we call him is based on the reality of his genetics and the truth;

6) Semenya was not born a female, so it is not fine and okay to call him a she, her, female or a woman, and to do so is especially offensive to all women;

7) You are not discussing the issue in a reasonable manner, but are simply typing long paragraphs of senseless red herring material and trying to cloud the issue with mumbo jumbo and gobbledygook.

Please stop what you're doing, start standing up for real women, and help this issue come to a viable resolution for everyone, without impinging on the rights of women, especially in their competitive endeavors in athletics.

OK, so we're getting personal about a country now, which is never a good sign for a moderate and sensible debate. It usually means all hope is lost for that. So I concede that I'm probably not going to be able to convince you of a scientific reality that sex is not simply about a chromosome.

Nor can I make you appreciate the disrespect involved in your simplification of sex. You must be very proud of your worldview.

Nor can I make you see that I am definitely not missing the point - the point you and a number of others have made is that because Semenya has a Y chromosome, produces and uses testosterone, she is male.

I have, in fact, addressed that point head on. Not avoided it. I've tried to explain to you the complexity of sex development, and also point out that intersex conditions mean we should avoid a simple binary definition of male and female. But I'm obviously not getting through, which is fine.

I really don't understand the Apartheid reference - you talk about the oppression of women, and then you launch into a tirade about how I'm defending Semenya, when actually, I'm agreeing with your end conclusion that she should not compete in women's events.

You seem to have missed that, but accuse me of an apartheid concept. Do you appreciate that apartheid literally means exclusion, which is what you (and I, though more respectfully) are arguing for?

All I am saying is that you could hold your position and still be a decent human being about it. Show some respect, and also get some education about intersex conditions.

Ross

He could have made his statement with less political correctness. Semenya is just part of a larger agenda being forced on the West. The people behind it don't care about trans rights or anything else when it comes to the third world or in fact anywhere but the US, Europe, Australia, Canada etc. These are the same people behind the immigration mess in the US, the fake "refugee crisis" in Europe, and similar problems in Australia, Canada, New Zealand.

These pigs, people like Emanuel Celler in the past, and today embodied in hypocritically racist creatures like George Soros, Noel Ignatiev, Tim Wise, Bibi, and also through hordes of useful idiot politicians and academics throughout the West, bought and paid for via the Fed, which the racist haters basically own. Look up the history of the Fed, look up the real history and reasons behind the Immigration Act of 1965 in the US and similar legislation throughout Western nations. These smiling hypocrites, these people who always portray themselves as eternal victims, really are genocidal nation wreckers. They were the ones running the gulags in the USSR back in the day, murdering 40 million Russians and Ukrainians alone simply because they weren't members of the tribe. Period. Learn real history, read Solzhenitsyn, look up the true backgrounds of Lazar Kaganovitch, Levrenti Beria, Genrikh Yagoda and others.

These people have conditioned you. They're conditioning you now with creatures like Semenya. They've been doing it for years by using behind the scenes pressure to allow the E. Africans and others to dive into a pool of PED's with little punishment. It's all a fantasy now, sure. But it's coming apart at the seams. Your inability to process reality has you ignoring the significance of vile pigs like Rosa and Aden and others being arrested, detained. They can have rooms filled with EPO and other drugs, and you'll accept their lame excuses that the drugs weren't theirs. Just as so many of you accept that Semenya is a woman. She is a vile trick being played on humanity.

If anyone doesn't understand why 53% of Britain voted to leave the EU, look no further than the example of this case:

The IAAF made a well-reasoned decision (limit T in women's races), but the unaccountable and faceless bureaucrats at CAS over-ruled it to help a few individuals at the cost of society as a whole.

This analogy holds true every time a government tries to do something for its citizens, but is overruled by EU bureaucrats who would prefer to pander to their ultra-left religion.

1. Trust me, the notoriety I can gain by suggesting we show some respect to Semenya by calling her what she prefers to be called is really trivial compared to the notoriety of standing up and saying she should not compete. You guys are all tilting at such an obscure issue here. And the whole "gaining notoriety" issue is such a joke - so lazy. If I wanted that, or money, there's more to be gained by actually defending her right to run in women's events. Which I have not done

2. No, that's only your myopic view of the issue. Those two things are not inclusive. You can call her a "her" and still maintain that she not be allowed to compete in women's events. The reason? Because the "her" is gender, a social construct. The participation in sport should be done biologically, and in that regard, you can make the argument (which I have done, as you may have missed) that she shouldn't compete. It's not that hard.

3.See point above. It's only a contradiction because you don't comprehend the issue

4. No logic in your point, it's a circular argument that eats itself. But the reason to bring up the gender/biology distinction is really just to ask for some decency, respect and human-ness in this exchange. It's not offered as evidence. The evidence is biological, and I've written plenty on that.

5. No, she was born intersex. Which means genetically male, but female in appearance, which is why the doctors and her family raised her female. It's a pretty black and white definition this one.

6. Yes, we agree! She was not born a female. She was born intersex. See point 5.

7. If this is not a reasonable manner, and if I am typing senseless red herrings, then I suspect I know why we disagree.

Finally, I think if you actually read, you will find that I am standing up for real women - Semenya and other intersex athletes should have an upper limit for testosterone. I've only been saying that for 7 years, you know. How's your contribution coming on?

Ross