TIMES (UK) Says World Athletics Plans "Open" Category For XY DSD & Trans Athletes, Elite Men

I can't wait to see all the coping and seething

This was always much ado about almost nothing.

I thought this would happen. Let such athletes compete at their natural levels in their own category.

If that is the 'long term strategy' why aren't they just rolling that out now like FINA instead of the testosterone based one?

Because it's too risky. It might get overturned in court. So they are going slow and doing it one step at a time.

Politics, PR and pragmatism. FINA is in a different position to WA because FINA has never had significant numbers of athletes known to be XY with disorders of male sex development competing and excelling in the women's category like WA has.

Nor has FINA been taken to court time and again since the 1980s by XY DSD athletes challenging the eligibility rules for female competition on human rights grounds the way WA has been.

The honchos at WA also have to be acutely aware that there's a great deal of sympathy and good will in the press and the worldwide court of public opinion for XY DSD athletes in women's track like Caster Semenya, Dutee Chand, Francine Niyonsaba, Christine Mboma and Beatrice Masilingi. Whereas everyone knows there's not anywhere near as much sympathy and good will towards male athletes claiming trans identities in women's swimming like Lia Thomas.

Then there's the racial aspect. For years, media outlets, governments, human rights organizations and many individuals have been claiming that racism - particularly "racism against strong black and brown women from the Global South" - is the main reason that European-based sports governing orgs like WA, FIFA and the IOC have, or previously had, special rules in place for XY DSD athletes in women's competition.

After all, in the 21st century, all the known XY DSD athletes in women's elite sports are individuals with dark skin either from sub-Saharan Africa like Semenya, Niyonsaba, Mboma and international women's soccer star Barbara Banda - or to a lesser extent, from India like Dutee Chand. So it's easy for people who are unfamiliar with the history of XY DSD athletes in women's sports in the 20th century to claim that anyone who has issues with XY DSD athletes like Semenya and Chand competing in the women's category must be motivated by racism against black Africans and brown Indians.

By contrast, just as none of the standout athletes in elite women's swimming and diving today or in the past are known to be XY with DSDs, all the athletes in elite aquatics appear to be white. As a result, there's been no reason for anyone to charge FINA with unfairly picking on exceptional black and brown athletes with XY DSDs who've made a big splash in women's aquatics the way WA has repeatedly been accused of singling out strong-performing black and brown athletes with XY DSDs in women's track like Semenya and Chand for special scrutiny, rules and restrictions that some people consider unfair, wrong and even cruel.

Yeah, the new policy everyone here is bashing is far more stringent than the one successfully challenged in CAS. Fortunately for WA, they now have more data points than they did in 2014.

In their Chand v. IAAF, CAS determined that the DSD policy had to be "necessary, proportionate and reasonable." Chand case failed the first standard. Semenya case met all three.

One big difference between transgender athletes and DSD athletes is that the former often has "pre transition" competitive records. This was certainly the case with Lia Thomas. So when Thomas was #65 as a male swimmer, and becomes #1 as a female swimmer, it is very easy to prove that the mitigation did not produce "proportionate" results. And since most competitive swimmers start at an early age, it is easy to determine whether the pre and post transition performances are at comparable levels. Therefore, the new FINA policy is likely to succeed over any future challenge.

DSD athletes have no such baseline to compare with. For example, it is impossible to know how fast Mboma would have run if she were a female without DSD (or for that matter a male without DSD). Suppose she slows down to 51 flat after two years of testosterone suppression. There is no way of knowing whether that is still faster than what would have been her time if she were a female without DSD. So the only way to determine whether she should be allowed to compete is to compare her time to other women's times. And 51 flat is probably slow enough not to be a "threat" to other women. (That's how CAS came to the conclusion that Chand should be allowed to compete.)

Another difference is that there is widely held perception that trans athletes have more choices. If living as a male was so painful, Thomas could have started transitioning earlier to make her eligible under the new rule. On the other hand, if being a competitive swimmer is so important, she could have waited until her competitive career was over before transitioning. After all, she did compete as a male swimmer all the way to the collegiate level. Not every trans kid has a chance to medically transition as age 12. But that's not the fault of FINA or any other sports governing body. If that's the problem, then the trans advocacy groups should try to change that, instead of trying to change the FINA eligibility rule. The latter could benefit far more trans kids instead of a handful of aspiring athletes.

DSD athletes have no such "choice." They were born the way they are, and they couldn't have changed that. So the only "reasonable" remedy exists in future in the form of lowering the t-level. Whether that is enough to produce "proportional" outcome cannot be easily determined for the reason stated above. The only way to determine whether more stringent requirement is necessary is to look at the actual results compared to other athletes.

What the new policy does is to allow WA two more years to collect more data. Not more data on how elite athletes perform under the new restrictions. (For that, we will have to have some elite athletes compete under the new rule.) But they could still get more data on the fitness changes of trans people after 24 months of hormone therapy.

If this does go on to happen, it’s a huge step forward for women’s sport. It’s just unfair for them to have to run against some of the people they’re having to run against

I agree that the XY persons with the kinds of DSDs that the current WA rules cover can't help how they were born. But I fail to see why that makes it "reasonable" for them to be given the right to compete in women's sports under any circumstances.

Your view, and the view of the WA and CAS in the past, is that if XY DSD athletes like Caster Semenya, Dutee Chand, Francine Niyonsaba, Chrisitine Mboma - and women's soccer star Barbra Banda - can reduce the amount of T their testes pump out to a low enough point where they no longer have a glaring advantage over females, this would be a "proportional outcome" that makes it fair for them to compete in the female category.

But I believe that even if these XY DSD athletes take medications to lower their testicular T to zero and they become crap at sports as as result, the fact they have testes and the other physical features that make them male, not female, means they don't belong in female sports at all.

After all, lots of male humans are born with, or develop, medical conditions over which they have no control and which can create difficulties and hardships for them in sports and in life. That's unfortunate for them. But the bad hand that fate has dealt some males doesn't mean it's "necessary, proportional and [or] reasonable" for them to be in girls' and women's sports. On the contrary, I think it's nuts.

I disagree with the view that XY DSDs athletes do not have any, or much, choice about whether or not to compete in the female category of sports the way athletes like Lia Thomas clearly do. It's also not true that no XY DSD athletes have any sports records from before they began competing in girls' and women's events to use for comparison purposes.

Caster Semenya, who is by far most famous of the XY DSD athletes in elite women's sports competition in the 21st century, grew up playing sports solely with and against boys. Semenya has always been open about this when giving interviews to the media. Indeed, Semenya has always been very proud and boastful about the fact that Semenya grew up playing sports solely with and against boys and wanted nothing at all to do with girls.

As a teenager in HS whilst and after going through male puberty of adolescence, Semenya was on a boys' soccer team and apparently performed quite well too. In 2009, Semenya's high school principal Eric Modiba told the press that he didn’t realize Semenya was supposed to be thought of as girl until Semenya was in the 11th grade, had taken up running and started competing and winning big in girls' races.

All of Semenya's life, Semenya has fulfilled the social roles and expectations for boys and men in the extremely sexist culture and society Semenya grew up in. Since early childhood, Semenya has been given the status and privileges accorded solely to males in the rural part of black South Africa Sememya comes from.

Semenya always wore a boys' uniform to school, something girls in SA of Semenya's age were not permitted to do even when many of them would have preferred to have the option of wearing trousers or shorts instead of skirts. Semenya always had the chance to play sports growing up at a time when there were no organized sports for girls in Semenya's part of the world, and when girls in his community and family weren't permitted to do sports anyway.

Whereas Semenya's sisters got stuck devoting their non-school hours to doing the wide range of drudgery and domestic chores that girls in rural SA are customarily saddled with, Caster was not. Unlike Caster's sisters, Caster was allowed plenty of free time and freedom to play sports "with the boys" and to have a happy, carefree childhood Caster says was "marvelous" and characterized by "being celebrated" and beloved by the community. From a 2021 NY Times article:

Her parents, Semenya said, understood that her life would be uncommon and prepared her for it. They let her wear boys’ clothing, take on a household role traditionally reserved for sons and join a teenage boys’ soccer team.

[Semenya] spoke affectionately of her younger days of playing on a dusty field in a rural village, and being celebrated, not isolated, for standing out, for being singular and distinctive.

“As a kid, you’re walking home to the sports ground, you’re playing with boys and your childhood becomes marvelous because everyone loves you because you’re different,” Semenya said with a grin.

So contrary to what you claim, the poster person for XY DSD athletes in women's elite athletics not only has a documented history of succeeding and being happy in male sports growing up, but Caster Semenya has made it clear that the male category was the only category Semenya wanted to play and compete in as a child and well into Semenya's teens.

Moreover, as an adult, Semenya - now 32 - has been given considerably more choice in sports, and in life more generally, than most females particularly in South Africa and much of the rest of the world. Semenya certainly has been given far more choices than Semenya's sisters and wife, Violet Raseboya, have gotten, and probably far more than Semenya's two small daughters will probably get. And all along, Semenya appears always to have chosen to do what Semenya has wanted to do for Semenya's own benefit, convenience and happiness.

Because World Athletics likes to wait until an XX is humilated and tormented by the woke mob - the portion who dont normally follow or care about sports. - They need a "Lindsay Sharp" to take the fall when they implement the policy.

Or they could just implement now and we could ensure fairness for future generations of XX athletes and the XXs can stop worrying about losing there spot and focus on the running.

If they implement it without having enough data to back up the decision it'll just get overturned again.

I didn't write I agreed with CAS. I just explained how they came to their decision and why WA is acting the way it is. WA does not want the next policy to be reversed by CAS. Unlike you, they are not in the business of purity contest. They are actually trying to protect the competitive fairness for the athletes.

You are like those people who accuse their GOP lawmakers of not having the "courage" to ban all abortions without any exception. "We need to protect every unborn. It's nuts to suggest some of them have to die!" Yeah, that argument might be good for a tool to raise campaign funds from their rightwing base. But any bill to totally ban abortion is DOA.

CAS made it clear that Chand was a woman. You can argue all you want that she is not. That makes you popular within your own echo chamber. But that was zero practical value as far as protecting women's sports.

People in power in sport as well as society no longer use the “features that make them male, not female” language, and use gender but not sex for determining participation rights or privileges, so using sex talk to exclude is outdated in civilized circles.

DSD people are perfectly capable of leading healthy and happy lives, so calling DSDs as the product of a “bad hand that fate has dealt” is transphobic, just like one might consider it nuts and misogynist to tell a non-trans/DSD women “tough luck, fate made you female and a lesser athlete than men” to justify any gender inequity.

Chand is a woman. She identifies as one and grew up her whole life as one, and neither she nor her family had a reason to think anything was not “normal” until the Indian sports bodies decided that. Her family practically disowned her when they learned she took on a girlfriend because that would bring dishonor to the family. Sports is her calling, and by Indian standards even if not global ones, she is a rare talent.

A world that forces women like Chand to make a choice between giving up their calling or their identity would appear to violate principles embodied in our Fourteenth.

But would she be such a "rare talent" if she didn't have pharmacologic help?

All of the elite aquatic athletes are definitely not white. Chinese dominate diving and several Asian teams compete quite well in swimming.

I've wondered about this. Is there a link between being DSD and race? For example, people of sub-Saharan African descent have a much greater risk of developing Sickle Cell Disease than people not from this region. Do people from sub-Saharan Africa have a higher rate of DSD or is it just a coincidence that all of the high-performing "famous" ones are from this region?

Why is this? I'd expect the distribution to be evenly spread around the globe unless there is some reason certain ethnicities are more prone to XY DSD.