A shocking new development has emerged in the case of Algerian boxer Imane Khelif after a French journalist reportedly gained access to a damning medical report revealing Khelif has “testicles.” The news comes months after Kh...
As a lefty with a grasp on science, this type of situation is so frustrating. No one on either side seems willing or able to grasp the nuance.
The "nuance" is that she's a dude and shouldn't be boxing as woman.
I think the nuance is actually that some women have high testosterone just because, and others have high testosterone because they have testicles. Most people who don't pay attention buy the "we don't ban Michael Phelps for having big feet" argument.
I think the nuance is actually that some women have high testosterone just because, and others have high testosterone because they have testicles. Most people who don't pay attention buy the "we don't ban Michael Phelps for having big feet" argument.
The "nuance" is that women have XX chromosomes and anyone with a Y is a biological male and shouldn't be boxing in the women's division.
The "nuance" is that she's a dude and shouldn't be boxing as woman.
I think the nuance is actually that some women have high testosterone just because, and others have high testosterone because they have testicles. Most people who don't pay attention buy the "we don't ban Michael Phelps for having big feet" argument.
It’s not hard to defend the Phelps argument in a setting where the rules of engagement of respectful discourse are common (so not LR of course). The argument is just saying that there are some physiological attributes on the basis of which we filter and others on which we don’t in sport. Long feet and torso offer a much more direct advantage compared to karyotype, your favorite filtering attribute, that correlate with a population-level statistical advantage.
5ARD with elite ballpark talent can be argued as a genetic lottery just like Phelps. Not considering her a woman is just a definitonal attack, not one based on any quantifiable principle of fairness of advantage.
The "nuance" is that she's a dude and shouldn't be boxing as woman.
I think the nuance is actually that some women have high testosterone just because, and others have high testosterone because they have testicles. Most people who don't pay attention buy the "we don't ban Michael Phelps for having big feet" argument.
No woman has male levels of testosterone, even those women with high female levels. That was at the core of the Semenya case. DSD males, as this boxer is, will have male levels of testosterone. Her Italian opponent at Paris, who withdrew early in the first round of their bout, said she had never been hit that hard by a woman. That's because she wasn't competing against a woman.
This post was edited 3 minutes after it was posted.
I think the nuance is actually that some women have high testosterone just because, and others have high testosterone because they have testicles. Most people who don't pay attention buy the "we don't ban Michael Phelps for having big feet" argument.
It’s not hard to defend the Phelps argument in a setting where the rules of engagement of respectful discourse are common (so not LR of course). The argument is just saying that there are some physiological attributes on the basis of which we filter and others on which we don’t in sport. Long feet and torso offer a much more direct advantage compared to karyotype, your favorite filtering attribute, that correlate with a population-level statistical advantage.
5ARD with elite ballpark talent can be argued as a genetic lottery just like Phelps. Not considering her a woman is just a definitonal attack, not one based on any quantifiable principle of fairness of advantage.
It isn't a "definitional attack" to have genetic characteristics that only a male can have.
As a lefty with a grasp on science, this type of situation is so frustrating. No one on either side seems willing or able to grasp the nuance.
There have been cases where the anti-trans side (or related right-wing side) have been massively misinformed on a gender related case or argued over it in bad faith. In this case though, it was clearly the left / pro-trans side that was willfully misinformed. What Imane's critics were saying was that they did not believe "she" is a woman and particularly that she probably had an intersex condition, and they based that on the findings of the world boxing federation (I forget its exact name). Leftists / pro-trans people claimed that the rightists were being "transphobic" when they weren't even saying Imane is trans, they were saying (based on a legit report) that she is not "all woman," like Caster Semenya. The lefties also insisted that since the boxing federation was banned from organizing the Olympic tournament due to unrelated reasons, that clearly the federation is totally BS and no one should believe their finding that Imane is intersex. The bad faith on this issue was all done by the pro-trans / lefty side, probably because they've gotten too used to fighting for athletes who are clearly men with a mental disorder that tells them they are really women, as opposed to the more nuanced situation here that is based on physical oddities rather than mental delusions.
OK, I'll grant you that some facebook grandpas who type first and think never just assumed that Imane was your garden variety trans "woman" and talked some ill-informed crap on the subject based on that refusal to understand the situation. But the lefties were exercising bad faith from top to bottom.
There have been cases where the anti-trans side (or related right-wing side) have been massively misinformed on a gender related case or argued over it in bad faith. In this case though, it was clearly the left / pro-trans side that was willfully misinformed. What Imane's critics were saying was that they did not believe "she" is a woman and particularly that she probably had an intersex condition, and they based that on the findings of the world boxing federation (I forget its exact name). Leftists / pro-trans people claimed that the rightists were being "transphobic" when they weren't even saying Imane is trans, they were saying (based on a legit report) that she is not "all woman," like Caster Semenya. The lefties also insisted that since the boxing federation was banned from organizing the Olympic tournament due to unrelated reasons, that clearly the federation is totally BS and no one should believe their finding that Imane is intersex. The bad faith on this issue was all done by the pro-trans / lefty side, probably because they've gotten too used to fighting for athletes who are clearly men with a mental disorder that tells them they are really women, as opposed to the more nuanced situation here that is based on physical oddities rather than mental delusions.
OK, I'll grant you that some facebook grandpas who type first and think never just assumed that Imane was your garden variety trans "woman" and talked some ill-informed crap on the subject based on that refusal to understand the situation. But the lefties were exercising bad faith from top to bottom.
Calm down, “transphobic” is just a convenient and commonly used shorthand for trans-or-intersex-phobic for the same reason we don’t bother to say LGBTI.
When will we see the first lawsuit filed by someone who has been prevented from winning a a medal? Will the athlete be sued? Will the IOC be sued? Both?
We all have been harmed in not having a fair fight to watch? The fights were not as advertised? This sounds as though we all have a class action case, not to mention I have also suffered emotional trauma of the brutality of now realized male versus female violence.
