RunRagged wrote:
Dwightarm wrote:
Just want to point out that this is much appreciated from LetsRun.
It's one thing to debate the inclusion of intersex women in the women's division; it's another to spew hateful vitriol, especially towards a girl who didn't ask to be born this way and just wants to run.
I understand LRC's desire to protect the feelings and dignity of Beatrice Masiligni and all other athletes affected by the current IAAF/WA rules pertaining to DSD competitors in women's athletics. I agree with the sentiment and aims. At the same time, though, I don't think this gives LRC the right to advance misinformation about DSDs. And unfortunately that's what LRC is doing when it posts a notice saying:
She is not a man. We think the proper definition is intersex. While we don't know the particulars of her situation, it's like she has no penis, no uterus but does have internal testes. That seems pretty much the definition of intersex - external genitalia that is female, internal that is male. Men generally have penises.
LRC is factually incorrect here on several counts. Moreover, by publishing this "definition of intersex," LRC is giving a distorted view of what disorders of sex development - aka "intersex" conditions - are, how they manifest, and who they affect.
It's not true that "the definition of intersex" is "external genitalia that is female, internal that is male." This is a very misleading, inaccurate definition, one which shows lack of knowledge about DSDs and betrays a sexist, male-focused point of view. Yes, "men generally have penises." But that doesn't mean that anyone without a penis should automatically be presumed to be female and counted and categorized as such. Women have our own distinct physical characteristics that make us very different to men; we are not simply men without penises. Nor are we males who, due a developmental condition, were born with internal testes and missing, malformed or minuscule dicks.
Women are also not simply post-pubescent males minus some testosterone - which is unfortunately the insulting, demeaning and thoroughly dehumanizing way we are being defined in sports these days.
(At the same time, women are not "menstruators," "vagina-havers," "uterus owners," "gestators," "baby makers," "people with cervixes," "milk producers," "formless voids" or any of the other offensive neologisms that have been coined for us of late. Coined for us ostensibly in the spirt of "diversity and inclusion" but really as a way of adding insult to injury as we get elbowed out of the sports, spaces, services and civil rights so many of us fought hard to obtain.)
But back to the topic at hand: Whilst I understand LRC's and other posters' wish to treat athletes like Masiligni with compassion and respect, I also think that publishing erroneous information about DSDs on the internet in an effort to be fair and kind to people like Masilingi actually does a big disservice to people with DSDs overall.
After all, the athletes with DSDs and testes taking advantage of the loopholes in the current IAAF/WA rules to compete in women's sports constitute just a tiny sliver of all the people in the world with DSDs. The positions taken by these athletes and their cheerleaders do not reflect the views of all persons with DSDs. Far from it. In fact, many people with DSDs think it's wrong and unfair for DSD athletes with testes and male T levels to compete in women's sports. Many further think that the kind of dissembling done by and on behalf of Caster Semenya over the past 13+ years - and now being done on behalf of younger athletes like Masilingi and Mboma - has caused ignorance, confusion and stigmatizing attitudes about DSDs to grow, not to diminish.
It's become verboten nowadays to speak truthfully and in clear, factual language about the DSDs affecting athletes who competed in women's sports in the past - like Stella Walsh, the admirable former women's World Cup alpine ski champion Erik Shinegger and the IMO less admirable Maria José Martínez-Patiño, the hurdler whose legal challenge to sex chromosome testing of athletes competing in women's elite events in the 1980s played a pivotal role in getting the IAAF and IOC to stop sex chromosome testing altogether, even though the vast majority of XX athletes supported the practice. Yes, when discussing current-day competitors athletes like Semenya, Niyonsaba, Wambui, Seyni, Chand, Mboma and Masilingi, some people do say things that are unkind, mean and downright cruel. But at the same time, in many circles, any attempt to be honest about these person's biological sex is immediately denounced as an attempt to "spew hateful vitriol."
As for the claim that Masilingi is "a girl who didn't ask to be born this way and just wants to run," oh c'mon. Masilingi and the other DSD athletes with testes in women's athletics today don't just want to run. They all want to win. And they want to win specifically against female athletes in a category originally devised exclusively for females. That's the whole point, and the problem.
BTW, none of the female athletes forced to compete against Masilingi and other DSD athletes with testes asked to be born with bodies that don't have the sports advantages that male bodies do, either. All the times that DSD athletes with testes qualify for meets, get picked for elite teams, win medals or set records in women's athletics, athletes who are genuinely female lose chances, are excluded, get knocked off the podium (and down a peg) and have unfair performance standards set for them that they will find impossible to beat.