RIP Norm Macdonald: How Macdonald's Simple-Truth Logic Could Help Solve the Transgender/Intersex Crisis In Women's Sports

PS. Friendly reminder. Please be respectful when discussing a sensitive topic like this. Remember, you are talking about real people who can't help that they were born DSD.

So, if Kipchoge comes out as transgender and has gender reassignment surgery to remove his testes, he can compete against women? Or is the rule that you can never have had functioning testes? And if that is the rule, what about intersex people who had surgery as a baby to remove male organs? And if that is ok, what about surgery at age 2, 4, 6, 10, 14? And what is meant by "functioning testes? Able to produce sperm and ejaculate? Or something less than that? And how much less?

Common sense and logic have no place in the modern cancel culture. Arguing basic biology will fall on deaf ears.

See the post above for exhibit A.

Caster Semenya has functioning testes?

comedyre!i3f wrote:

See the post above for exhibit A.

The post above yours that I quoted was also yours.

Precious Roy wrote:

So, if Kipchoge comes out as transgender and has gender reassignment surgery to remove his testes, he can compete against women? Or is the rule that you can never have had functioning testes? And if that is the rule, what about intersex people who had surgery as a baby to remove male organs? And if that is ok, what about surgery at age 2, 4, 6, 10, 14? And what is meant by "functioning testes? Able to produce sperm and ejaculate? Or something less than that? And how much less?

I was trying to write a broad article that is easy to understand. Fine-tuning details often takes up way too much time and space, but you make a point that I can easily make a slight change to make things more clear.

I believe if you've ever had functioning testes, you are ineligible for elite women's sport.

So per your critique, I have actually have changed the line in the column. It initially said, "I feel that a basic requirement of being eligible to compete in elite women's sport is to not have functioning testes," but now reads, "is to never have had functioning testes."

Functioning testes to me means producing testosterone in the male range (I'd also add and have the ability to use that testosterone to cover PCOS syndrome).

who knew? wrote:

Caster Semenya has functioning testes?

Yes. Internal. And she doesn't have ovaries.

Hardly anyone knows that as people aren't honest about it as so often you just hear people say "naturally high" levels of testosterone, purposely trying to make it be the equivalent of an NBA player just being taller than average. No NBA player is 15-20 times taller than average.

World Athletics wrote:

1. Which athletes fall under the DSD regulations?

The DSD regulations only apply to individuals who are:

legally female (or intersex) and

who have one of a certain number of specified DSDs, which mean that they have:

male chromosomes (XY) not female chromosomes (XX)

testes not ovaries

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); and

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

Here is where those rules come from.

and here is an article about an athlete who had surgery to remove her testes.

While I agree with your general point Rojo, and your general thoughts on the topic it's a bit more complicated. Depending on what we're looking at, it could be internal and not as simple as "honey, I lost to that man." I do not believe that you nor most people think that is the case here.

Rojo:

I agree with many of your thoughts on this issue, but dragging the late Mr MacDonald's name into this debate is unbelievably classless.

On the homepage you have written:

rojo wrote:

"I feel that a basic requirement of being eligible to compete in elite women's sport is to never have had functioning testes."

But in this message board, you write:

rojo wrote:

“I feel that a basic requirement of being eligible to compete in elite women’s sport is to not have functioning testes.”

Those mean two different things.

I do not agree with your homepage suggestion; I think intersex women can certainly compete against XX women *if* their hormone levels fall within the allowable limit - for a predetermined period of time before they begin to compete in the women category.

Same rules for trans women.

We've seen intersex women run times that are in line with XX women when suppressing their extra testosterone. There's no need to completely bar them from competition in the women category if that's what they want.

We've yet to see any trans women on testosterone-suppression running times that are beyond what XX women run.

Rojo using someone's death to start a controversial thread is spot-on for the letsrun brand.

Yes, in most sports, if you reduce the testosterone, people won't be very good. Look at Semenya, etc.

But I went for the more stringent sentence in the end as some advantages - like height, smaller breasts, less wide hips, never having a period- are permanent. I don't want a 7'2 ex NBA centers playing the WNBA at age 50.

And even if the trans athletes aren't great, I don't think it shoud be allowed. You shouldnt be allowed to be on the boys NCAA xc team for 3 years and then the girls one year simply because you reducee your testosterone and aren't winning NCAAs. Your still taking the spot of a biological woman.

A trans woman is a trans woman. She's not a biological woman.

Isn´t the issue that a if you want to compete in a competition specifically for women you shoud have to be a woman?

Competing at elite level you would expect that the burden of proof would be on the athlete since it is a class for people that have the potential ability of giving birth. In a human context this coincide with having ovaries and XX chromosomes and having a slight but clear disadvantage in athletics compared to men.

I think it is absurd that it is even a topic of discussion if XY individuals with testes are women in a definition relevant to sports.

You can really care about these individuals because they born in a way that make it hard to fit in.

But that does not mean they should be allowed to compete as women.

We're not the people you have to convince. A man claiming to be a woman is a man. With all due respect to whatever sex they want to identify with. There are times when they should face reality. And not force delusional thinking upon the society that is in reality.

So, now you have eliminated intersex people who had surgery early in life and never had the benefit of high testosterone levels because they went through puberty without the high testosterone levels. You are also permitting intersex people with congenital adrenal hyperplasia, which can cause elevated levels of testosterone in women with XX chromosomes, to compete with the same testosterone advantage as XY athletes. And there are other conditions that result in high levels of testosterone that do not result in a ban (congenital adrenal hyperplasia).

This is a very complicated issue that does not for an instant lend itself to simple bright lines. I know an OBGYN who told me that people would be shocked if they knew how many times doctors deliver babies and cannot assign sex at birth. Some doctors just take a guess and move on. But many times it is a difficult process with parents trying to determine whether to get surgery to make their child conform to one sex when it isn't clear which sex that should be from the baby's biology. While it is easy to look at an athlete like Semenya and conclude that she has an unfair advantage. Constructing a system that will exclude athletes for no reason other than that was how God made them is very complicated because there is not a simple and clear dividing line between the male and female sexes.

Norm MacDonald was one of my favorite comedians.

That means he said funny things. And the entire point of anything he said would be to make people laugh.

I don't know why people keep referencing comedians to make a point about politics or anything serious.

Bill Maher said this. Joe Rogan said that.

Let's not have any discussions about what any comedian said and try to apply it to anything in real life.

Unless it's Carrot Top.

What's wrong with allowing transgender athletes to self-identify based on international and US athletics standards that allow transgender women to compete as women provided they have declared themselves so and meet certain standards for testosterone levels, and transgender men to compete as men with no restrictions?

rojo wrote:

A trans woman is a trans woman. She's not a biological woman.

Sure, that's correct.

But then by that logic, an intersex woman IS a biological woman.

On top of that, you have XX women who suffer from PCOS who do have elevated testosterone levels and with greater muscle composition and strength.

My point is: It is *NOT* as black and white as saying 'testes in the men's division; ovaries in the women's division.'

But you knew that already. You've been explained this several times by now.