bull. if someone saw her in a shower, how would they react. you can split hairs but they'd think she was a woman. "but but but it's a vulva and not the full deal." yeah well she's not the full deal the other way either, sherlock.
Seriously? People see her fully clothed and know immediately that she's male.
How do they "know"?
Can anyone "know" another person's sex by seeing that person fully clothed?
I thought physical appearance was totally irrelevant. Is it regressive, sexist stereotype to determine Semenya's sex by seeing her fully closed?
I never said sex is binary - I don't know enough about biology to have anything like a comprehensive grasp of all the possible expressions of biological sexual expression. I said sex is a biological phenomenon and Semenya does not meet the criteria for "Female."
That is why I believe that there should be two sex categories in sports - "Female" and "Open." Only people who meet impartial/objective biological criteria for "Female" should be allowed to compete as such (for obvious reasons which many here obtusely ignore/deny). This would necessitate determining which biological components are essential to being categorized as "Female" but that is a relatively straightforward task; just say XX chromosomes and Testosterone below threshold ______. We already do biological passports and measure hormone levels and lots of science much more complex than that in order to ensure competitive fairness, so that shouldn't be hard AFAIK.
Everyone, without exception, should be welcome to compete in the "Open" category. Seems fair to me. Is it perfect? Possibly/probably not, but it's a lot more fair than having people compete as women who are biologically not female.
You can have your beliefs and I suppose try to change the minds of experts, both at WA and outside, who do understand sexual biology much better than you as per your own admission. They do use biological criteria for eligibility, just that they are not obsessed with sex like many here obtusely are. Sex verification was abandoned in the 20th century and they are not going to go back to it.
Well, AFAIK my beliefs are based on what experts are saying is the difference between sex and gender. It is genuinely astonishing to me that high-level organizations are evidently ignorant of the most basic relevant understanding of that difference when 30 seconds with a decent search engine could definitively eliminate that ignorance. If what you say is true, that WA uses the term interchangeably, then they hardly deserve to be trusted as experts in the field.
Is not the root of this whole situation people not understanding the difference between sex and gender? Why is limiting participation in a protected class to people who objectively meet relevant measurable criteria obtuse?
Anyway, my whole point is that WA or whatever governing bodies in the sport are doing a bad job of this, so yes, I clearly disagree with them. However, I assume that I don't actually disagree with any factual/scientific information that have, but rather with how they have, as a political entity, chosen to act.
You can have your beliefs and I suppose try to change the minds of experts, both at WA and outside, who do understand sexual biology much better than you as per your own admission. They do use biological criteria for eligibility, just that they are not obsessed with sex like many here obtusely are. Sex verification was abandoned in the 20th century and they are not going to go back to it.
Well, AFAIK my beliefs are based on what experts are saying is the difference between sex and gender. It is genuinely astonishing to me that high-level organizations are evidently ignorant of the most basic relevant understanding of that difference when 30 seconds with a decent search engine could definitively eliminate that ignorance. If what you say is true, that WA uses the term interchangeably, then they hardly deserve to be trusted as experts in the field.
Is not the root of this whole situation people not understanding the difference between sex and gender? Why is limiting participation in a protected class to people who objectively meet relevant measurable criteria obtuse?
Anyway, my whole point is that WA or whatever governing bodies in the sport are doing a bad job of this, so yes, I clearly disagree with them. However, I assume that I don't actually disagree with any factual/scientific information that have, but rather with how they have, as a political entity, chosen to act.
The difference between sex and gender is that sex exists and gender does not.
You can have your beliefs and I suppose try to change the minds of experts, both at WA and outside, who do understand sexual biology much better than you as per your own admission. They do use biological criteria for eligibility, just that they are not obsessed with sex like many here obtusely are. Sex verification was abandoned in the 20th century and they are not going to go back to it.
Well, AFAIK my beliefs are based on what experts are saying is the difference between sex and gender. It is genuinely astonishing to me that high-level organizations are evidently ignorant of the most basic relevant understanding of that difference when 30 seconds with a decent search engine could definitively eliminate that ignorance. If what you say is true, that WA uses the term interchangeably, then they hardly deserve to be trusted as experts in the field.
Is not the root of this whole situation people not understanding the difference between sex and gender? Why is limiting participation in a protected class to people who objectively meet relevant measurable criteria obtuse?
Anyway, my whole point is that WA or whatever governing bodies in the sport are doing a bad job of this, so yes, I clearly disagree with them. However, I assume that I don't actually disagree with any factual/scientific information that have, but rather with how they have, as a political entity, chosen to act.
I'd say the issue is deeper than people not understanding the difference between sex and gender. Though nearly all people would agree that context and culture shape expectations of the sexes, there is strong disagreement about the relative contribution of nature vs. culture and even the possibility of disentangling the two. For example, many radical feminists posit that sex is nature and gender is culture. In my opinion, this is useful in a theoretical sense, but sometimes people use this distinction in a question begging sort of way. That is, they assume the premise that they're supposed to be proving in particular arguments.
For example, kids recognize themselves as members of particular sexes and usually prefer playing with their same-sex peers doing sex/gender typical things. Some of these sex-typical traits differ across cultures and time periods while others do not (rough and tumble play for boys; community-building and caretaking activities for girls). Kids also recognize when they are different than typical members of their sex, and they often find this difference distressing. The social constructionists want us to believe that same-sex identification among most kids is the effect of top-down socialization. Radical feminists tend to believe that a lot of the differences we see between males and females are the effect of socialization, even though the sex categories are real and durable. The strong essentialists may want to eliminate or correct the deviant child because they are unnatural/defective.
My personal opinion, based on what I know about what we call sex and gender, is that they are inextricable simply because human beings develop within particular contexts and those contexts have some impact on how our bodies and minds develop. This means that we're not entirely determined by genes, but we're not blank slates either. Positing a distinction between sex and gender from the get-go evades important questions about how much we're constrained by nature (at a societal and individual level) and shaped by culture. This fundamental question runs through nearly every current debate about the topic.
The trans lobby has a strange combination of essentialism (nature) and social constructionism (culture). This is why some argue that sex is inconsequential in one breath then argue that brain scans demonstrate the existence of female brains in male bodies, etc. in the other. They tend to view gender as an inborn trait. The academic gender theorists tend to be strong social constructionists and reject any suggestion that sex or gender is inborn. The gender critical feminists argue that gender is BS, but again, they presume a distinction between sex and gender that may not exist and sometimes overlook evidence that is politically unfavorable--eg. the probable existence of average personality trait differences in females and males. I'm somewhat sympathetic to the gender critical feminists because they make a lot of important points, but the critical theory underpinnings of their arguments kneecap them at times.
Summary: if we begin any argument by definining gender, we are question begging. Sex is real and durable (at least within the paramaters of the slice of time sexually-reproducing species have existed on earth). The real questions are, how much malleability exists for the sexes at the societal level, and how much individual variation is there within the sexes? How do we respond to malleability and variation? Calling this malleability "gender" without actually trying to figure out what is moveable and what is not is a political tactic. It's not about getting at the truth.
Well, AFAIK my beliefs are based on what experts are saying is the difference between sex and gender. It is genuinely astonishing to me that high-level organizations are evidently ignorant of the most basic relevant understanding of that difference when 30 seconds with a decent search engine could definitively eliminate that ignorance. If what you say is true, that WA uses the term interchangeably, then they hardly deserve to be trusted as experts in the field.
Is not the root of this whole situation people not understanding the difference between sex and gender? Why is limiting participation in a protected class to people who objectively meet relevant measurable criteria obtuse?
Anyway, my whole point is that WA or whatever governing bodies in the sport are doing a bad job of this, so yes, I clearly disagree with them. However, I assume that I don't actually disagree with any factual/scientific information that have, but rather with how they have, as a political entity, chosen to act.
I'd say the issue is deeper than people not understanding the difference between sex and gender. Though nearly all people would agree that context and culture shape expectations of the sexes, there is strong disagreement about the relative contribution of nature vs. culture and even the possibility of disentangling the two. For example, many radical feminists posit that sex is nature and gender is culture. In my opinion, this is useful in a theoretical sense, but sometimes people use this distinction in a question begging sort of way. That is, they assume the premise that they're supposed to be proving in particular arguments.
For example, kids recognize themselves as members of particular sexes and usually prefer playing with their same-sex peers doing sex/gender typical things. Some of these sex-typical traits differ across cultures and time periods while others do not (rough and tumble play for boys; community-building and caretaking activities for girls). Kids also recognize when they are different than typical members of their sex, and they often find this difference distressing. The social constructionists want us to believe that same-sex identification among most kids is the effect of top-down socialization. Radical feminists tend to believe that a lot of the differences we see between males and females are the effect of socialization, even though the sex categories are real and durable. The strong essentialists may want to eliminate or correct the deviant child because they are unnatural/defective.
My personal opinion, based on what I know about what we call sex and gender, is that they are inextricable simply because human beings develop within particular contexts and those contexts have some impact on how our bodies and minds develop. This means that we're not entirely determined by genes, but we're not blank slates either. Positing a distinction between sex and gender from the get-go evades important questions about how much we're constrained by nature (at a societal and individual level) and shaped by culture. This fundamental question runs through nearly every current debate about the topic.
The trans lobby has a strange combination of essentialism (nature) and social constructionism (culture). This is why some argue that sex is inconsequential in one breath then argue that brain scans demonstrate the existence of female brains in male bodies, etc. in the other. They tend to view gender as an inborn trait. The academic gender theorists tend to be strong social constructionists and reject any suggestion that sex or gender is inborn. The gender critical feminists argue that gender is BS, but again, they presume a distinction between sex and gender that may not exist and sometimes overlook evidence that is politically unfavorable--eg. the probable existence of average personality trait differences in females and males. I'm somewhat sympathetic to the gender critical feminists because they make a lot of important points, but the critical theory underpinnings of their arguments kneecap them at times.
Summary: if we begin any argument by definining gender, we are question begging. Sex is real and durable (at least within the paramaters of the slice of time sexually-reproducing species have existed on earth). The real questions are, how much malleability exists for the sexes at the societal level, and how much individual variation is there within the sexes? How do we respond to malleability and variation? Calling this malleability "gender" without actually trying to figure out what is moveable and what is not is a political tactic. It's not about getting at the truth.
Great post. The extent to which genes/biology and environment/experience influence behavior is still unknown, but there is never an all-or-nothing influence by one or the other. What I can say with 99.99999999% degree of certainty is that a man who puts on a wig and a dress and calls himself a woman does not magically transform into a woman, which is what the Gender Theorists propose.
You can have your beliefs and I suppose try to change the minds of experts, both at WA and outside, who do understand sexual biology much better than you as per your own admission. They do use biological criteria for eligibility, just that they are not obsessed with sex like many here obtusely are. Sex verification was abandoned in the 20th century and they are not going to go back to it.
Well, AFAIK my beliefs are based on what experts are saying is the difference between sex and gender. It is genuinely astonishing to me that high-level organizations are evidently ignorant of the most basic relevant understanding of that difference when 30 seconds with a decent search engine could definitively eliminate that ignorance. If what you say is true, that WA uses the term interchangeably, then they hardly deserve to be trusted as experts in the field.
Is not the root of this whole situation people not understanding the difference between sex and gender? Why is limiting participation in a protected class to people who objectively meet relevant measurable criteria obtuse?
Anyway, my whole point is that WA or whatever governing bodies in the sport are doing a bad job of this, so yes, I clearly disagree with them. However, I assume that I don't actually disagree with any factual/scientific information that have, but rather with how they have, as a political entity, chosen to act.
WA and most everyone understands gender vs sex just fine, so that’s a nonissue. WA defines participation eligibility based on gender and other biological criteria that are determinative of performance. You don’t have to agree with them, but they are the ones who determine what the sport of running is.
I gave two clear reasons in my earlier response to you on why what you are wondering is obtuse is indeed obtuse.
Well, AFAIK my beliefs are based on what experts are saying is the difference between sex and gender. It is genuinely astonishing to me that high-level organizations are evidently ignorant of the most basic relevant understanding of that difference when 30 seconds with a decent search engine could definitively eliminate that ignorance. If what you say is true, that WA uses the term interchangeably, then they hardly deserve to be trusted as experts in the field.
Is not the root of this whole situation people not understanding the difference between sex and gender? Why is limiting participation in a protected class to people who objectively meet relevant measurable criteria obtuse?
Anyway, my whole point is that WA or whatever governing bodies in the sport are doing a bad job of this, so yes, I clearly disagree with them. However, I assume that I don't actually disagree with any factual/scientific information that have, but rather with how they have, as a political entity, chosen to act.
The difference between sex and gender is that sex exists and gender does not.
You must be unfamiliar with the sport of running as regulated worldwide by WA.
My personal opinion, based on what I know about what we call sex and gender, is that they are inextricable simply because human beings develop within particular contexts and those contexts have some impact on how our bodies and minds develop. This means that we're not entirely determined by genes, but we're not blank slates either. Positing a distinction between sex and gender from the get-go evades important questions about how much we're constrained by nature (at a societal and individual level) and shaped by culture. This fundamental question runs through nearly every current debate about the topic.
This type of bubba “personal opinion” can equally well be applied to sex and sexuality thereby denying homosexuality that, just like trans and intersex, have always existed as a small but naturally occurring fraction of the population.
Bubbas often can’t think beyond their personal experiences.
Summary: if we begin any argument by definining gender, we are question begging. Sex is real and durable (at least within the paramaters of the slice of time sexually-reproducing species have existed on earth). The real questions are, how much malleability exists for the sexes at the societal level, and how much individual variation is there within the sexes? How do we respond to malleability and variation? Calling this malleability "gender" without actually trying to figure out what is moveable and what is not is a political tactic. It's not about getting at the truth.
So which makes more sense to you and why?
1. Sex is binary. But some biological men need to be treated as women and some biological women need to be treated as men under certain circumstances.
2. Sex is bimodal. Some people who exist in between need to be treated as men in certain circumstances. Some people need to be treated as women in certain circumstances. In certain circumstances, we don't need to decide whether they are men or women.
For example, kids recognize themselves as members of particular sexes and usually prefer playing with their same-sex peers doing sex/gender typical things. Some of these sex-typical traits differ across cultures and time periods while others do not (rough and tumble play for boys; community-building and caretaking activities for girls). Kids also recognize when they are different than typical members of their sex, and they often find this difference distressing. The social constructionists want us to believe that same-sex identification among most kids is the effect of top-down socialization. Radical feminists tend to believe that a lot of the differences we see between males and females are the effect of socialization, even though the sex categories are real and durable. The strong essentialists may want to eliminate or correct the deviant child because they are unnatural/defective.
So how do you explain kids who prefer playing with their "opposite"-sex peers, and doing things typical of the "opposite" sex/gender? Are they naturally programmed that way, or are they socialized into that inclination? If they are socialized, by whom?
Do you think feeling distressed with one's difference from the same-sex peers is the same as preferring to be with the kids of the opposite sex? Or do you think there is difference between the two?
Do you have a clear answer to any of the question above? Does anyone have a clear answer?
Summary: if we begin any argument by definining gender, we are question begging. Sex is real and durable (at least within the paramaters of the slice of time sexually-reproducing species have existed on earth). The real questions are, how much malleability exists for the sexes at the societal level, and how much individual variation is there within the sexes? How do we respond to malleability and variation? Calling this malleability "gender" without actually trying to figure out what is moveable and what is not is a political tactic. It's not about getting at the truth.
Seriously? People see her fully clothed and know immediately that she's male.
How do they "know"?
Can anyone "know" another person's sex by seeing that person fully clothed?
I thought physical appearance was totally irrelevant. Is it regressive, sexist stereotype to determine Semenya's sex by seeing her fully closed?
Physical appearance is relevant as a clue to the fact that something is worth looking into. If Semenya looked pretty and feminine, no one would have ever questioned her eligibility. Her appearance is the clue that led people to investigate the situation, and to discover that she has testicles and XY chromosomes.
Can anyone "know" another person's sex by seeing that person fully clothed?
I thought physical appearance was totally irrelevant. Is it regressive, sexist stereotype to determine Semenya's sex by seeing her fully closed?
Physical appearance is relevant as a clue to the fact that something is worth looking into. If Semenya looked pretty and feminine, no one would have ever questioned her eligibility. Her appearance is the clue that led people to investigate the situation, and to discover that she has testicles and XY chromosomes.
It's not true that Semenya's eligibility would have gone unquestioned and not been challenged "if Semenya looked pretty and feminine," though.
The results of Semenya's WADA testing were a big red flag that would have caused IAAF/WA to question Semenya's eligibility for women's competition no matter what Semenya looked like.
The normal range for natural T in females age 18 and up is 0.2-1.68 nmol/L. Anyone competing in women's events with serum T levels above the top end of the female range is going to be called in for further medical investigations.
According to the CAS decision in Semenya's court case, published results of testing of the top athletes in elite international women's track & field performed in 2011, and now Semenya's own memoir, Semenya didn't just have serum T well above the top end of the normal female range when Semenya won the women's 800m World Championship for the first time in 2009. Semenya had a T level squarely in the range that IAAF/WA says is normal for healthy males 18 and up - 7.7-29.3 nmol/L.
It's simply impossible and unheard of for a female human being to have natural T in the male range and still be healthy enough to be competing in elite athletics.
The only way a female could have T even approaching the bottom end of the male range - 7.7 nmol/L - would be if she were heavily doping on exogenous T, or she had a highly unusual testosterone-secreting endocrine tumor. If she had a tumor, it would be because of an extremely rare condition that occurs in women every once in a blue moon during pregnancy, or because of life-threatening cancer.
In other words, a female 18-year-old with natural T high enough be anywhere near the T range Semenya was in back in 2009 - and is in today - would either be heavily pregnant, or she'd be dying. But either way, she certainly wouldn't be capable of competing at the World Championships, much less turning in a winning performance on the track.
Semenya's T level alone was enough of a clue to get Semenya's eligibility called into question. Semenya's male level of T would have caused Semenya to get called in for further investigation even if Semenya looked as "pretty and feminine" as Beyonce, Rihanna, Nikki Minaj and Cardi B combined.
Along with the deep timbre of Semenya's voice - and the fact that at age 18+ Semenya had never had a menstrual period, not even once - Semenya's male level of T was a red flag making it very clear to IAAF officials that Semenya almost surely was/is a male with a DSD.
The clues apart from Semenya's apperance were so obvious that they would have evident to the IAAF even if everyone at the organization were blind.
This post was edited 11 minutes after it was posted.
Can anyone "know" another person's sex by seeing that person fully clothed?
I thought physical appearance was totally irrelevant. Is it regressive, sexist stereotype to determine Semenya's sex by seeing her fully closed?
Physical appearance is relevant as a clue to the fact that something is worth looking into. If Semenya looked pretty and feminine, no one would have ever questioned her eligibility. Her appearance is the clue that led people to investigate the situation, and to discover that she has testicles and XY chromosomes.
Wow, that’s an astonishingly idiotic stance.
The idiocy is besides the ignorance in Semenya’s specific case.
For example, CAH, MRKH and Turner syndrome are female-only DSDs. Whereas Semenya's DSD is a male-only DSD.
The underlying condition behind Semenya's DSD - an enzyne deficiency known as 5-ARD2 - occurs with equal prevalance in both sexes, but it only affects the sex development of males. Thus it's only a DSD in males. If Semenya were female, Semenya's 5-ARD2 would have had no impact whatsoever on Semenya's sex development.
This BS terminology is just Verbosa opinion, not fact, and not an opinion shared by most mainstream medical practitioners or scientists.
It’s also plain wrong to imply that CAH can not affect 46X,Y males, but I suppose Verbosa has its own field of sexual biology with its bizarre classification schemes, so maybe such claims are not surprising.
brojo my freestyle is not a "profane or vulgar post", it is art and you know it. i bet you chuckled before you deleted it. admit it. face me like a man, don't just hide behind your computer screen you fifty year old freak. admit it, you need me, just like i need kim. there's holes in everyone's hearts. what matters is how you fill it.
This post was edited 1 minute after it was posted.
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