SEMENYA jogs 800m in 1:55

TrackCoach wrote:

re: "How she passed muster on testosterone levels surprises me."

She didn't, with new CAS rule, testosterone level is no longer relevant. Prior to CAS, when Caster was forced to take hormone therapy, she was running 2:01 at best.

messinat wrote:

Oh?

https://www.olympic.org/london-2012/athletics/800m-women

He wasn't taking the hormone adjustment therapy at that point.

rojo wrote:

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

Approximately 1 in 2,000 women are intersex. In certain tribes were there has been an ancestry of marrying among relatives due to relative isolation from other villages, the ratio is 1 in 500. Intersex is more common in Africa and India than in Europe and the United States.

Even among intersex, there are quite a few variations: xxy, xxxy, xxyy, and some other genetic variations of reproductive parts and genetics.

Proves the point wrote:

TrackCoach wrote:

re: "How she passed muster on testosterone levels surprises me."

She didn't, with new CAS rule, testosterone level is no longer relevant. Prior to CAS, when Caster was forced to take hormone therapy, she was running 2:01 at best.

messinat wrote:

Oh?

https://www.olympic.org/london-2012/athletics/800m-women

He wasn't taking the hormone adjustment therapy at that point.

Or any other point in her career apparently, except maybe 2014?

See "Progression"

More likely TrackCoach is just wrong like he usually is.

I agree. Something like this is a reasonable compromise. The current situation is NOT Caster's fault. The girl--I want to say "the dude," sorry--is just trying to live her life. We're talking about a person here, a human being, not a freak of nature. "Freak of nature" was the old, bad way of dealing with this, and it needs to be off limits. Caster is just Caster, doing what Caster does, which is run.

Surely every single person who contributes to this board can empathize with that. Running is being. Running is a way to be who YOU are. We all get that. So we should get that when the person doing the running is Caster.

The problem is with the structure--the best that we humans have been able to create to this point--as it intersects with this particular person, aka "intersex athlete."

We don't have the right words, right now, to do justice to this particular situation, but reminding ourselves that Caster is just one more person trying to make a day and a life of it by running is a good place to start.

This doesn't mean that we shouldn't have compassion for the women that Caster is beating like a drum. We should. It does mean that Caster isn't trying to be evil, just trying to make the best of a bad situation.

It wouldn't hurt if Caster had a single characteristic of behavior that is considered feminine. The dude clothes, the muscle-posing,marrying a feinine woman, even the handshakes are the behavior of a guy trying to see how stupid the rest of us are in getting away with this.

YO-JO wrote:

If I read the CAS Chand decision

I think actually reading the CAS decision disqualifies you from the (ir)rational debate on this forum. :-P

Anyway if Semenya is XY, has undescended testes (the principal aspect of the intersex condition I think?), and a surgical vagina from the birth doctor (these items are alleged), then maybe Transgender is more appropriate then Hyperandro?

The CAS Panel decision in §519 did discuss that once someone is "legally" recognised as a female (a nasty twist IMO, as legal = social construct, I fear, perhaps not yet, but soon), then they have some "right" to compete as such ("must be permitted"), unless there is an significant performance advantage. This sounds like a hopelessly slippery slope. I'm not sure why they even include the codicil about such an "unfair" advantage. From their (il)logic, why not just say that if someone if "legally" a female, they can compete in female events, full stop? At the very least, I think the Panel could phrase its thought better here (and not rely on "legal" recognition as female), though I do realize that by page 150 of a complex case the mental cobwebs may be thickening.

I also don't understand this line in §512 from the CAS Panel.

"Where an athlete is female, and thereby only eligible to compete as a female..."

I don't know for sure, but doesn't (or couldn't) the IAAF consider the "male" division to be "open", and so a female is also eligible to compete in it? As YO-JO said this "everyone must have a right to compete" idea is what the CAS decision is duly based upon in the legal order, but they appear to skim over this point, and IMO incorrectly state that intersex athletes who are considered (legally or otherwise?) to be female are only eligible to compete as females.

The Panel indicates the point was considered above (in "Tenthly" of §510), namely that the parties agreed that "if the (HA) Regulations apply to a female to preclude her competing as a female, she may not compete as a male." If this is true, and the legal analysis of YO-JO is essentially correct, why can't the IAAF just change the rules, and allow HA females to compete as males, thus satisfying the Panel's insistence that every athlete must be afforded the opportunity to compete?

Sorry if I am being too lawyerly.

The CAS decision was apparently heavily influenced by an intersex male lobby, including the decision to refer to intersex males as she, her, female, and women.

What do you do when you are genetically inside female but on the outside male? Intersex is difficult to understand because you say God does n0ot make mistakes and yet he seems to produce an aweful high number of genetic hybrids who you say should have to place...he doesnt make mistakes, people do! After reading these comments makes me feel sad, so many ABUSIVE MEN, no wonder 40% of all homeless youth are transgender. Its because of MEN like you who would rather hate then try to understand throwing your own children onto the streets. I applaud her efforts and I hope she crushes the record.

If it were 1950 and Letsrun were alive, you would be the same people justifying why the BLACK MAN was inferior as you fought for segregation and don't say it didn't happen, all your parents participated in either condoning it or voting for it until children grew up and ended it. Organs, flaps of skin, not the chemicals running through a body or the person on the inside of the vessel.

Our time is coming and you ignorant, bigoted ABUSERS will have to deal with it!

Did you know that transgender/intersex women have 6-times the national average for murder, highest abuse rate, highest poverty, highest homelessness, highest child homelessness, highest suicide rate...and some of us just don't want to run alone anymore because we are being killed. I am female and I am so sorry that the skin wrapped across my face resembles a male, stop being abusers and stop condoning hate.

SHE IS A WOMAN!

Can we all just be nice? What if she's reading?

She didn't pick for this to happen to her.

Not saying racing women is fair, but it is what it is, who cares.

Makes our sport more interesting.

why can't the IAAF just change the rules, and allow HA females to compete as males, thus satisfying the Panel's insistence that every athlete must be afforded the opportunity to compete?

This is a good point cMe3, but the conspiracy theorists will tell you that the IAAF is secretly run by intersex agendas, and similar to the collusive lawsuits between enviro advocates and the EPA, have no desire to fight the "bad" result from the CAS Panel.

Transrunner wrote:

What do you do when you are genetically inside female but on the outside male?

You are genetically female, but outside are male? I don't know what that means, but if you're biologically 100 percent a female, then you're female. If you're not 100 percent biologically a female, then you're not a female, then you're male, or part male if that's what it is, but you are NOT a 100 percent biological female, and therefore don't have the right to compete in women's events with real women.

Comparing intersex males to blacks is ridiculous.

I feel for the condition you have, whatever it is, but having intersex males run in women's events anywhere is totally wrong, offensive and destructive to women.

Much better than this would be to have your own organization and events.

Finally, saying intersex male's feelings would be hurt if they can't run in events with real females is inane.

Milesonmiles wrote:

Not saying racing women is fair, but it is what it is, who cares.

Makes our sport more interesting.

No, it is wrong, and reprehensible.

Women's events are for women, not for intersexed men.

cMe3 wrote:why can't the IAAF just change the rules, and allow HA females to compete as males, thus satisfying the Panel's insistence that every athlete must be afforded the opportunity to compete?

ALL THAT j wrote:This is a good point cMe3, but the conspiracy theorists will tell you that the IAAF is secretly run by intersex agendas, and similar to the collusive lawsuits between enviro advocates and the EPA, have no desire to fight the "bad" result from the CAS Panel.

That's a good idea actually. Did they actually say intersex males cannot compete in the open events, or is someone just making that up.

There is either a lot of trolling or willful ignorance happening in this thread. From wikipedia's entry for "intersex":

"In biological terms, sex may be determined by five factors present at birth:

the number and type of sex chromosomes

the type of gonads—ovaries or testicles;

the sex hormones;

the internal reproductive anatomy (such as the uterus in females); and

the external genitalia.

People whose five characteristics are not either all typically male or all typically female at birth are intersex.

Some intersex traits are not always visible at birth; some babies may be born with ambiguous genitals, while others may have ambiguous internal organs (testes and ovaries). Others will not become aware that they are intersex unless they receive genetic testing, because it does not manifest in their phenotype."

Translation: it's not as simple you want it be. For people calling intersex people "he", I ask this: do you consider someone with XY genes but with a vagina a man or woman? What about XX but with a penis? Yes, those are both real conditions.

What about someone where the genes (XX or XY) don't match the gonads (ovaries or testes) AND external genitalia (vagina or penis) is ambiguous? What do you call this person? What may happen is that the parents and/or doctors just have to make a choice about the external genitalia and decide their baby's gender then and there. "Just try to make this into a vagina, doc, and we'll raise her as a girl". Never mind that then the secondary sex characteristics that emerge at puberty might not match.

So you see, it's not simple. It is truly possible for someone to be neither he nor she as we traditionally define them. So then that person just has to choose a category and try to live their life. Makes sense to me in that case to use their chosen gender pronoun since there is no sex pronoun for people part make and part female.

That's a good idea actually. Did they actually say intersex [athletes] cannot compete in the open events, or is someone just making that up.

cMe3 quoted it directly from section 510 part 10 of the CAS panel decision. The parties agreed that "if the (HyperAndro) Regulations apply to a female to preclude her competing as a female, she may not compete as a male."

But you can't discount the conspiracy theory that the IAAF party only "agreed" to this for under-handed reasons, as instructed by the moles in their organ -ization.

In #519 cMe3 says they discuss that "female" means "legally female" under law, whatever that means (in some countries, I wouldn't doubt achieving such a certification is cheaper than a cup of coffee).

ALL THAT j wrote:

cMe3 quoted it directly from section 510 part 10 of the CAS panel decision. The parties agreed that "if the (HyperAndro) Regulations apply to a female to preclude her competing as a female, she may not compete as a male."

But you can't discount the conspiracy theory that the IAAF party only "agreed" to this for under-handed reasons, as instructed by the moles in their organ -ization.

In #519 cMe3 says they discuss that "female" means "legally female" under law, whatever that means (in some countries, I wouldn't doubt achieving such a certification is cheaper than a cup of coffee).

Interesting. Thanks for the update.

Interesting article about choosing a child's gender when it is unclear at birth. This stuff is real, and it's not people being confused in the head or something, these are due to intersex conditions:

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/intersex-children-pose-ethical-dilemma-doctors-parents-genital/story?id=13153068

Wiki looker wrote:

So you see, it's not simple. It is truly possible for someone to be neither he nor she as we traditionally define them. So then that person just has to choose a category and try to live their life. Makes sense to me in that case to use their chosen gender pronoun since there is no sex pronoun for people part make and part female.

What I see is that this is very simple. Women's events are for women who are XX and 100 percent female only. Anyone who is not XX and 100 percent female is not allowed to compete in women's events. This is a very important and vital issue regarding women's athletics.

Outside of athletes and in personal life, then people can live as they choose and call themselves anything that they wish, provided such choices are not used to deceive or take advantage of others. However that is not the same as publicly competing in athletics. To be fair to all women in athletics events, only 100 percent XX females who meet ALL the criteria for being a biological female can be allowed to compete in the women's events.